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Molly’s Law

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A long article about Molly’s Law:

Section 223 of the Criminal Code of Canada defines a human being as one who has “completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother,” whether or not it has breathed yet or had its umbilical cord severed.

A fetus is not legally considered a person until that point, though the code does state that a homicide is committed if a child dies, “after becoming a human being,” due to injury just before or during its birth.

“To only have Cassie’s life recognized in the charges is beyond logic for us,” Durham says.

Well, yes. But due to a pro-abortion mentality that pervades the law, we aren’t allowed to recognize any preborn child, because doing so would make those who abort reconsider that choice, because suddenly the cognitive dissonance we currently live in (I’m expecting a baby! I’m getting an abortion and there’s nothing there) would be shattered.

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Jeff Durham, Molly’s dad, had a room and clothing prepared for his daughter who wasn’t yet born. Yet there is no charge for the murder of the child, just the mother, his ex-girlfriend.

Birth control pill raises depression risk

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Study is out. Media report says:

Adolescent girls appeared to be at highest risk. Those taking combined pills were 80% more likely and those on progestin-only pills more than twice as likely to be prescribed an antidepressant than their peers who were not on the pill.

Would be interesting to unpack why and how that works. Is it simply a physiological response to taking hormones day in day out? BTW for women who believe there is no other effective means of birth control, now is my time to plug some more natural methods, like Creighton or NaproTech. I also remember in Germany, when I lived there, so many moons ago, a friend used basically the Clear Blue Fertility monitor or some deutsche equivalent. Because she didn’t want to be pumping her body full of hormones. Simple.

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Assisted suicide: Nothing to see here

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The author of this article is a physician who gets a thoroughly non-political view into how assisted suicide is being used: To do away with depressed or inconvenient people.

What surprised his wife was “how easy” it was for her depressed, self-isolated husband to be killed under the new regime. What seems obvious is that the whole nature of this death is not going to be reported to the Minister of Health or the Minister of Justice — there is no transparency to this system.

It’s important to chronicle all these stories so that when a government report says five years from now that everything is fine, we will know the truth.

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On choice

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True story: My friend was for a time supporting young women facing unplanned pregnancy by living with them in a home, cooking for them, offering counselling and support. One of the young pregnant women decides she wants an abortion and asks for help in getting one. She needed a drive to the clinic. My friend said no–no drive. But, she said, you can continue to live here after the abortion as before. Ie. we are still supporting you but you will not get my practical aid in getting to the clinic. The girl was annoyed, but she accepted it. The small inconvenience caused her to reconsider. The end result was telling her boyfriend and parents, having the baby, and now, two years post birth, she is very happy with her choice.

Is it possible that a drive to the clinic truly prevented her from having an abortion? It seems so. My friend was willing to support in every meaningful way (food, and a roof over her head) regardless. But now we can welcome a new person in Canada and it seems my friend’s principled refusal to be involved with the clinic in any way is at least partly the cause.

Why do I tell this story?

Because the Globe is reporting that there are cost barriers to getting the morning after pill; it won’t be covered by most provincial plans due to a decision the drug company made. Cue the voices of folks saying this is prohibitive–and denies women their choice.

I hope so, is all this pro-life woman can say, I hope so. In spite of what the pro-abortion ideologues say, it is fairly easy to get an abortion. And the barriers that are there are valuable as it causes someone in a crisis moment to slow down. The moment of a crisis is not the time to be making big decisions, I’ve always said. One needs to know where one stands before that. (And that, in part, anyway, is a reason to blog on the matter.) But if a barrier as simple as money or a drive to the clinic prevents an abortion, how intent was the woman on that choice in the first place?

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Making decisions in the midst of the storm

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Rather, the title of this post should be “making life-changing decisions in the midst of the storm”, but Andrea prefers short titles over long ones, so there we have it.

We may occasionally find ourselves in the middle of a crisis or in turmoil, and we have to make a decision that will likely alter the course of our life. The decision needs to be made and it needs to be made now, for whatever reasons, and there is no other option.

But I’ve found in many cases, the decision can wait, and it’s often best to sit on things for a time to really consider all possibilities. Being someone who hates uncertainty, I have a near primal need to make a decision to just get over with it. Thankfully, I’ve learned from a few mistakes, and now force myself to step away from my laptop and put down my phone in order to wait for the crisis to pass, and to gain a bit of perspective.

Other times, if waiting for the immediate storm to pass isn’t an option, we can gain perspective from others  who have faced what we are currently facing, and who have come out the other side.

And that’s what Veronique Bergeron, a fellow PWPL blogger, offers in this post at her family/motherhood blog.

In her most recent blog, she writes about how many of us make decisions about our family size when we’re in the trenches of parenting young ones. We’re exhausted from sleepless nights, diaper changes, and wondering if we’ll ever eat a hot meal again. Here’s what she has to say about that:

These two conversations had a profound impact on me. On my perspective on having children and making family-centered decisions. It taught me that (1) none of us gets another kick at the can once our fertile years are behind us and once our kids are grown; and (2) that raising young children is the grunt work of parenting, the tiling of the field from which the harvest will later come forth. It’s a use-it-or-lose-it proposition: we don’t get to pour the time, care and affection we didn’t pour into our children once they are grown and we don’t get to have more children once we are older and lonelier. The blessings of children are not the sleepless nights, the bum-wipings and the ear-piercing shrieks. No. Those are the latrines of parenting. The blessings come later, once the field has been tended and nurtured, early in the morning, late at night, in the cold, in the rain, back-broken and exhausted, when you felt like it and when you did not. […]

That said, assuming I live as long or longer than my grandparents, who died between the ages of 80 and 100, I have another 42 years — probably more like 50 — of life without small-kid-insanity on the horizon. Fifty year. I haven’t even been alive that long! That’s what I mean by “another lifetime”: 40-50 years of friendship and support and family meals and visits and help and whatever other amazing things will come out of having a large gang of properly attached people around me.

That’s it! And I love it. Veronique sees beyond the storm, and is choosing to make her decisions that way.

Let’s not forget that storms eventually pass, and there are brighter days on the other side of them. Especially when we make decisions that have permanent, life-changing ramifications.

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(Veronique and her beautiful family.)

Debate night

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Trump and Clinton debate tonight.

My view of the US election is that this is a devastatingly tragic moment for America and this is true regardless of who wins.

So when I post this article about the woman behind Trump’s pro-life policies, it is not as an endorsement of Trump. It is simply to say this: On abortion, Trump chose one person to lead his policies well.

Read more about Marjorie Dannenfelser, here. She runs the Susan B. Anthony List. I’ve met her once or twice, because I thought of replicating that organization in Canada. It’s a women’s political pro-life voice. I like her.

Mrs Dannenfelser has just been named as the chair of Donald Trump’s new pro-life coalition, which will champion anti-abortion causes should he become US President. These include banning abortion after 20 weeks by signing the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act into law, and removing taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, should it continue to provide women with abortion services.

We will not get military/foreign/economic/environmental policy right unless and until we stop killing our children and turning a blind eye to it.

Our countries (USA and Canada) are filled with people who think abortion doesn’t matter. “Let’s talk about the real issues,” they say.

Abortion matters. It matters for our demographics, which matters for our economy. It matters for our compassion and our spirits. We cannot kill children and not become more hard-hearted.

Normal people don’t think abortion is a success story–it represents a necessary evil.

Ideologues, and Clinton is one, push for more and more “access” to this necessary evil. In so doing, they morph the evil into a good and preach it as such. People start to believe it. Witness the calls for “International Safe Abortion Day.” (Puh-lease. Could anything be more painful or contrived?)

So in this tragic election cycle, I’d hold my nose hard and vote Trump, hoping that on this one issue he will not throw pro-lifers or the millions of dead who never got to walk on earth under the bus. He may. But Clinton most certainly will. And abortion matters too much to ignore it.

At bottom, whoever wins, I acknowledge our culture is very, very far gone to have come to this tragic choice (for Americans–but we as Canadians are in much the same boat). I also acknowledge and stress, as I always have, that politics is not now, nor will it ever be, our saviour. I acknowledge that the culture is mimicking the church. The church is divided, distracted, and not acting as the beacon of hope it could be. Finally, I acknowledge my own hypocrisies and weakness, which contribute to the mess in the church, which contributes to the mess in the culture. If I by the grace of God get one issue right, I’m likely getting another issue terribly wrong.

Anyhoo. I’m glad to see Marjorie involved. May she get the opportunity to put her pro-life plans into action.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List

Marjorie Dannenfelser, President of Susan B. Anthony List

Mothers in a modern era

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This is quite a thoughtful look at caring for children and the evolution of family. The author, Luma Simms, doesn’t get into the “mommy wars,” which is a relief. I’ve long been against national, state-funded daycare, not because I’m against daycare per se, but rather because I’m against this inequitable method of telling people how they ought to raise their kids (which is what happens in every jurisdiction where such programs are introduced, lest you want to tell me “but it’s just another choice!” We should be able to care for kids in communities and even when this is difficult, we should aspire to that, without government funding.

I also like how she touches on our prosperity as being part of the problem. Abundance is harder to manage than scarcity, as she puts it.

Finally, notions on family especially on the part of conservatives like myself, have been reduced to an individualistic model. This happens precisely because mom and dad and children as a model is under such profound attack, so it’s a natural reaction to defend the inherent good of just that: Mom and dad and children. That said, I agree with her when she talks about how this family ideal is itself a product of the sexual revolution, not the ideal we should aspire to. Parents need more help than that.

What many miss when talking about family and community is this: The two-parent, biologically intact natural family is itself a product of individualistic thinking. So we research and analyze but the whole time we’re missing something right under our nose, a variable we’ve assumed is immutable. Family breakdown didn’t happen exclusively as a direct result of radical feminism and the sexual revolution, although those accelerated it. The breakdown began when we reduced the idea of what a family is to the bare bones of two parents and their children—what came to be called the nuclear family. But from time immemorial family included many more people in its definition.

Anyway, an interesting read from a reasonable woman. I’m fond of posting the work of interesting women here. I’m willing to bet she’s pro-life too–as so many reasonable, smart women are!!

Luma Simms

Luma Simms

 

Clicking on crazy

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When I see a teaser that says forced childbirth is responsible for global warming, I’m of two minds as to whether I should click on it or not.

But I did, and now I must share. This tidbit of wisdom comes from Gloria Steinem, who is living in a bygone era (as so many feminists are), one where people are falling off the globe due to overpopulation.

On the term “forced childbirth,” or it’s close cousin, “forced pregnancy”–this is a trope pro-abortion folks bring up as they completely disengage from any semblance of sanity or reason and ignore the fact that two people are involved in childbirth. A child is the result of childbirth. So where human life is involved, it’s not forced childbirth we need to worry about, but rather, killing people (read: abortion) because nine months of pregnancy is uncomfortable (which most assuredly, it is, even for a wanted pregnancy). Remember, no woman has to parent. I can find you five couples who will willingly adopt a child today if presented the opportunity. But once pregnant, even under terrible circumstances, there is no quick and easy way to undo that.

Oh Gloria.

(h/t)

Gloria thinks there are too many people on the globe.

Gloria thinks there are too many people on the globe.

A21 Walk for Freedom

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This will be the first post of many advertising this upcoming event organized by a friend.

There is an upcoming walk to abolish modern-day slavery coming up in Ottawa.

Grab a friend on October 15 and come down to the starting point at 227 Elgin Street at Lisgar. Time: 10:00 AM.

Please register at www.a21.org/ottawa

You can learn more about A21, the sponsoring organization, here, and how they hope to combat human trafficking.

These stories aren’t always about women from foreign lands. It can be someone local, who is separated from family and community, and falls in with the wrong group of “friends.” Reminds me, actually, of the importance and power of family and parents in protecting children. (A tie in with my day job.)

Here’s a little video clip, one girl’s story, from their web site.

So please come and support this walk come October 15!

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A big picture look at IVF

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It’s hard to write about IVF without sounding sanctimonious. When I say I don’t like IVF, I don’t say it lightly. Perhaps it helps that this isn’t a statement easily made from the comfort of 2.1 children behind a white picket fence.

That said, I’ve always had a hard time articulating why I don’t like IVF. This article gets at some of those reasons, looking at the big picture.

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