February 10, 2008
Nadine, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
Epinal was a publishing center in the 19th century famous for brightly hand colored, slightly naive woodblock prints of country life and famous political figures. “Image d’Epinal” conjures up one these bucolic images in France, like “Currier and Ives” does in America. In this case of course it’s being used ironically, as the family looks rather different from the original French peasant models.
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Mark J, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
Nothing strange at all about a “family medal” in Europe. The Third Reich even produced a “Cross of Honor to the German Mother” (aka “Mothers Cross”) and awarded millions of them in bronze, silver, or gold depending on the number of children in a family.
Several other European countries have issued, and probably still issue, similar awards (e.g., Italy, Russia, etc.).
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Servant, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
My next question is “When do we start handing out the Canadian Family Medals? I know of several I could certainly nominate.
One I heard about this week has seven happy children and mom and dad have just learned they are pregnant again. She and hubby are overjoyed but a little overwhelmed too. You see the word is she is pregnant with Child 8, 9 and 10. Triplets in the oven. Now that is a news story and a family worthy of getting a medal.
Not really in line with Steyn’s article but good news to celebrate anyhow.
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Genevieve, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
I’m just returning from Rome where we were privileged to spend three days with 250 women from around the world to discuss how to honour authentic femininity and to make the true Christian anthropology more widely known. It is so freeing to women and yet so [deliberately] misunderstood. Much work to do!
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Aditya Barot, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
I have read Mr. Steyn’s superb thesis on demography and when faced with the evidence one has to agree with him as regards his basic conclusions.
1. European caucasians have decided to forego procreation;
2. Muslim immigrants show no signs of foregoing; and,
3. Eventually those who have foregone procreation will have to forego the conditions that made such nonchalance possible.
I wish Europe well, she needs all the luck she can get.
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John, on Mark Steyn wasn’t kidding:
You ask how we should honor motherhood and I don’t know that this shouldn’t include fatherhood… Anyway, make it affordable for a stay at home parent through personal tax incentives, allow the working parent to keep more of their earnings during the years when kids are not yet in school. That would allow mom or dad to stay home without the family having to live on kdinner and spam.
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Tanya Zaleski, on Who’s laughing now?:
Regardless of whether we recognize polygamous marriage or not, nothing stops 2nd, 3rd, and 4th wives under one roof from receiving welfare benefits (this is not to say that there is abuse in every situation). If each woman has 3 children, the man wouldn’t even need to bring home the turkey-bacon.The same has been happening for many years now, especially out West, in sectarian religious communities. While the relatively few men do work and provide some income, the majority of the community’s money comes from government social benefits, making these communities very prosperous.And yet, if the welfare and social benefits laws are changed too hastily, this would discourage families from practicing multi-generational living, as rare as it is these days. Situations where grandparents live with mom, dad, and the grandkids could suffer. A widowed sister going to live with her brother and his family could lose her benefits, too.It is a delicate kind of attention that needs to be paid to this matter.
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Mr. Zug, on Who’s laughing now?:
I recall reading that prime criteria in islam for taking multiple wives by muslim men was contigent upon the husband’s ability to support each wife.
Now in Canada a Muslim man can have all the wives he wants because the Canadian taxpayer provides the support.
It’s just another form of jizya paid by the infidel. This is so wrong on so many levels.
I would certainly hope you good folk in Canada try to reverse this terrible and immoral burden upon yourselves.
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Roger, on Who’s laughing now?:
Moslem polygamy + welfare state = insoluble dilemmas. If a western nation were to tell Moslem immigrants “you must chose one of your wives to be your wife under our law. Your children by your other (Moslem) wives are illegitimate” that would change nothing except anger fanatical Moslems. The other wives would all qualify for the benefits doled out to single mothers.
I’ve heard gossip that in France, Moslem men with 4 wives and 15-20 children by those wives, pocket so much money in family allowances that the whole gang can live comfortably in 2 large subsidized apartments. Whether truth or false rumour, such situations help explain why Le Pen’s National Front garners 15-18% of the French vote.
By the way, the argument that polygamy is unfair or oppressive to women gets no traction in the Third World. Traditional economies include a few lucky rich men, mainly men who happen to have inherited land. Polygamy enables more women and children to enjoy the benefits of having a rich husband and father. Polygamy is a crude income redistribution scheme.
Family law, like the law governing private property, is crucial to the well-ordering of a society.
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Tanya Zaleski, on A Coke, a KitKat, a condom:
As I listened to Dr. Morgentaler accept his honorary degree from the University of Western, I heard him say what I’ve heard him say before. He claimed that a woman can never be equal to a man if she does not have control over her reproductive system.
This shows me, and anyone willing to see it, that Dr. Morgentaler has an inferior view of women. If he thinks women have not achieved equality until they can avoid an unplanned pregnancy at all costs, he therefore believes a woman needs medical help to be on par with a man in this world.
Because of his blatant disrespect for the position women have earned in our society, I believe Dr. Henry Morgentaler is not representative of what the Order of Canada stands for; desiring a better country.
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Maria Doll, on A Coke, a KitKat, a condom:
I would agree with Brigitte’s comment…where are the parents? They should be looking after teaching their children about sex-ed. After all, the parents might know something about sex, one would think, yes?? But the government is afraid that the parents might share values etc. that would harm the children’s natural “inquisitiveness” in this area.
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el duderino, on By any other name:
When my wife and I became pregnant for the first time her OBGYN wanted to do an amniocentesis to test for Downs Syndrome. We asked what could be done other than aborting our child if the test came back positive and if there were any risks to the tests. Apparently there’s nothing to be done and there is some risk, however minimal, to the test itself. Since abortion is not an option for us, we went without the test. It would be unfair to say that we were pressured to take the test, but we were definitely expected to and looked upon as rigid for not even considering termination under any circumstance. As things turned out our baby was perfect, in our eyes anyway, a little large for my wife’s liking perhaps but perfect nonetheless. Seven years and two other equally swell kids later, I can’t say I have ever doubted for a second our decision not to test. If it should have turned out that one of kids had Downs Syndrome, as infelicitous as that could seem, he or she would still be our child and we would cherish and love him or her all the same.
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Brian, on Why I’m “ProWomanProLife”:
For all of you who would restrict, if not remove altogether a woman’s right to have access to safe abortions, here’s interesting reading about anti-abortion females who have had abortions but who apparently have no problem advocating denying the right to others: http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html
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Elena Repka, on I’ve wanted this since at least last math class:
Perhaps you’ve seen this article from a few weeks back? http://www.thestar.com/article/298588
“What I get most frustrated at is when people call it a pro-life movie, which is just absurd,” Page, 20, told the Star from Los Angeles yesterday.
“In other words, that it’s anti-abortion. That’s just not true. To me, it’s not a political film. I never thought about that when we were making it. Sometime I even forget she’s pregnant …
“People are always going to take the littlest thing and figure out something to talk about. The most important thing is the choice is there and the film completely demonstrates that. It allows a scene in an abortion clinic, for goodness sake. A lot of films probably wouldn’t do that.”
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Elena Repka, on Bella:
I had the wonderful opportunity to see this movie at the TIFF in 2006.
The movie was selected to the most important film festival on this continent and one of the most important in the world. That means a) it received acclaim from its industry peers and b) the quality of the movie is world-class both in content and in creativity. We can safely assume that these things are in themselves significant.
The fact that it earned the People’s Choice Award (PCA) is certainly significant - for a number of reasons. Most, if not all cultural contributions are measured by people’s reaction to it (despite what the critics may say), did they enjoy it, identify with it or learn/grow from it? Clearly, the movie had an impact on the general audience, they said so by casting ballots in its favour.
Furthermore, looking at the list of past PCAs here: http://www.imdb.com/Sections/Awards/Toronto_International_Film_Festival/ you can see for yourself that the movie shares this acclaim with other significant movies that have influenced culture in the past: ‘Chariots of Fire’, ‘Shine’ and ‘Hotel Rwanda’ just to name a few.
I would argue that the more important issue here is that while it has won this acclaim, it has taken 2 years to find a distributor in this country. Movies that earn the PCA (like the ones mentioned above) do not typically encounter roadblocks to distribution. It would be interesting to know why the TIFF did not spend marketing $$ in 2006 to promote this movie as it does with other PCA movies.
I would encourage all readers of this website to make a point of seeing this movie.
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Servant, on Justification as bread and butter:
Another who attended the U of T event actually commented that Romalis was the most effective of all the speakers. He was “passionate” she said. To hear your version about his condescending superiority does not surprise me. He would have to be “superior” having deluded himself for more than 40 years that he is helping women.
There are some questions I always want to ask pro-abortion people. Why do they always say abortion is a “Difficult” decision for a woman? What is it about the procedure that makes abortion any different from other surgeries? And one more quick question… How can the pro-abortion community justify their opposition to sex-selection abortion? Logic tells me Pro-lifers stand on rock solid ground and it will only be a matter of time before the truth sinks in for these radicals.
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Deborah Rankin, on The Tommy Schnurmacher Show:
Please don’t repeat the mantra of adoption advocates that adoption is the alternative to abortion - adoption isn’t, birth is. Legally, adoption can’t take place until the child has been born, making the abortion-alternative moot. Secondly, the birth mother doesn’t have a unilateral right to relinquish her child to strangers: the birth father. Like the birth mother, has a right to raise his own child under the terms of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The Convention sets stringent standards for putting children up for adoption. They are: Death of both parents, incarceration, abuse, or neglect, subject to judicial discretion, and requiring the informed-consent of both parents and other family members.
This last provision is intended to promote the kinship care of children i.e. by birth relatives, in the event that neither of their natural parents are able to look after them. In some countries, children can only be adopted by relatives. Adoption by non-relatives is considered only as a last resort when no other options are available.
The adoption-alternative argument also bypasses discussion of the mother’s rights to receive health care, financial aid, and social support to enable her to raise her own child, especially during the pre-natal and post-natal periods, as stipulated in the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, an expansion of section 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since the moral imperative is to keep the natural family together and Canada is a signatory of both the Declaration and the Convention, its important to look critically at any arguments in favor of adoption for soicio-economic reasons. Organizations that promote adoption front for the infertility patients groups as well as the same-sex family lobby. They have strong vested interest in overriding the rights of young, poor. or otherwise marginal parents because their real goal is to free up children for adoption. Its important to note that there is no evidence that adoption deters abortion. On the contrary, the only study ever published on the subject showed that adoption was the leading barrier to a woman continuing her pregnancy. In plain terms, when adoption was presented as the alternative to abortion, the woman chose abortion instead. (NOTE: the study was conducted by Frederica-Mathewes-Green and commissioned by a U.S. pro-life organization.) However, since the Convention was ratified in September 1990, any considerations about motivation ate moot. If the adoption doesn’t proceed according to the norms stipulated in the Convention, its human rights violation. I hope that these comments help to bring some perspective to this debate. Its really important that you don’t undercut either children’s or parental rights in your good efforts to discourage abortion.