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Rona Ambrose speaks up

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This article highlights how not “all women” are against Bill C-484. Last I checked, actually, more women were in favour of the bill.

Though I’m pleased that Rona Ambrose has spoken up–it takes courage to do so–I note how it is now par for the course to speak vociferously against opening anything that might present a controversy.

Our government has no interest, no intention of reopening the abortion debate. That debate is over. It was over a long time ago, but there is an issue of protecting pregnant women who choose to have a baby,” Ambrose said in an interview.

 It’s no wonder our university campuses have no problem banning free speech.

Dion “gives his word”

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And we all know how much that is worth. Thank goodness it’s Dion giving his word. Anyone else and I’d almost be worried.  

I want to give my word to all the women of Canada that the Liberal Party of Canada is against to reopen woman’s right to decide as a debate,” the Liberal leader pledged.

Dion should rephrase this quote for so, so many reasons, but above all because not “all” the women of Canada want this promise…But why bother criticising… It’s just too easy. No fun at all.   

Trouvez l’erreur

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Ever do those games on the back of a cereal box when you were a kid? (I still do them now, but that’s beside the point.) Remember the one where you had to find all the errors in a given picture? Man with shoe on head, mouse in bird’s nest, spoons flowering in garden…

I felt a little like I was playing that game this morning as I read this article.

If Mr. Epp was well known for his defense of women’s rights, we could believe that he is truly concerned about violence against women.

Error #1) Just because someone holds a particular view on what women’s rights actually entail, it does not mean he is not concerned about violence against women.

His bill is supported by anti-choice groups across the country…For all these reasons, we must denounce Bill C-484.

Error #2) If by anti-choice, she is referring to pro-life, it only makes sense that a bill which is meant to protect life would be supported by these groups. This is not an actual reason to oppose any bill.

Bill C-484… opens the door to the possibility of recriminalization of abortion in Canada, and this, only 20 years after its decriminalization.

Error #3) Abortion has been legal in Canada for almost 40 years now.

In attempting to more severely punish attackers of pregnant women, he is giving the status of personhood to the fetus.

Error #4) The bill would recognize the fetus as something, but it’s far from calling the fetus a person with Charter rights. Considering the pregnant woman would still be entitled to do whatever she likes to it (drink, smoke, do drugs, have an abortion), that’s hardly what anyone could call personhood.

The murder of pregnant women does not constitute an epidemic in Canada; over the last 3 years, 5 pregnant women have been assassinated. Though these deaths are regrettable, we can not consider it a trend. The reality is that conjugal violence is a much greater problem.

Error #5) The number one cause of death among pregnant women is homicide. Pregnant women experience abuse at a rate 6 times higher than women who are not pregnant. Approximately one in five women lose a pregnancy because of abuse. Pregnant women experiencing spousal abuse are struck in the abdomen in 70% of cases. It’s a bit of a problem, I’d say.

Misinformation is the greatest enemy of this bill’s passing. What gets me most is not the risk of this bill not being approved. It’s the why. It is that a segment of women are so petrified of having access to abortion even vaguely questioned that they are willing to prevent a sensible law like this one from being enacted.

“Fetus incubators”

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It’s a special kind of disdain for pregnancy and for women in general, I say, when you call pregnant women incubators for the fetus.

 

That’s what Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice was cited as saying in a La Presse article on May 22, which I received translated into English.  

 

Patricia LaRue, of Canadians for Choice, sounding an alarm that brings to mind the old slogans, says that pregnant women must not become incubators for fetuses once again

 

The whole article is a piece of work. It begins with a pregnant woman who passes the date for a legal abortion and subsequently shoots herself in the abdomen. She is charged under a law that we are led to believe is something like Bill C-484 would be. It turns out to be a case where “ultimately the charge was amended” ie. she didn’t suffer any consequences. It also turns out to be California, over three decades ago.

 

Any editor with an ounce of journalistic integrity would ask their reporter to FIND A NEW LEDE. Is this the best kind of fear mongering those who are against Bill C-484 can do?

 

In short, we are supposed to oppose Bill C-484 because one crazy lady shot herself in the abdomen in California thirty years ago.

 

Now that, that is high quality reasoning. Excuse me while I go shoot myself in the abdomen for the sheer frustration of it all.

Status of Women versus women

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There’s women’s views, and then there’s the Status of Women view. If there’s one agency that needs to be defunded pronto it’d be them. I’d argue this by starting simple, with their name. “Status of Women.” Whose status? Which women? And we could move on from there.

(Cross-posted to The Shotgun)

I don’t get it

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So is she saying that “One Body. One Person. One Count” is not accurate? And where does that leave “My Body, My Choice”? I’m so confused.

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Tanya adds: In the above link:

Raymond Gravel, a Bloc MP and a priest said he was “uncomfortable” with the bill “because the member putting it forward is part of a pro-life group, the Campaign Life Coalition”

To paraphrase:

Let’s not vote for a bill based on what it is. That would be far too reasonable. Instead, let’s say words like “backdoor attempt” and “conspiracy” and “dangerous” until we’ve sufficiently confused people on a simple issue like C-484.

 

Bill C-484 as abortion debate

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Chantal Hébert in The Toronto Star today on Bill C-484. Predictably, she has equated abortion access with equality for women. But also has equated Bill C-484 with a recriminalization of abortion.

Seeing as the Bill is not about recriminalizing abortion, we ought to ask why it is that every pro-abortion critic believes that is the case. The answer is fear: Would recognizing the fetus in cases where where the mother wanted it result in recognition of the fetus in other places as well? It is still not immediately clear to me why that would have to result in “recriminalization,” but I’m perhaps not well-positioned to comment on that, seeing as I aim to have women recognizing the hypocrisy of abortion and the ills for their own person prior to doing so “for The Government tells me so.”

Bill C-484 so far as I can tell might well result in a recognition of the hypocrisy of our current system: This is a baby when wanted, not a baby when not wanted. “Wantedness” is such a funny concept, and yet our current ideas of what constitutes humanity rest on that notion. Not comforting.

From the horse’s mouth

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Ken Epp has addressed some concerns the pro-abortion side, namely Joyce Arthur, has for his bill, Bill C-484, here.

I think that if Ms. Arthur would debate what my bill actually says instead of basing her arguments on a misrepresentation, she would be advocating for C-484. How can she argue against protecting in law the unborn child which the pregnant woman has chosen to keep, and to provide criminal sanctions against any third party who would unilaterally take that choice and that anticipated new life away from her, without her consent, against her will and with violence?

Anyone?… Anyone?

Joyce Arthur resigns on Bill C-484?

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More on Bill C-484, the unborn victims of violence bill, here.  

[Joyce] Arthur described the bill as “lingering sexism”, and said anti-abortion arguments all stem from a patriarchal view of women. “They think a fetus should have some rights, there’s too many abortions, it’s used as birth control,” Arthur said. “They feel the law should be making these decisions. But only a pregnant women [sic] can be making these decisions. Is this a blob to her, or a person?

Joyce Arthur appears to have signed her own resignation slip with that statement, because to the women who were attacked and lost their babies, the baby was a baby, a person, not a blob. Case closed–in Arthur’s world too, then, Bill C-484 should stand.

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