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Good information on Bill C-510

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Bill C-510 is the new private member’s bill about punishing coerced abortion. Here’s some good information about it from the top-notch legal minds at the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.

Meanwhile, over at the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, a call to ban coerced childbirth from Joyce Arthur. Two thoughts on this: One–it’s good she can identify there’s a child there, it’s “childbirth” not “fetusbirth” or “gosh darn it what IS that thing birth.” Secondly–the thought occured to me that perhaps she doesn’t know what causes childbirth. Someone get this woman a briefing on the birds and the bees! (Over 100,000 abortions annually in Canada, most to all abortions are not the result of coerced sex.)

Subjective versus objective

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Does the fetus matter or not? Is it human or not? Yes–if you think so. No–if you don’t think so. And so any circumstance can be good–if you think it is good. And alternatively, any circumstance can be bad, if you think it is bad.  

No wonder pro-choicers don’t want to come out and debate very often.

Joyce Arthur’s arguments make sense to me, actually, in the context of today’s subjective culture. It’s just that they don’t hold any water when I reason it through–because that fetus either is something or it’s not and this can’t change depending on the ways the winds go…Every culture has societal norms and laws. It’s not a question of democracy. It’s a question of what we choose to classify as right and wrong. (Infanticide, slavery, anyone?)  

That’s why women should be called out to think about these things, way before the moment of a crisis pregnancy. Because at that moment, someone like Joyce is going to step in and say–I couldn’t possibly tell you what’s on this ultrasound. It’s all up to you. And in the face of parents, and school, and boyfriends who aren’t ready and the thought of putting life on a different track for nine months–that is going to sound very seductive indeed. It’s quite a cruel approach when I think about it.

Our money, their choice

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Rebecca has a great piece in the Post today about how abortion is not a private choice if you and I are paying for it:

Let’s take supporters of access to abortion at their word: Elective abortions are a personal choice. For example, in a recent posting on the Post’s Web site, Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, insists that abortion be available as backup birth control so women can have “sex for pleasure.” But then the same advocates immediately push abortion firmly into the public domain, and keep it there, by insisting elective abortions be paid for by taxpayers, a large percentage of whom are completely opposed to the procedure.

Well done, Rebecca! (Who would have thought you could get a tagline so long in the paper? “Rebecca Walberg is a Winnipeg writer and policy analyst, and a founding member of ProWomanProLife.org, recently named the best new Canadian blog of 2008.” Neat-o.)

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Rebecca adds: These pro-abortion folks, they’re all class (well, some of them, anyway): the headline on my blog was “If it’s a private choice, why am I paying for it?” I just got an anonymous reply saying “Because it’s a health care cost, and paying professionals to pick womb-boogers reduces the cost of paying for the results of bungled abortions.”  Aren’t they charming?

So, if people threaten to do their own back-alley breast implants, risking sepsis and permanent injury, possibly even death, will medicare start providing all women with perky DD boobs, gratis?

As to the “womb-booger” – keep it up, my friend.  The more Canadians hear from this wing of the abortion-rights crowd, the more you make the pro-life case for us.

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Brigitte wonders: Does the term “womb-booger” apply to all former fetuses, including him/her, or just, you know, other people?

What IS the status quo?

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That Joyce Arthur! She’s so quotable:

Canadians don’t want to go back to the abortion debate. People are happy with the status quo. It’s working well.

I just changed my cell phone plan. I had the same plan for years, and I thought it was a great deal, mainly because it was a great deal back when I got my first phone. I’d tell everyone how great my plan was, and in 2002 I wasn’t lying. But in 2008, I was sorely misled. After doing a little homework, I learned I could get all the same services with the exact same cell phone provider for about half the price. All this to say, I was happy with the status quo until I got all the facts.

Most people I speak to about the abortion issue don’t realize abortion is legal in Canada right up to month 9. Most don’t know that women are exposed to a procedure (vacuum aspiration abortion) that has never been tested on animals and that it is alone in that category among all medical procedures performed in Canada. Most don’t know that, in 1988, when the Supreme Court struck down the law regulating abortion, it handed over to Parliament the responsibility of enacting a new law. And, yes, most don’t realize that a kidney has more rights in Canada than a fetus. Let’s be honest. There’s something Canadians don’t know.

The very phrase “We won’t go back!” so commonly chanted by those who are pro-abortion, confirms that they’re unhappy with the way things once were, but it says nothing about today’s status quo. To say that Canadians are happy with the current state of affairs is to assume we are all aware of that state. But, mostly, we are not. So let’s not muzzle the discussion. Then we’ll see if people really are happy with the status quo.

Election financing rules and double standards

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Election financing. We have regulated speech, not free speech, in Canada. This means that groups and individuals (“third parties”) cannot spend as much money as they’d like for (or against) candidates in an election. (For more on Canada’s gag law, this Calgary Herald editorial explains.)

This runs contrary to rules of free speech. I am against that law. But it still stands. And if Friends of Science and Barry Cooper can be charged, as the Herald piece explains they were, who else should be?  

Why am I asking these questions? Because I’m curious to know how much money pro-abortion groups are spending telling me not to vote for Harper? Has anyone asked that? Are they registered? Should they be?

Representatives from Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, Canadian Labour Congress, the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, Federation du Quebec pour le planning des naissances and Action Canada for Population and Development (ACPD) held the press conference, describing themselves as a united front in the mobilization of women voters.

Does spending money telling voters who not to vote for (Harper) qualify under the Elections Spending Act?

Let me be very clear–I think those pro-abortion groups should be allowed to speak freely, and spend as much as they want. But what I’m not keen on is a double standard, whereby groups on the “wrong” side are charged (Friends of Science, National Citizens Coalition to name but two) and groups with elite support (pro-abortion groups) are not.

(Cross-posted to The Shotgun.)

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Brigitte is jumping up and down, clapping her hands: Oh, good one! Any minute now, we should expect the thought police Elections Canada to descend on the gals, right? Right?

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Véronique must start reading more Alberta-based newspapers. Whoa, this is so refreshing to read!

“The uneasy conscience of feminism”

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I did not want to comment on this Camille Paglia piece until I read it in full. I’m glad I did. On top of being splendid prose, this piece is a boon to the pro-life movement. 

Let’s get straight to the part that has raised the ire of pro-lifers. Paglia says abortion is murder and then adds she fully accepts abortion. Is this shocking? Perhaps. But every woman who has had an abortion is grappling with that very sentiment. This is the essence of the debate and why pro-lifers care at all in the first place. Never to curtail anyone’s choices–but rather to identify that a person is a person, even in the womb (was tempted to say no matter how small, with apologies to Dr. Seuss) and therefore elimination is not a choice. Paglia has put on the page what every strident pro-abortion activist accepts and knows. They simply don’t say it.

Paglia speaks of “the uneasy conscience of feminism…” and I know that well. It’s that silence that descends most every time the “A word” comes up. I like to think it’s the sound of people’s conscience contorting, writhing around what they know to be true and what they’ve been told they must say. Most women will never accept that murder is their special privilege.

Abortion is “the extermination of the powerless by the powerful,” again, Paglia’s words, which I will be sure to repeat. (If you don’t think abortion is the extermination of the powerless by the powerful, you’ve not watched one in progress, and you should.) Pro-abortion types fare better in the public square if they conceal, conceal, conceal. This is why Bill C-484 had to go. Because it would have started women and men thinking, thinking, slowing realizing–what are we doing? And that is the frightening consistency of pro-abortion types: keep abortion out of the public mind, because free thought is out of bounds.

I’ll take Paglia’s words one step further: the extermination of the powerless by the powerful begins with conniving and devious so-called supporters of women’s rights–those who lie about what abortion is and then convince everyone that access to abortion is a right–hey! this isn’t evil! It’s empowering! They know what Paglia knows–and cloak the act in comfy euphemisms. They meet women in their personal deserts and offer a refreshing drink of cyanide. Only they call it Sprite and add ice and one of those fun paper umbrellas.

Though Paglia’s conclusion is repugnant to me, she is not coercing anyone to her view. She hardly could–it’s not a very good slogan–“Murdering millions–in particular those who have done absolutely nothing wrong and can’t defend themselves! Join today!”  

She says:

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism — one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

Bottom line: this kind of disquieting article does the pro-life movement a great service. 

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Véronique adds: I doubt that Camille Paglia is a closet pro-lifer. Or that she would be delighted by our endorsement. That being said, I want to say how much I liked reading her article. She takes a strong position and she defends it to its logical end without rhetoric or slogans. This is someone I feel like I could have an intelligent conversation with. On the pro-choice side. That in itself gives me hope. Not so much that I could convince her because I don’t think I could. But it gives me hope that we can engage in these issues instead of avoiding them.

Let’s recap, just so we are all on the same page

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Ken Epp designs and proposes Bill C-484. It’s uncontroversial among Canadians, who overwhelmingly approve of it in public opinion polls, until it passes second reading. At this point, pro-abortion extremists get worried. They begin a (at least somewhat successful) public campaign to discredit the bill and to create fears that really Bill C-484 intends to change our abortions laws, and give unborn people personhood status. In order to overturn Bill C-484, they put forward their own legislation, through Liberal MP Brent St. Denis.

The government’s proposed solution is actually already before the House of Commons. It was put forward last May by Liberal MP Brent St. Denis (Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing) in a private member’s bill that adds the targeting of a pregnant woman to a list of sentencing factors.

 Joyce Arthur supports that legislation, publicly: 

Now, Joyce Arthur, the head of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and one of the top pro-abortion activists attacking the bill to protect pregnant women, is urging support for an alternative. In an editorial released on Monday, she said she prefers the new bill C-543 by Liberal MP Brent St Denis.

Rob Nicholson copies that legislation, much to the chagrin of many supporters of Bill C-484.

And then Joyce Arthur says this:

Joyce Arthur, of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, believed that C484 would have led to making abortion illegal. However, she said that she too could see no reason for what Mr. Nicholson is proposing.

Keeping up with the inconsistencies is totally exhausting.

Not very secure at all

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If their ideology can’t withstand people thinking about what that ideology actually involves, how secure are they in their position?

Ken Epp, writing about Bill C-484 here. The ideologically strident are aware that the current pro-choice status quo rests on not thinking about “the abortion situation” too much (and constantly putting things like “unborn victims” in quotation marks, as if it were a laughable possibility rather than reality.) 

This is why all the screaming begins for bills that don’t even pertain directly to abortion. How secure is their position? Not very.

New government bill to replace Bill C-484?

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This was announced about ten minutes ago.

The federal government will introduce new legislation that will punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday. Nicholson said the bill will “leave no room for the introduction of fetal rights.” The bill is aimed at protecting women from violence, he said.

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Opponents to the bill, called the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, raised concerns that the bill would reopen the debate on abortion in Canada.

“Let me be clear, our government will not reopen the debate on abortion,” Nicholson said Monday.

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Update: The Globe has an article on the same topic here. A small note on style–if “unborn victims” gets quotation marks, then I’d ask also that “abortion rights” be consistently referred to with quotation marks. The “right to abortion” is much more imaginary (and never confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada) than those “unborn victims”–who we can view via a thing called “the ultrasound.”

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