Bruinooge insists he’s not trying to push the Commons into a debate the Prime Minister has specifically banned, arguing that nothing in his bill would make it illegal to obtain an abortion.
“This bill doesn’t affect gestational limits or access to abortion in Canada,” Bruinooge told reporters Thursday morning. “It’s something that in fact doesn’t reopen the abortion debate but it does make it a crime to threaten or intimidate a woman into abortion.”
Now let's hear from Mr Kicking Abortion's Ass: Dern tootin'! It is ALL about abortion.
For all the fans of “Kicking Abortion’s Ass” Alert: Abortion.is.going.to.die.in.Canada.
You watch. It’s gonna happen. Not now, but in our lifetimes. It’s something for you to look forward to.
See the problem of whistling to your cretinous followers, Rod? They know what the bill is about but they won't toe the party line and keep their gaping maws shut. Oh, and that 'in our lifetimes' bit? Not bloody likely, according to a poll released today indicating that young Canadians are more abortion- and gay-marriage-loving than ever.
Meanwhile, membership is growing at the new Faytene-free Facebook group, while the wall there is strangely moribund. They seem to be allowing hardcore fetus fetishists again, including Mr KBA -- using his real name, John Pacheco -- and whackjob Bill Whatcott, who writes:
I should also add brutal and premeditated murders like this one, strengthen my belief in the efficacy of capital punishment.
Odd, innit? Fetus-fetishizing and outlaw-lynching so often go together.
And there's a new feature at the website, Share Your Story.
Since the launch of Roxanne's Law we have come to discover that women being coerced against their will to have an unwanted abortion is very common. Many women and men have been coming forward to share their stories. This is your chance as well. By sharing your story you can make something good come out of a horrible experience. Sharing your story will strengthen the argument for Roxanne's Law and help ensure that a woman's right to choose to keep her baby is protected.
Please write your story in 800 words or less and e-mail it to us at contact @ roxanneslaw.ca.
Thank you for your courage.
This will no doubt elicit some creative -- if nearly illiterate -- glurge.
And to round out today's coverage of the Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada today issued a media release*.
Pro-Choice Group Calls for Law Banning Coerced Childbirth
NATIONAL – A bill recently introduced by a Conservative MP to criminalize “coercing” a woman into abortion should be scuttled in favour of a bill prohibiting the much more common practice of coercing a woman into childbirth, says the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), a national pro-choice group.
“It’s wrong to pressure women into an abortion, but this does not occur on the grand scale often claimed by anti-choice propagandists. It mostly stems from situations of domestic abuse,” said Joyce Arthur, Coordinator of ARCC. Arthur pointed to a recent U.S. study that examined reproductive control of women by abusive male partners. “Some were pressured to have an abortion, but women also reported that their partners prevented them from obtaining or using birth control, threatened them with pregnancy, or forced unprotected sex on them. If they became pregnant and wanted an abortion, some partners threatened or pressured them to carry to term.”
In 1989, Chantal Daigle of Quebec had to travel to the U.S. for an abortion after her boyfriend got an injunction preventing her from having an abortion. Canada’s Supreme Court subsequently ruled that male partners cannot force a woman to have a baby.
“It’s not just partners or family members who try to compel women and girls to have babies against their will,” said Arthur. “The entire anti-choice movement has been trying to force women into pregnancy and motherhood for decades, by working to outlaw or restrict abortion. Perhaps we need to protect women from this coercion by criminalizing anti-choice activism!”
Hee. Wouldn't that be fun? Call the cops! SUZY ALL-CAPS is posting fetal pr0n again!
*You can download a pdf of the whole thing, including references, here.
11 comments:
I'll have to take your word for it, fh. The last 3 times I tried to read a blogpost at Blob Blogging Wingnut's House of Perpetual Jeremiads and Glossy Fetal Gallery my IE froze.
It only makes sense.
Coercion is already against the law. If we're going to start parsing existing laws to make new "sub-laws", ie. against coerced abortion, then we equally need one against coerced childbirth. And coerced hysterectomy (which is something far more widespread than either coerced abortion or coerced childbirth).
This bill is a non-starter. When the media -- even the NatPo -- mocks it the day it's made public, that's the old telltale sign that it's probably dead in the water.
Back to the drawing board, fetus fetishists.
Oh, lookie, lookie! On Tuesday there will be "10 Pro-Life Wedges To Bring Down Abortion" posted. I can hardly wait!!!
NatPo's mocking the Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill? Bwahahahaaaa! Linky link?
Coerced parenting should also be illegal.
How many young couples are pressured to produce a grandchild for their parents? No wonder they're such indifferent and indulgent moms and dads.
"Oh, lookie, lookie! On Tuesday there will be "10 Pro-Life Wedges To Bring Down Abortion" posted. I can hardly wait!!!"
Their "wedges" have a funny way of turning into "wedgies".
DBO: That's when the coerced parents drop the child on the grandparents' doorstep and say 'have fun!' and don't come back.
I remember a certain maternal unit waving a newborn offsprog of a sibling at me and thinking she was clever by asking when I was going to give her one of these. Loudly. At a family reunion where everyone was standing around glurgy over a longterm anniversary.
Admittedly, I was a bit irked at the tactic, but we never had a similar conversation after I commented if she wanted babies so much, had she considered adopting directly? But also admittedly, I learned coercion where all good traditional upbringings do. In the family home. What does not destroy you makes you stronger. Still, I notice the Bruinooge 'bill' specifically excludes *parental* coercion. Or did I read that wrong?
The document came across to me as the dominionist traditional set up cannot be challenged while doing all of this protection of babies in-wrapper.
I sometimes want to go up to the fetus worshippers bemoaning the wasted lives and ask them if they'll take delivery of at least two 'saved' babies every five years and raise them, at all times above the poverty level. They never seem so interested in saving *children* as starting some baby commodity market (lebensborn) where *other* 'good citizens' can shop for fresh and pretty white ones. Just more free market you betcha.
I have a question - please, I promise it's not trolling.
Why is this bill a bad thing? I mean, I know that there must be, because it's being proposed by a forced-birth type, and I know it's redundant because coercion is already illegal, but where's the wedge they're driving in? I mean, coerced abortion is a HORRIBLE thing (as horrible as coerced birth, IMO), so other than the ugly feeling that they're up to something, why are you opposed to it?
Hi, Luna,
We wouldn't suspect you of trolling. ;)
A bit of generality before I get to this bill. Women's rights activists achieved a great thing in Canada, something that is admired by like-minded people around the world. We took abortion right out of the Criminal Code. There is NO law on abortion in Canada.
Just about everywhere else there are laws: on circumstances (rape, incest, fetal deformity), on time limits (22-weeks, 24 weeks), on approvals (one, two, or three doctors have to agree). These laws are often ignored or stepped around, but they exist and zealous prosecutors or litigators can use them and do.
In Canada, abortion is a purely medical matter between a woman and her doctor. And that is a very good thing.
This law should be opposed because we don't need no steenking laws on abortion at all.
We don't need this one because a) there are already laws around coercion and threatening and b) abortion providers are very aware that some women are under pressure and they do everything they can to make sure the patient is comfortable with her decision.
Plus, it is a 'chill bill'. It could worry doctors and clinics about lawsuits, criminal charges. It could tie them up in legal wrangles, cost money, etc. The intent is to make the work of abortion providers more complicated and exposed to sanctions.
And, finally, it is part of the anti-abortion incrementalist agenda, which our old fetus fetishizing pal, Mr Kicking Abortion's Ass, helpfully details here.
Just look at what's going on in the Excited States, Luna. The fetus fetishists there are having a field day with the anti-abortion agenda. Mandatory waiting periods, mandatory ultrasounds, bullshit lectures about fetal pain, bans on government funding. Sad to say, but they're winning.
We can't let them even get a toehold here.
Luna, when abortion - which is a medical intervention, administered by public health care regulations - becomes the subject of a federal bill that proposes criminal charges and sanctions, one suspects that abortion criminalizers are trying to single it out for special attention.
Remember Bill C-484?
Luna - Coercion, bullying, intimidation -- for any reason -- are already against the law, so a law that specifically applies to "coerced abortion" would be redundant, a waste of time and ultimately, taxpayer dollars (not to mention almost unenforceable). The only reason for a law like this is to get a foot in the door to further restrictions.
Abortion is a personal medical choice that shouldn't be bound by law any more than nose jobs or knee surgery. The government needs to stay OUT of it completely.
Chill bill. That's perfect. Those are the words I needed to understand my own discomfort with the bill. Thank you.
What I couldn't figure out was what their agenda was. It didn't seem to have any point, because as JJ said, it was redundant. Making it scary for a doctor to suggest it as an option, that's what they're up to. *sigh*
Thanks everyone. I just am not sneaky enough to understand the minds of those people.
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