Woodworth's Wank: The ARPA Connection

As we reported yesterday, the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) is behind the new player in the Undebate, We Need a Law (that link is to its Myths page; go read).

Also yesterday -- the day of WNAL's launch -- the legal counsel for ARPA, André Schutten opined at LifeShite on the usual blacks, women, and Jews weren't considered human either BS.

Now, since ARPA has been of great assistance to DJ! in ferreting shit out in the past, we decided to look some more.

And we found stuff!

There is a cool page at the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada where one can find out who is lobbying whom.

A search for ARPA revealed this.

On February 3, March 3, and March 27, 2012, ARPA's Executive Director, Mark Penninga, lobbied CON MPs Rod Bruinooge, Mark Warawa (three times), Rob Clarke, and Brad Trost, plus Senator Gerry St. Germain and Liberal MP John McKay.

Bruinooge, Trost, and McKay are well-known fetus fetishists. Campaign Lie rates Clarke as unknown. It doesn't rate Senators, so St. Germain's views are unknown.

So who is this Mark Warawa who merited three visits -- once seemingly just for him? Campaign Lie is still evaluating his status on fetus fetishism.

I think they can upgrade him now.

MP Woodworth Bill 312 was debated today. Motion is to look at scientific evidence re when does unborn child become Human. I will vote yes

— Mark Warawa (@MPmarkwarawa) April 26, 2012

So, over three occasions, ARPA lobbied three known FFs, three unknown and seems to have influenced at least one on this project -- if, indeed, that was the purpose of Penninga's trip.

An odd use of time, wouldn't you think?

Lobbying back-benchers, a senator, and a Liberal.

The search result returned only those 7 reports from this year.
I wondered how to search further back and found nothing useful. For comparison purposes, I searched for 'Canadian Medical Association'. Woo. Found 337 reports going back to July 2008.

Makes ARPA look like pikers in the lobbying department with only 7 reports.

What are they up to? Stay tuned.

When Legislators Practise Medicine

I'm going to a dermatologist this afternoon to get my various bumps and spots looked at. And there's a thingy on my collar bone I want removed. I know what it is -- a spot of unpleasantly named bother called senile keratosis. The doc will blast it with liquid nitrogen and it will burn, then itch for a few days, then fall off.

Let's say there's a pill instead that will accomplish the same thing.

I go to the doctor (walk, streetcar, subway, more walk) to get the pill. Doc inspects, measures, tells me what to expect, answers questions. He also ensures I wasn't 'coerced' into wanting the thingy gone. I sign forms. Then I'm told to come back in 24 hours to get the pill.

Next day, I walk, streetcar, subway, more walk back. The same doctor has to see me to give me the pill. He gives me the pill and watches me take it.

Then 12 to 18 days later, I have to come back to get it checked out by the same doctor again.

If the doc does not follow this rigamarole, he or she can be charged with a felony, pay a fine of $10,000 and/or spend three-and-half years in jail.

Ridiculous, yes?

But this is what happens when legislators meddle in health care. It is what will happen now in Wisconsin when a woman wants a medical abortion.

RH Reality Check talked to a doc in Wisconsin about this new law. He said: 'If we follow the FDA rules and follow protocol, we would violate this law. And we have no ability to defend ourselves.'

By making failure to follow the new law a felony, Act 217 has made it nearly impossible for doctors to defend themselves legally without considerable expense. Although a doctor would be covered for potential malpractice under malpractice insurance, he or she would need to pay all court fees out of pocket if charged with a felony, as the insurance would not cover it.  "What we do would be 'defensible,' but we'd have to pay to defend it."

Dr. Broekhuizen is nearly certain that the law is unenforceable, and too vague to not be enjoined.  But who as a doctor wants to put his or her career in jeopardy, as well as shoulder the entirety of the legal costs, just to test it out? It's that unwillingness that anti-choice legislators are capitalizing on with their regulations, and it's one that doctors and pro-choice advocates didn't really expect to see. "We were a little naive," he admitted.

And how about the patients? Three visits, three round-trip expenses, loss of pay, childcare costs, etc., etc., etc.

So Planned Parenthood abruptly suspended performing medical abortions in the state.

By suspending medical abortions, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has taken a bill that was signed quietly, quickly, and right before a major holiday as an attempt to pass it mostly unnoticed, and turned it into a huge public policy debate over who should be creating medical protocol -- the FDA or the state legislature. 

Calling Act 217 a set of "minimum safety standards" for patient care and ending the potential for "tele-med" abortions, anti-choice legislators likely assumed the bill would go into effect without fanfare, Dr. Broekhuizen surmised. Then later, an "overzealous prosecutor" could charge a doctor based off of one of the vague, legally-ambiguous points in the law, putting medical abortion availability for the entire state at risk.

But instead, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has acted first. Perhaps anti-choice politicians were a little naive, as well.

Thursday, Canada's legislators are going to debate whether the Criminal Code definition of 'human being' should be extended to include fetuses.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

The Radical Handmaids have some ideas.

Bullying and the Vatican Taliban

While this is hardly surprising, it is still infuriating.

Teachers at a Mississauga Catholic school are encouraging students to sign a petition that supports a federal motion to re-open the abortion debate, Xtra has learned.

In an email sent out to all teachers at St Joseph Catholic Secondary School this week, teachers are encouraged to ask students to sign. Xtra obtained a copy of the email from a source at the school.

Michael Payton, interim executive director of Centre for Inquiry, says the school is manipulating students to lobby the federal government on behalf of Conservative causes.

“This is a clear example of indoctrination and pernicious lobbying that is being funded by taxpayers in Ontario,” Payton says. “Why is this allowed in a publicly funded school? This is not education. It’s vile and manipulative.”

Are the admins keeping track of which teachers return the most signatures? Is it a quota thing?

How is this not bullying?

What galls the hell out of me is that these are the same people who whine: 'I don't want my taxes to pay for your abortion'.

Well, I don't want my taxes paying to brainwash a bunch of future misogynists!

Fight back. Download and print a petition opposing M312 here. There is room for 25 signatures, but you don't need to fill it up. ARCC needs 25 signatures total before it can submit it to an MP for presentation in the House.


h/t to commenter Godel Noodle for the PDF link.