Official Radical Handmaids' Drinking Game

Get ready for September 21, when Woodworth's Wank, aka The Debate on When the State Takes over Your Uterus, gets its second hour of debate.

I want to add under 'take a sip' -- 'womb'.

Further suggestions and cocktail recipes welcome.

Image source.

Link to larger version.

Pray'n'Phone Update: You Can Skip the Praying Part

On the Pray'n'Phone Facebook page a high-school social studies teacher suggests that making M312 a 'Christian issue' is not a good strategy.

To which Miles, the genius behind PnP, replies (bold mine):

Aha now I know how you caught my spelling error. You're a teacher ;) Well, I never meant to marginalize those who don't follow the Lord. I appreciate the fact that there are unbelievers who want to protect unborn children. However we have to be extremely careful when we start to appeal to science as the absolute standard or truth. Let's not forget that the original criminal code defining unborn children was based on the science of its day. What makes us think we have all of our science perfected today? Look into it and you will find that there are many scientists today who deny the fact that the unborn are human beings. No, we have to appeal to an authority greater than our diary of observations (science). We appeal to the Creator of human beings. Now we're not going to start a debate here, the last thing we need is a division. I put the encouragement to pray in there because it is the most important thing we can do. If someone out there doesn’t want to pray, then I guess they can skip that step. God bless - Miles

Yo! Woody! You getting this? Contrary to your long-drawn out wank about updating the 'old' definition of human being in the Criminal Code with modern science, your latest (and I do mean 'late') supporter thinks science is unreliable.

And there, folks, is why M312 is going to be Dead on Arrival.

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.

We Will NOT Go Back

We have a date, April 26, 2012, for a one-hour debate on Stephen Woodwank's Motion 312 on the ever-popular topic of 'When Do Women Lose Their Right to Autonomy'?

The Fetus Fetishists are stoked. More on that in a bit, but first some history, or 'just how long has this been in the works?'

Woodwank, who represents Kitchener-Waterloo, put out a media release on his little notion on December, 21, 2011.

But way back on May 22, 2011 (just after the federal election), the Ontario Knights of Columbus vowed to find and work with an MP to 'introduce a Parliamentary Bill seeking the restoration of full legal protection for the lives of the unborn.' Woodwank is a Knight of Columbus.

On October 23, CTV had a story about an Ontario anti-choice group -- located in Guelph(!) -- launching a campaign called 'We Want the Debate'. It was to be a four-month campaign. Website here.

Four months would take them to mid-February, just around Woodwank's press conference. (I don't know what came of the campaign; I've seen no coverage of it.)

Coincidences? Sure, why not?




Woodwank is now promoting a site called Not Yet Born where you can download and print and harass your neighbours and co-workers with glurge like this.




Nope. No loaded language there, is there?

More reactions from the Fetus Lobby. Faytene of 4 My Canada, a fundy nutbar group, is pumped.

Campaign Lie's got a special-edition website called I Am a Human Being which demonstrates yet again their staunch but mistaken faith that images of miraculous fetal development will change hearts and minds.

When Canada de-criminalized abortion in 1969, technology did not exist to let the world see inside the womb. To a certain extent, abortion advocates in that era of scientific ignorance who honestly believed the unborn was merely a “blob of tissue” might be excused. But thanks to modern microscopic imaging and video technology, we can now see the newly created human being inside the womb.

Pro-tip: Such images have little effect.

In addition to cheerleading and waving around the same old pix, some fetus fanciers are doing happy dances to thoughts of the pro-choicers driven insane by finally having to debate their AWESOME science and logic.

Here's Mrozek.

Should be good–I’m sure a number of pro-choicers will be lighting their hair on fire with the contrived sort of fake anguish that only MPs in the House of Commons can muster.

And sob-brother Kelly McParland.

It’s diabolical. An arrow straight at the deliberate self-deceptions used to justify abortion. Abortion supporters will be up in arms.

In fact, even PMSHithead acknowledges that the debate is 'not the priority of the Canadian people'. (There he goes again, telling us what we think, but twice a day even a broken government clock. . . )

As we've argued countless times here at DJ!, there are a bunch of excellent reasons NOT to reopen the debate.

First, of course, is that the state has no business in the uteri of the nation.

Also. The Fetus Lobby lies, moves goalposts, and just generally argues in bad faith.

And. Most people are sick to death of hearing about it.

But mainly, because WE WON.

The game's afoot nonetheless and here's what could happen. One hour of debate in April, with a bunch of self-selected MPs flapping their gums. Then another hour sometime later and a vote. Simple majority wins and Woodwank gets his loaded committee to hear testimony from a bunch of fetus fetishists and whichever sane people think this is worth their time. Then a report to the House.

After that? Dunno.

First line of resistance is the MPs' debate in April. I'd like pro-choice MPs to stand up and say: 'I refuse to waste the House's time on a settled matter,' and sit down, leaving the floor to a parade of pious, prattling Attack Parrots®. Let Canadians get a load of that.

Ditto for the future debate. Then I want this sucker defeated.

Here's where we have a bit of work to do. Do you know if your MP is anti- or pro-choice? Find out here. Whichever way they roll, let them know you are NOT pleased with time and energy wasted on a settled matter.

Yesterday on Twitter, a few pundits (Kady O'Malley for one) deigned to admonish us pro-choicers as alarmist, over-reacting, yadayada. We were told to consult the numbers. This motion will never pass, they said. Don't worry your purty little heads.

Right. Remember Epp's fetal rights PMB? That passed second fucking reading because we weren't bothering our purdy little heads soon enough and hard enough. Only an election call stopped it. Not us. Nor the MPs.

Not the fucking pundits.

We will NOT get caught with our panties down again.

UPDATE: More Strategery. Like the idea of adopting an anti-choice MP.