Anti-abortion Incrementalism and Death Threats

Why have I not heard of Prairie Dog before? I was alerted to it by a tweet from the astroturf gang Focus on the Family (Canada branch plant). (But more on that in a minute.)

Kelly Malone attended a LifeTour event in Regina and reported on it under the title "Slippery Slopes."

This tour is the work of the Dominionist "We Need a Law" gang -- they of the underground gas line marker displays -- fronted by our old pal Mike Schouten.

Malone outlines the gang's "sneaky" strategy, aka incrementalism.

Rather than fighting for a “perfect law” that would ban all abortions, Schouten outlines three laws he thinks could realistically be passed: first, a ban on late-term abortions (which the presentation didn’t mention are uncommon and only performed when the woman’s life is at risk). Second: a law against sex-selective abortions.

And last but not least? A law for the so-called “pre-born” victims of crime that, conveniently, would enshrine fetal “rights” in law.

Here at DJ! we've written tons on the last two -- not much on the first, because as noted, it doesn't float Canadian boats as it does USian ones. For example, on sex-selective abortion and on "pre-born" victims of crime, aka the failed Bill C-484, and its newer incarnation, Molly's Law.

But back to Focus on the Family. In a blogpost titled "Smart", Mrozek links to the Prairie Dog post and calls it "a fair pro-choice look at a pro-life event." Then she quotes and lauds the first comment.

Hi Prairie Dog! Thanks for a well written article. I’m wondering what were the questionable scientific facts presented at this particular talk? Were you able to either confirm or deny them?

She neglects to remark on the other five (well, four if you discount the repeat) usual hectoring comments from fetus fetishists.

I too linked to Prairie Dog this morning and The Shocker focussed on one of the other more usual comments.

@fernhilldammit "there isn't a pro lifer who wants to see women die" um, there are a lot, the deaths are celebrated on creepy websites

— The Shocker (@fortyfs) October 16, 2015

We who watch the zygote zealots -- precisely because they are sneaky -- know this.

LieShite has many many articles about "heroic" women who declined abortion even in the face of life-threatening illness in order to serve Gawd and produce another orphan. Because, you see, in the fetus fetishist universe, abortion is NEVER necessary to save the life of the incubator woman.

Also, at LieShite, and no doubt other even creepier sites, there are regular celebrations -- really, there is no other word for it -- when ambulances are called to abortion clinics. This is from a search on the site for "ambulance."

The recent #ShoutYourAbortion campaign on Twitter proved it again. Women who participated were variously vilified and frequently threatened with death.

Here's a funny take on those "pro-life" reactions.

"Pro-lifers" frequently wish death on women who abort and people who support their right to do so. That they really think they don't is just another example of their quite terrifying delusion.

FFS: Near Defamation (Is That a Thing?)

This is the blogosphere. I geddit. I can dish it out and and I can take it.

But there are some things that cannot be allowed to stand. Two comments on the Focus on the Family Astroturf Blog (FFAB) fall into this category.

Background first.

Yesterday, I blogged about the Christian Medical and Dental (?) Society's quest to be exempted from new rules requiring physicians (eat your inferiority-complected hearts out, DDSs) to refer patients for treatments that CMDS members find objectionable.

I had what I thought was a simple solution, first voiced on Twitter…

@fernhilldammit I'm sorry but I'm not at liberty to divulge the names of our members.
— CMDS Canada (@CMDSCanada) March 26, 2015

… then again in the blogpost.

Tell us who you are so we can run a mile from you.

As reported yesterday, FFAB called me a hypocrite for asking for names and promising to publish them when I use a pseudonym.

The illogic of that didn't bother me. Neither did the snide remarks about my personality, writing skills, and psychology, both in the blogpost and gleefully added by commenters. (Comments haven't yet descended into speculations about my body hair and weight; they are admirably restraining themselves.)

One commenter though, John Baglow, wondered what the problem was when the intent is clearly to inform potential patients of probable mis-matches between their needs and the medicos' moral capacities.

Two commenters took it upon themselves to respond.

Here's what can't stand -- implications that I intended some kind of harm to come to anti-choice MDs.

Melissa said:

I don’t suppose that naming doctors would be such a bad thing if there weren’t a group of pro-choicers who were dead set on taking them down. But when you have a small group of people (ie the Radical Handmaids) who are committed to taking these doctors down, to bullying these doctors in a media that is quite receptive to the pro-choice cause and quite hostile to the pro-life one. Nobody wants to get caught in one of those smear campaigns, which understandably makes them reluctant to make their names known publicly.

Mary Deutscher said:

If only Fern Hill were naming physicians to help patients avoid them! The fear here is that physicians are being named to be targeted and reprimanded for refusing to harm their patients.

"Dead set on taking them down." "Bullying." "Hostile." "Smear campaigns [!!]". "Fear." "Targeted."

FFS.

I know, I know, I know. It's just typical fetus fetishist self-pity and martyr-card deployment.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure those comments wouldn't qualify as defamation either.

But they are on the path to defamation and I call on FFAB's Andrea Mrozek to disavow herself and her blog from them.

Deletion of them and an apology would be nice but I'm not holding my breath.

I intend to leave a link to this post in a comment at the blog.

UPDATE: As of noon, Saturday, March 28, Andrea Mrozek has not responded. My comment with a link to this post was published though.

UPPITY-DATIER: I woke on Sunday to the comment from Joel Kropf (below) urging me to meet Mrozek and this from her at the Astroturf blog:
"Fern, I’m happy to address anything with you, in person. Invitation for coffee still stands.
PS Since so much is misinterpreted over text/twitter/email, I’ll add this is not a sarcastic comment."

Is it just me or is this getting creepy?

No. I have no interest in meeting Mrozek in person. I want her to address the implication that I intended harm ONLINE. The implication was made ONLINE and needs to be addressed -- if at all -- ONLINE.

Mrozek, you created the opportunity for stupidity to occur. It is your obligation to fix it.

Or not.

My physical presence is not required.

ProWomanProForcedPregnancy Is a Total Stand-Alone (Astroturf) Organization

In a recent blogpost about March for Lies being such a good teachable moment for young women to learn slut-shaming and sanctimonious judgement, we mentioned that the original article by Amanda Watson seems to have struck a nerve with those professional female slut-shamers over at ProWomanProForcedPregnancy.

They responded with their lie protest that they are NOT affiliated with other organizations.

You be the judge. The principal is Andrea Mrozek. Here's her day job.

Andrea currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.

But PWPFP is not owned or affiliated with James Dobson's loathesome Focus on the Family, they say.

Seems opinions differ on that.

Focus on the Family Canada (French: Objectif Famille) is a Canadian affiliate of the American evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family.
. . .

Focus on the Family Canada is operated and directed independently of Focus on the Family USA.[citation needed] However, some ties do exist between the two organizations. Between 2000 and 2003, the Canadian affiliate received $1.6 million in services from the larger American organization. Two members on the board of directors of Focus on the Family Canada, Tom Mason and Jim Daly, are also vice-presidents of Focus on the Family in the United States. Other than receiving financial support from Focus on the Family USA between 2000 and 2003, Focus on the Family Canada relies fully on donor support for its operations.
. . .
Focus on the Family Canada has also established the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada/Institut du Mariage et de la Famille Canada (IMFC).

It's all just a big coincidence that Mrozek moonlights as the principal of an astroturf anti-abortion website.

Make sense to you?

ADDED: In addition to Mrozek, at least four other of The Women make their livings at least in part from anti-choice activities/careers.

Faye Sonier

Faye joined The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada as Legal Counsel. She practices constitutional and human rights law, with a special focus on freedom of religion and sanctity of human life issues.

Deborah Mullan

In March she finally secured a very part-time job as the office manager for the Victoria Right to Life Society.

Natalie Hudson Sonnen

Natalie is now the executive director of LifeCanada, a national pro-life organization based out of Ottawa.

Véronique Bergeron

Currently employed as an assistant to a federal Member of Parliament, Véronique Bergeron is also teaches biomedical ethics to Masters students at St-Paul University in Ottawa.

That MP would be anti-choice Pierre Lemieux and St-Paul University is the pontifical arm of the University of Ottawa.

While bloggers at DAMMIT JANET! are not 'anonymous' as charged, but rather pseudonymous with long-established online personae, not a single one of us makes a nickel from our pro-choice writing and activism.

On Pseudonyms

A couple of days ago, Andrea Mrozek, the faux feministe, mused on why pro-choice bloggers and commenters do not use their real names. She thought it might have to do with employment. You know, because Canada is such right-wing nut-job country, pro-choice people would be shunned. Or something. (Delusional much, Andrea?)

SUZY's 24-hour Fetus Fest took a more confrontational position.

The social consensus on legal abortion is so strong,that they have to hide behind a pseudonym to say what they say. #irony

I also think they're anonymous so they can spew any kind of libel they want about pro-lifers without fearing any legal consequences.

In other words, they're cowards. They don't have the guts to stand by their words.

http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/07/prolifeprowoman-asks-why-are-so-many.html

I commented at both blogs, citing small concerns about rape threats, stalking, murder, arson, and terrorism fetus fetishists are so quick to resort to.

Read the comments. I won't recount them here. It's the usual BS.

One thing amused me. Mrozek responded to my taunt about not having to worry what an employer thinks when one is paid by them to blog.

Her reply.

Andrea Mrozekon 13 Jul 2012 at 9:10 am
Oh, and please let the record stand. I don’t get paid to blog. When I started ProWomanProLife of my own free will, instigation, idea, I specifically told my employer that it would be independent of work, and they didn’t want to be affiliated with it, either. This was important to me, because I did not want to need to confirm, ever, anything, with a higher up.

From her bio:

Andrea currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.

What is that, you ask?

It's a creature of Focus on the Family Canada, 'a Canadian affiliate of the American evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family'.

The organization has funded efforts in the courts and in its media broadcasts to help "preserve traditional values and the institution of the family." It has focused its efforts on the following areas: same-sex marriage (and homosexuality in general), abortion, pornography, premarital sex and child discipline. Focus on the Family supports the continued legality of spanking as a form of discipline for children.

Focus on the Family Canada has also established the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada/Institut du Mariage et de la Famille Canada (IMFC). The IMFC is located in Ottawa, Ontario, near Parliament Hill, where the staff conduct and compile social policy research from Canada and around the world. The IMFC’s mission is "to positively influence public opinion and promote public policy that values human life, the pre-eminence of marriage and the institution of the family." Its involvement in social issues is not limited to activism, as it has intervened in court cases such as one case in 1999 where it supported denying same-sex couples the right to apply for alimony from one another. The organization had intervenor status in the precedent setting case of Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (Attorney General), in which the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the legality of child spanking in Canada.

So, while there may not be a box labelled 'anti-choice blogging hours' on her pay stub, it's pretty clear her blog fits rather con-veeeeniently into her employer's mission.

And I do mean mission.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Wouldn't be a hoot if Mrozek were, let's say, *dissembling* in her day job and is actually, secretly pro-choice? Maybe I am Andrea Mrozek. Maybe deBeauxOs is Andrea Mrozek. Maybe ALL Canadian pseudonymous pro-choice bloggers are Andrea Mrozek!


UPPITITY DATE: JJ has some thoughts on the subject.

Fun with Fetus Fetishists

Me, I'm bored with SUZY CAPSLOCK. http://www.bigbluewave.ca/ And not just because of HER juvenile habit of redirecting any links to HER blog to fetal pr0n sites (hence, plain text url). Sure, SHE is occasionally hilarious, but mostly just boring, not to mention ponderously Catlick.

Now we haven't exactly ignored the 'new wave' of anti-choice/anti-feminist sites like Signal Hill, aka ProLife BC, and ProWoman ProLife, but I intend to pay more attention to them, starting a little while ago with PWPL's endorsement of the abusive, violent, father's rights guy Greg Fultz, aka The Billboard Guy.

These new wave efforts (mostly) eschew the old blame the sluts women, they-should-keep-their-legs-together, religious/legal approach. Instead, they adopt a treacly concern for women, maintaining that abortion 'harms' women.

PWPL is more interesting than Signal Hill/ProLife BC because it tries a lot harder to pretend that it is a real blog and not an astroturfed initiative by a fundy religious group.

It claims that its goal is not legal recriminalization of abortion but moral and logical suasion. Its motto is 'Canada without abortion. By choice.' (Note co-option of our language; there's a lot of that.)

From the site's The Story page:

…Pro-woman because we are pro-life…

The idea that abortion is a woman’s right was always just an opinion. There’s no basis in law, in logic or in our constitution. And there’s certainly no basis in early feminist thought.

The early feminist thought bit is true. Early feminists were, sensibly, more concerned with voting and property rights than reproductive rights. First things first, after all. Margaret Sanger was herself anti-abortion, a fact antichoicers omit when they are excoriating her for her (quite progressive at the time) views on eugenics.

More from The Story:

The idea for ProWomanProLife was developed by founding director Andrea Mrozek. “It’s not a woman’s right to have an abortion,” says Mrozek. “There’s no such thing as a right to an abortion, not for women, not for men. It doesn’t contribute to women’s rights and freedoms at all, because having an abortion is, put simply, not a right.”

That's a bit twisty, innit? Doesn't contribute to rights and freedoms because it's not a right? Well, if one considers bodily integrity and autonomy a right -- as sane people do -- then it bloody well is a right.

More:

* ProWomanProLife is a home for all women who believe that being pro-life is compatible with women’s rights and freedoms.

Trans: PWPL is for women with the ability to hold diametrically opposed opinions at the same time.

* ProWomanProLife celebrates women’s legitimate choices, freedoms and rights.

Trans: 'Legitimate' as our lords and masters decide.

* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is bad for women and that women will be integral in removing abortion from our cultural landscape.

Trans: For 'bad', see 'legitimate' above.
DJ!: Fine, remove it from 'cultural landscape', whatever that may be, as long as it is left in the medical landscape.

* ProWomanProLife desires to bring an end to abortion, not by coercion, but by choice.

Trans: See? We worked the magic word 'choice' in again.

* ProWomanProLife believes abortion is a human, social issue, not a religious or faith matter, whereby women and men of any faith or no faith at all can stand up in support of women’s rights and life, at the same time.

DJ!: That's just a great big porky pie. See below.

* ProWomanProLife understands the fetus is a new and unique human being from conception, separate from, though dependent on, the woman.
* ProWomanProLife believes that the fetus is deserving of protection.

Trans: We reserve the right to display gory fetal pr0n anytime we get backed into a corner.

Here's the porky: From The Women section:

Andrea [Mrozek] currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.

That Institute is the wholly owned subsidiary of the evangelical, Xian Focus on the Family.

Focus on the Family Canada is "committed to helping families thrive." Its mission is to "encourage and strengthen the Canadian family through education and resources based on Christian principles"; its purpose is to "love God and our neighbours by serving Canadian families and encouraging them to pursue a growing relationship with Jesus Christ"; and its guiding principles include the preeminence of evangelism, permanence of marriage, the value of children, the sanctity of human life, the relationship of church, family and government.

The other Women are painted as young, dynamic career women, who just care so darn much about (benighted) other women that they devote their spare time to propagandizing against promoting women's rights. Short of the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, natch.

Since they're all about respectful dialogue, yadayada, they are not so quick with the 'delete comment' button. I've posted comments, usually with pertinent links and usually ignored, over there. Viz, their Billboard Guy post. And Mrozek's belated and evasive response.

More recently, I chimed in on their latest attempt to appear relevant, in this case on the Saudi women's campaign to drive.

Commenting on true infringements of women’s rights is something PWPL likes to do.

'True' infringements like a ban on driving. In a Muslim country, note. Many more 'true infringements', in their view, seem to occur in Muslim places than Western places, but no matter about that.

Another new post over there (sorta) takes on the gender imbalance caused by sex-selective abortion in some parts of the world. Just to show you how serious they are, they quote Kathy Shaidle who SHRIEEEKS about how such an imbalance is imminent in Toronto because of all the -- you guessed it -- Muslim immigrants.

Anti-feminists/fetus fetishists love sex-selective abortion. They consider it the ultimate Gotcha! If feminists defend it, Gotcha! The evul feminazis are condoning killing 'unborn women' (no shit, that's how they refer to female embryos). If feminists don't condone it, Gotcha! Evul feminazis believe there should be some restrictions on abortion. If feminists don't address it, Gotcha! Haul out the 'where are the feminists?' refrain. (There is a new book about this generating some comment. I'm working on a response.)

So. An invitation from DJ! to like-minded readers: pop over there occasionally. Leave a (respectful) comment, with irritating links to facty-sciency stuff.

Let's show them some love.

Maybe a coupla iterations of the 'you know, you DON'T speak for me' refrain that anti-feminists love to throw at feminists wouldn't be outta line either.

(It's gonna be a loooong four years of The Harper Regime. I'm trying to find some fun where I can.)

Mrozek Speaks!

Last Friday, I blogged about the support by Andrea Mrozek of ProWoman ProLife for the vicious, lying, coercive, abusive, violent, and short-eyed Greg Fultz, he of billboard infamy.

Mrozek said he had 'gumption'. She did not do her homework. His apparent 'prolife' stance and typically 'prolife' in-your-face-bitch tactics were good enough for her.

I left some links at her place, which were stoutly ignored by her and her minions. A few other sane people chimed in and the discussion became truly bizarre, with one guy insisting that Gord doesn't make mistakes and that there is no such thing as a 'natural' miscarriage.

Still Mrozek lalalalala-ed, except for a short appearance in the comments here to tut-tut at ck for her complaint that she was banned from PWPL.

Today, Mrozek breaks her silence to tut-tut at everyone.

I deeply regret not noticing how thoroughly out of control comments on this post had gotten. I don’t support the individual who made the billboard. Women have natural miscarriages all the time, and it has nothing to do with abortion.
Comments closed. Everyone gets a time out, in my books, for being perfectly, totally and utterly ridiculous.
Andrea

No apology for shoddy blogging. Just blaming the commenters.

Gord doesn't make mistakes. And neither do fetus fetishists.

On Bandwagon Jumping

About this billboard, Andrea Mrozek at ProWoman ProLife (gag) wrote:

A man puts up a billboard following his girlfriend’s (EX-girlfriend’s) abortion:

The sign on Alamogordo’s main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, “This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!”

Think about it. The man lost his child, a person he would have valued deeply, a person of great personal significance. Every abortion is about one person’s life, and that life is connected to aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers and friends.

On a bad day, if I were this man, I think I’d put up a billboard, too. And my other thought is God Bless America, for having people with gumption like this.

On the original sign, it was 'Created For: N.A.N.I.', a fictional organization whose initials stood for, he said, National Association of Needed Information. Funny thing though, the girlfriend's name is Nani Lawrence.

The original also had a reference to Right to Life New Mexico. (GEFNET is his own company.)

But they backed away from their initial sponsorship.

Being a little closer to the action, maybe RtLNM knew something about the guy.

Oh. Look. He's not just a vindictive shithead, he's a violent, abusive shithead.

Ms Lawrence, who has maintained a very low profile during the shitstorm, took him to court for harassment and violation of her privacy. Fultz countered with the racist and misogynist stand-by 'FREE SPEECH!!!'. That trial may progress, but in the interim, the judge ordered him to take the billboard down. Which, surprise, he has not done.

Now, his ex-wife, Jennifer, has weighed in. On Twitter, she is threatening to expose 'all of the police reports and dirty laundry from [their] marriage'.

Jennifer also claims that at the time they first got together, she was merely 16, while he was 23. Hmmm, one of the evil sides being painted of Greg has been that he has a tendency for young girls. Some even claim he stalked a 13-year-old girl on the family friendly gaming site Neopets.

By the way, Fultz himself says he doesn't know if Ms Lawrence had an abortion or a miscarriage as she claims.

Truth in advertising? Piff.

So, Andrea, are you still backing this lying, violent, misogynist, vindictive short-eyed creep?

Well, heck, I guess if you're 'pro-woman pro-life' ya gotta dance with the guy what brought ya.

ADDED: The creep has a hashtag now: GregFultzIsACreep.

Pet-Pee

This was predictable. The convergence of the arrogantly sexist authoritarian marketing campaign with soft-pedaling, dissembling authoritarian believers.

Support for reproductive choice by women who are grandmothers, mothers, adolescent girls, women from all ethnic and religious backgrounds becomes this:

Women are told by old-school feminists and, too often, their own family members, that killing their unborn child is a valid “choice.”

Now there's text-book spin, aka disinformation, written with the intent to distort facts and reality to suit an ideological imperative. The PWPL crew is rabidly anti-abortion. No one is forcing any of them to have an abortion. Yet they would deprive all other women of the choice to carry or not carry a pregnancy to term.

But you know what? In spite of their high-and-mighty judgmental position with regard to other women's life choices, DAMMIT JANET! generously offers them a graphic for their t-shirts, in the same spirit of sisterhood that PWPL demonstrates.

And now for something completely different: a feel-good story from Silicone Valley North.

An Ottawa couple who works together helps others play nicely together. Very, very, very nicely together in fact.

Standard Innovation Corp.'s first product, the We-Vibe vibrator, has sold 55,000 units worldwide since it was released last spring.

Bruce and Melody Murison, both former Nortel employees, launched their "research and design" company after Murison was laid off from the now-struggling telecommunications technology giant five years ago.

Bruce Murison, who worked as a Nortel engineer for more than a decade, said the We-Vibe was designed from an engineer's perspective. The 60-gram silicone device is U-shaped and is the product of six years and $500,000 worth of research and development.

"This is, to me, not a sex toy. It's an electromechanical device," he said. "We truly look at it from a scientific point of view; in terms of plotting the x-y charts of power versus performance, versus the third dimension of the human dynamic: What frequencies do women like?"

Indeed. The buzz about the We-Vibe from local erotic emporium Venus Envy is glowing. Last December Diva Magazine pronounced the We-Vibe one of the essential items for today's well-equipped, technologically-savvy woman. Even a New York Times story about sex toys leads with a glowing endorsement of the We-Vibe.

Let me emphasize, for the benefit of the reading and/or comprehension-impaired gals at ProWomanProLife that unlike the meaning they twisted from Joyce Arthur's words, sex for pleasure includes (though not limited to) married couples (same sex or hetero).

In The Mood ....

If Dennis Prager is married (his recent whining and carping about sex-on-demand for men makes one wonder about his marital status) I really feel sorry for his wife. But that remains for her to sort out with him. If he's married. Still.

For the sake of balance, DAMMIT JANET! will provide married men (yeah, you too Dennis, if it applies) with some advice about getting women "in the mood".

Do housework. Serious housework. Cheerfully. Efficiently. Diligently. Every week. Not as a reward for sex, but as an enticement.

Nothing gets a woman in the mood faster than watching a man sweat over a kitchen floor, getting it squeaky clean.

Finally, avoid marrying one of those ProWomanProLife gals. Their advice to women, regarding married sex is probably that women should "Close your eyes and think of England". One of them supports the notion that only casual sex is pleasurable sex. I really feel sorry for her husband.

Rod Bruinooge Is Brilliant. No. Really.

As if we needed any more reasons to demonstrate why we emphatically do NOT need to debate the forced-pregnancy gang. . .

They are maroons. Dig this from the Ottawa Citizen:

In Canada, he explained, there are many more legal obstacles to selling your kidneys than there are to killing your unborn child. So, he said, "The bottom line is that people like myself are not going to stop until, at the very least, unborn children have more value than a Canadian kidney."

It's a brilliant line. We wish we'd thought of it ourselves.

h/t to Mike in the comments here.