Ontario College of Slut-Shaming and Reproductive Misinformation

We know how scared the fetus freaks are by how loudly they SHRIIIEEEK in idiotically inflated language.

So, congratulations to the latest study of crisis pregnancy centres (CPCs), aka fake clinics, in Ontario. You've scared them witless. Again.

Here's the most recent in a long, long series of efforts to document the lies, manipulation, and shaming these evil outfits mete out. (In this oldish blogpost are links to a few of the countless other studies and investigations.)

To absolutely no one's surprise, this is what researchers found:

Crisis pregnancy centres, which most people know from transit ads or campus posters, are pathologizing and stigmatizing women who reach out to them after an abortion, according to a new study.

Or, in the words of the abstract:

Conclusions: The expanded provision of post-abortion support by CPCs in Ontario represents a new method for these organizations to pathologize abortion. Our findings suggest their services are judgmental and shaming, thereby contributing to abortion stigma.

(The terrible photographs in the National Post article are in themselves a testament to society-wide anti-choice judgment and shaming. Why not show photos of "post-abortive" women doing things like, gee, I dunno, eating an ice-cream cone, going for a bike ride, laughing with friends.)

Here is LieShite's operatic, no, make that Shakespearean, response.

A new report in a journal with the telling name “Contraception” has concluded that Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs) in Ontario treat abortion as if it were something more than having a wart removed and that the counseling found at such centers only contributes to “abortion stigma” by using “judgmental and shaming” techniques.

Titled “Toll free but not judgment free: Evaluating post-abortion support services in Ontario,” the report is from beginning to end nothing but pro-abortion propaganda written by pro-abortion activists. It appears to have the goal of silencing pro-life counsellors who recognize that a living human being exists in a mother’s womb and that when a mother kills her own child it will eventually come back to haunt her.

Note typical scare quotes and co-option of progressive language. Not to mention fetuses haunting former hosts.

It gets better -- or worse, depending on your viewpoint.

For example, did you know that Lady Macbeth had an abortion?

Killing another person always damages the soul of the killer, whether the victim is a full grown adult, a child, or a baby in the womb. Shakespeare expressed this well in the character of Lady Macbeth, who, for all her ambition, cunning, and strength of will, eventually cracked after masterminding the coldblooded murder of the king. Through her display of psychological disorders and gradual loss of reason Shakespeare offered a severe warning to anyone who deliberately acts to bring blood upon their own hands.

OK, maybe Lady Macbeth didn't have an abortion, but a fictitious character's reaction to regicide is totally pertinent to a discussion about fake clinics in Ontario, right?

If you don't want to read the whole hysterical dumbfuck article, here is a selection of words and phrases used to describe the researchers, the report, and "post-abortive women" in general:

• axe to grind
• nauseating
• sick and twisted
• post-abortive women are truly broken
• lives have been damaged and even ruined by abortion
• self-hatred

Stigmatizing? Nah, who's stigmatizing self-hating, nauseating, sick and twisted, truly broken people here?

The real evil, according to LieShite, is, of course, the researchers.

It’s as if the authors of this report want to lock post-abortive women in a lifetime of guilt and regret by taking away from them the only resources that actually help them come to terms with the pain experienced after abortion. This is not helpful to women. This is simply cruelty and torture.

Let's go back to the abstract for what those evil researchers had to say about the implications of their work.

IMPLICATIONS: Post-abortion support services appear to be a new frontier by which CPCs are able to stigmatize and pathologize abortion. Increasing awareness of and access to existing non-judgmental, non-directive post-abortion services appears warranted.

Because, of course, there are existing non-judgmental services available. But there needs to be more done here, everyone agrees.

Ontario should look to Quebec, researcher Kathryn J. LaRoche said.

“In Quebec, the government has come out with materials denouncing crisis pregnancy centres and saying that they provide false information and lie to their clients,” she said.

I'd go further. But then I would, wouldn't I?

Ontario should regulate crisis pregnancy centres. If they're pretending to offer health care, they deserve as much attention as other outright quackery.

Let there be a College of Slut-Shaming and Reproductive Misinformation, like the College of Homeopaths of Ontario.

Wouldn't their Code of Ethics be fun?

World War on Women

Women's rights are in peril again -- now in the UK too.

The new Minister for Women, Maria Miller, who has the gall to call herself 'a very modern feminist', wants to lower the legal abortion limit from 24 to 20 weeks.

Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May also back a reduction to 20 weeks.

And now the new Minister of Health, Jeremy Hunt, is going even further. He wants to lower the limit to 12 weeks.

Note that this Minister of Health backs homeopathy, or as a science blogger put it, 'he believes in magic'.

And of course there, as here, women's rights are considered a frippery, subject to a free fucking vote.

And there, as here, women's rights are always open for negotiation. Abortion came up in the 2010 election, not long after a similar reduction in the time limit was voted down in 2008 but only because Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman, whipped her party members, demonstrating again why people call her Harriet Hardwoman.

To add insult to injury, 40 Days of Harassment has slithered across the pond. Abortion clinics are under siege from Christian nutters, who learned from their USian counterparts.

This is at least the second year the UK has been invaded by clinic harassers. Last year I started following someone calling herself @40daysoftreats, who countered the fetus fetishists' efforts by encouraging people to bring treats for clinic workers and patients. Insults outside, Jammie Dodgers inside.

Natch, the Brits are appalled. There, as here, sane people watch what's going in the USian War on Women in slack-jawed wonder, thinking: 'That can't possibly happen here'.

Oh yeah?

The UK rightly prides itself on its abortion law. It's been legal there since 1967, albeit with some conditions.

Conditions that sane people would like to see liberalized, not CONservatized.

Viz, the first comment here by Josh Kutchinsky.

UK law should be brought in line with that of Canada in relation to abortion, i.e. repealed so as to decriminalise abortion.

I am more pro-life than many who usurp the name but not the meaning. I would provide good sex and relationships education. I would provide support and counselling. I would provide contraceptives and knowledge as to how to use them properly. This is how to reduce all abortions not just control some in order to increase the number of back street ones or encourage self administered procedures. Numbers of foetuses aborted would be reduced, number of women dying reduced, number of unwanted, malnourished, sick and dying children reduced. Respect for women as autonomous human beings to be treated with dignity and equality and not patronised and infantalised would be much increased. That's really pro-life.

Yep. That's what I would call pro-life too.


ADDED: A call to arms from a British blogger, who warns that anti-choice will win if pro-choicers aren't prepared. A lesson we've learned well in Canada,eh?