Will Zygote Zealots Rule at the Con Con?

Back in July, Le Devoir disclosed that members of the Québec CPC were unanimously opposed to a resolution that was presented in the slate of policy resolutions for discussion and ratification at the November convention.

Some party members from the West have inserted a proposition to integrate Bill C-484 into the Conservative platform. C-484 is a law that would recognise the fetus in a case where a pregnant mother is murdered. In such a case, the murderer would be charged with two murders instead of one. This is, in fact and despite what the bill itself says, a backdoor way to outlaw abortion because it
recognises the fetus as a legal person. It isn’t a far step to go from that to claiming the termination of the fetus in an abortion to be murder as well. And this isn’t just an over-reaction, similar laws in the United States have led to the outlawing of abortion in certain jurisdictions.

From here.

In the interval between then and now, Stevie and his Harpocrites threw Ken Epp and his Bill C-484 under the bus in a miscalculated bid to placate Québec voters and remove any obstacle to their desired majority rule. Now it has been revealed that a modified version of C-484 is among the hundreds of resolutions up for approval next week at the Con Con.

Is anyone actually surprised? I hope that there are fireworks and MASSIVE confrontations between the fundamentalist religious Cons and the pro-choice Cons.

First posted at Birth Pangs.

Onward Christian Soldiers to the RepubliCon Convention

Among the pages and pages of policy resolutions that the Con rank-and-file members will be considering for approval at their convention in Winnipeg next week there’s this:

PROTECTING CANADA’S HEALTH AND SAFETY Policy Floor Resolutions - Conservative Convention 2008 RESOLUTION P-118 … Foreign Affairs Principles i) The Conservative Party supports a foreign policy that protects Canada’s sovereignty and independence, promotes our national interests (political, economic and strategic), contributes to collective security and defence, promotes democratic principles and human rights, and assists in international development. ii) A Conservative Government will recognize the importance of an ethical dimension in foreign policy and will advance the values broadly supported by Canadians. iii) A Conservative Government will coordinate Canada’s international relations, trade and foreign aid policies to advance the country’s economic interests while promoting human rights and individual freedom. iv) A Conservative Government will integrate our foreign policy with policies on trade and national defence. Foreign Policy Social Values Proposed by Ottawa-Vanier: iii) A Conservative Government will coordinate Canada’s international relations, trade and foreign aid policies to advance the country’s economic interests and social values, while promoting human rights and individual freedom.

Those who can hear the dog whistle know that from so-cons, the expression “social values” is RepubliCon-speak for no-choice, anti-contraception and anti-abortion. It is no accident that this resolution came from the Ottawa-Vanier riding Cons where a number of fundamentalist organizations and associations have established residency, including the National House of Prayer.

First posted at Birth Pangs.

Teen pregnancy: no longer shameful, still a concern.

It may be that the intense media visibility awarded to Bristol Palin’s unintended pregnancy will bring about a shift in public attitudes towards teen’s sex education.

Sarah Palin’s extreme and fundamentalist views on sex education, rape, and recently, on bombing abortion clinics have given these issues prominence in the US presidential election campaign. A successful fund raising initiative for Planned Parenthood in the US was launched by email. Thousands of thank you cards were sent to the Republican VP candidate in acknowledgement of her pivotal role in provoking US citizens to donate to Planned Parenthood.

Shortly after Palin’s nomination, e-mails began circulating suggesting that pro-choice women make donations to Planned Parenthood in her honor. As of this week, Planned Parenthood has received more than 40,000 donations in Palin’s name, totaling more than $1 million.

And tabloids reported that Jamie Lynn Spears may have unintentionally become pregnant again. Regardless of whether the rumour is founded or not, the public reaction seems to indicate that nobody believes in that quaint saying ‘Ignorance is bliss’ any longer. Even the young yet wise-cracking Juno took responsibility for her mistake and took charge of her choice.

A sensible, well-informed young woman observed the media frenzy around the Palin and Spears unintended pregnancies and wrote a well-researched article about concerns regarding adolescent sexuality.

Every year in the U.S, over one million teenagers become pregnant. Most recently, pregnant teens have flooded Planned Parenthood health centers. Last year, Planned Parenthood centers provided sex education to 1.2 million teens and adults. This year will yield roughly 750,000 pregnant teenage girls, which is a number 12 times more than that of people diagnosed with AIDS in 2008, as well as the total number of persons expected to die from some form of cancer this year.

In regards to percentages, this averages out to about 11 percent of all U.S. children being birthed by teens this year. By the time a teen has reached the age of 19, seven in ten teens have experienced at least one sexual encounter. … It is important that sex education be definitely enforced within schools and should not only approach the idea of sex and teens from an abstinence-only standpoint. According to an analysis of more than 115 studies researched by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy (NC), teen sex education programs proved ineffective when including only abstinence-only material, by which teens were neither encouraged nor influenced to abstain or delay sex until a more age-appropriate time.

According to Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, effective sex education is based on “medically accurate information” that is both abstinence-based and also teaches contraception and proper sex initiation, which has proven to be more effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies. Richards argues that for the past eight years, roughly $1.5 billion or more of taxpayers’ money has been “wasted” on ineffective abstinence-only programs. Richards also demands that education and initiation of sex education must change with the next administration because the current policies have proven unsuccessful. “When it comes to sexuality education, there should be no debate. The only way our children can be prepared is to be informed; this isn’t about ideology, it’s about the health and safety of our kids.”

First posted at Birth Pangs

No-choicer bombast falls short of risking tax-exempt status.

In Colorado, a Catholic clergyman attacked US presidential candidate Obama and his running mate at the Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women dinner. Archbishop Chaput also took the opportunity to criticize liberal Catholic groups as well as the Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec who recently endorsed Obama.

Many members of Catholics for Choice in the US believe in a broad definition of pro-life which includes opposition to war and the death penalty as well as support for those principles associated historically with the Catholic worker movement: eradicating poverty and promoting social justice. Their president Jon O’Brien issued a statement:

“The fact sheet from the bishops’ lobbying arm, the Committee on Pro-Life Activities, reaffirms the US bishops’ desire to place themselves at the center of the political discussion on abortion. However, in doing so, they do not reflect the fullness of Catholic teaching on abortion, nor do they represent
what Catholics actually believe. It is simply not true that the Roman Catholic church’s position on abortion has remained unchanged for 2,000 years.

While members of the Catholic hierarchy have consistently opposed abortion, their reasons for doing so and the teachings they espoused to the faithful have varied continually. … It is also telling that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops omitted to mention that no pope has proclaimed the
prohibition of abortion an ‘infallible’ teaching. This means that there is much more room for debate than is usually thought, with opinions among theologians and the laity differing widely. In any case,
Catholic theology tells individuals to follow their personal conscience in moral matters, even when their conscience is in conflict with hierarchical views.

The reality that the bishops are trying to overcome is that the majority of Catholics do not agree with them on abortion, or on their role in political life.”

More at Catholics In Public Life.

Wendy Norris writes about the Bishop’s dinner screed for the Colorado Independent:

… Chaput was sure to point out that his remarks were offered as a private citizen and not as a representative of the diocese at the dinner for Catholic women. The Internal Revenue Service has been cracking down on clergy for breaching the law that prohibits tax-exempt religious groups from making statements supporting or opposing political candidates.

Indeed. So it may not require hell freezing over, more likely the icy gaze of the IRS to make sure a certain religious cleric refrains from meddling in election campaigns, for fear of having his status and privileges go kaput?

First posted at Birth Pangs.

Palin attacks choice, yet offers nothing to families.

Does this sound familiar? An all-out attack on choice, framed by a fetus fetishist who offers nothing in support of pregnant women and families.

Sarah Palin attacked the Democrats’ presidential candidate once again at a rally in Pennsylvania yesterday, this time for his position on choice.

Speaking at a rally in a packed hockey arena in Johnstown, Palin accused Obama of consistently supporting abortion legislation as a legislator in Illinois and Washington. ”In times like these with wars and financial crisis, I know it may be easy to forget even as deep and abiding concern as a right to life, and it seems that our opponent will forget that,” Palin told about 6,000 supporters in
the arena. “He hopes you won’t notice how radical, absolutely radical, his ideas on this and his record is until it’s too late.” … ”Americans need to see his record for what it is,” Palin said. “And, please, it is not negative, it is not mean-spirited, to talk about his record.”

For the record, here is some information about the Republican and the Democrat platforms regarding support to families.

McCain lacks an articulated family-policy platform, a consistent view on women’s issues, and a perspective on government’s role vis-à-vis children beyond the walls of the schoolhouse. Obama, on the other hand, has well-defined plans for tackling teenage pregnancy, expanding early-childhood education, improving child-support collection, and - importantly - supporting new families as they step into the uncertain terrain of parenthood.The American family is a fragile institution. High rates of poverty, divorce, single parenthood and social isolation exaggerate the typical strains of parenting. As a result, the United States has one of the highest child maltreatment rates among industrialized nations, and generations of children are raised under difficult and sometimes traumatic circumstances.

Against this backdrop, the United States provides few services to support new families. Unlike many European countries, we do not offer universal paid parental leave, universal child care, universal health care, or universal income supports. … Low-income families, in particular, can have a better shot at parenting their children well if given intensive support before, and after, the birth of their child. … If elected, Obama’s initial steps into the field of family policy would signal an important shift in federal policymaking. But it would provide more than a signal to low-income parents. For them and for their children, it might offer a real lifeline to a better future.

From here.

First posted at Birth Pangs

The advantages of abortion: the Cons and C-484

On August 25th - shortly before calling this election - Stephen Harper shoved his low-profile Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson into the media spotlight:

to introduce a government-sanitized version of that bill to protect “pregnant
women” and not dwell on references to “unborn children”.

It was

Stevie and the Harpocrites’ way of removing the albatross that Ken Epp inadvertently hung around his party’s neck. No way the Cons were heading into a fall election, with freshly declared opposition to C-484 still breaking in the news.

One could call this tactic a political abortion; though C-484 had cleared its first and second reading, it was never allowed a complete gestation period. Yes folks, Stephen Harper aborted Bill C-484 in its symbolic ‘third trimester’ because it was politically expedient to do so.

Call them culture-killers, crime-fighters or mediabashers and they would happily cop a guilty plea, but being tagged as anti-abortion is the last label the Conservatives want plastered on their re-election resume. … While he described the need for the bill as “urgent”, Mr. Nicholson ducked repeated questions to produce statistics on the number of fetal assaults in Canada.

And if there was any doubt this move was election driven and not a legislative priority, he could not produce a text of the proposed bill, background documentation to explain the legislation or provide a date when, if ever, it would be introduced in the Commons. “We’re bringing forward a bill that makes a very clear statement on where this government stands,” was all he would say. Translation:
Nowhere near abortion.

MASSIVE public demonstrations against C-484 continue (5000 in Montréal); the aborted Bill has become a symbol for the secretive, prevaricating, manipulative and optics-controlling maneuvers of the Conservatives. Read more.

First posted at Birth Pangs.

The right to choose to give life.

JJ writes about the Blob Blogging Wingnut’s most recent post. While BBW might not personally be a white supremacist, she projects the zygote zealots’ own double standard onto those who support the right to choose.
Birth Pangs addressed that slimy sleight-of-hand argument last year, in The Putrid Smell of Opportunism. Here’s the irony: BBW claims higher moral ground with a specious attempt to equate no-choice supporters with abolitionists. Yet, when one reads anti-abortion, pronatalist comments at right-wing discussion boards, one notes their rabid, braying fear and hatred of black, brown and beige-skinned hordes who, it is claimed, breed more than people of pallour.

Here’s one typical racist pronatalist opinion piece:

On the May 11 edition of Fox News’ The Big Story, host John Gibson advised viewers during the “My Word” segment of his program to “do your duty. Make more babies.” He then cited a May 10 article, which reported that nearly half of all children under the age of five in the United States are minorities. Gibson added: “By far, the greatest number of children under five are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic.”

And then, there are BBW’s no-choice allies at Freaked Minions who rant obsessively about the fact that many First Nations and Muslim people have big families while most of European descent do not.

In the comments that follow BBW’s blogpost, Christina shows her bias: “That “clump of cells” is a highly organized and sophisticated organism. Without any input from the outside, it will develop into a fully-formed newborn. Everything necessary for the adult is present in that clump of cells — all it needs is time, nutrition, and a hospitable environment.”

Scientists have attempted to grow embryonic cells outside a woman’s womb, eventually they fail to thrive and develop. A pregnant woman is more than a vessel or “a hospitable environment” for fertilized ova. Pregnancy is complex: a psychological and physiological, synergetic life-giving process. The choice to give life - or the inability to do so - is equally complex.

No-choice says that it is immoral for a woman to refuse to give life.

Pro-choice says that it is immoral to force a woman to bear a pregnancy that was unintended and unwanted or that may in some circumstances, kill her.

Finally, BBW: you keep whining that feminists won’t debate you on your circumscribed playing field, where the term you use to describe the choice to terminate a pregnancy is “murder”. While that’s a belief you have the right to hold, it is not mine. I do not choose to use your subjective, pronatalist and thus racist terms to discuss a woman’s right to choose to give life.

First posted at Birth Pangs.

Support from the post-dead

It all makes sense, in some religious fundamentalist parallel universe where no-choicers can lay claim to represent the interests of the pre-born and the post-dead. First, some folks claimed to channel the will of deceased holders of the Order of Canada by returning the snowflake medal in their name.

Now, JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie blogs about the petition that Lifeshite has set up to gather comments and signatures from the world at large. And just look at the famous supporter they have attracted:

“As the man who created Decree 770 in Romania, I would like to add my name to your wonderful petition. We can learn from my country’s history how beneficial it is to completely control women’s fertility and reproduction. I hope your country is preparing uterine forensic examiners for all miscarriages, as well as fertility police to force women to have a urinalysis each month to monitor for blessed pregnancy.” - Nicolae Ceaucescu

Now there’s the spirit! Who knew that Hell facilitated and upheld all Internet traditions?

First posted at Birth Pangs.

No-choice/No-brainer divide at Con Convention

It may come as a surprise to those unfamiliar with the history of Québec, but within the ranks of the Conservative Party of Canada, there is steadfast support for choice from that province’s party members. And it may lead to a confrontation in November at the CPC convention, if the delegates representing the old Reform party constituency, aka Western fundamentalist interests, present a motion in favour of changing the legal status of a fetus.
Sovereignty en Anglais wrote about this:

Some party members from the West have inserted a proposition to integrate Bill C-484 into the Conservative platform. C-484 is a law that would recognise the fetus in a case where a pregnant mother is murdered. In such a case, the murderer would be charged with two murders instead of one. This is, in fact and despite what the bill itself says, a backdoor way to outlaw abortion because it
recognises the fetus as a legal person. It isn’t a far step to go from that to claiming the termination of the fetus in an abortion to be murder as well. And this isn’t just an over-reaction, similar laws in the United States have led to the outlawing of abortion in certain jurisdictions.

This is the first national CPC convention since March 2005. Over 3000 party members are expected to attend. A meeting of Québec Conservative party members - MPs, senators and riding presidents - was held in Sherbrooke in June. According to Le Devoir’s source, the 300 participants voted against any resolution that would change the legal status of a fetus, as it currently stands in Canada. Some even bluntly stated that Bill C-484 was “insensé”, which in other words, means it goes against common sense.

Remember, 3 Québec Conservative MPs voted against C-484: Josée Verner, Lawrence Cannon (both ministers) and Sylvie Boucher. Also, there are a great number of professional, political, educational, labour and women’s organizations in Québec that are opposed to C-484.

Antonia Zerbisias at Broadsides also comments on Le Devoir’s news item, and takes the opportunity to mention that two polls (one in The Toronto Star and the other in The National Post) demonstrate that most Canadians approve of Morgentaler being awarded the Order of Canada.

First posted at Birth Pangs.