A New Front in the War on Women (Canadian version)

. . . has appeared in Alberta. It got some attention in the comments here by Jane, Anonymous, and Niles.

But the Alberta Tea Baggers Wildrose Alliance deserves more scrutiny for this brain-fart.

“The legalities of abortion fall under federal jurisdiction. We respect that Albertans view social issues differently, which is why Wildrose would immediately introduce legislation allowing citizens to put issues like abortion of citizen initiated referendum. “

Still doubtful, I called and asked a Wildrose spokesman myself about the matter this evening.

Bill Bewick, the party’s spokesman on health policy, told me that a Wildrose government could not ban abortion, since that’s a matter of federal responsibility. However, he said, the province could opt to delist abortion, so that the service would no longer be covered by the province’s health insurance plan.

“We have no plans to address this issue. We will not legislate on it,” Bewick told me.

On the other hand, he told me, the party does favour citizen-sponsored referenda on a wide range of issues.

“People are free to initiate referenda on any issue they want,” he said.

But when I asked Bewick if the Wildrose campaign would commit not to delist abortion, he declined to do so.

Delist in Alberta = defund in Ontario.

But not to fear, pro-choice Albertans. Top-dog Teabagger is totally reassuring.

Leader Danielle Smith had words of her own Thursday evening.

"Like the Progressive Conservatives, Wildrose has absolutely no intentions of legislating on abortion, and that includes delisting," she said.

Hmm. Just like the federal Contempt Party?

And that's not all Albertans have to worry about. Cliff at Rusty Idols thinks the entire healthcare system will be toast if Wildrose wins.

Albertans: You are familiar with the definition of insanity, yes?

Thanks

So, DAMMIT JANET! had a bit of a problem with a couple of bloggers' take on Woodworth's Wank.

Instead of seeing the ploy for what it is -- 'an ignorant affront to global human rights standards' -- two bloggers saw it as a dandy opportunity to sharpen their middle-school debating tactics.

But, see, the thing is -- both are fellow members of the blog aggregator called Progressive Bloggers.

It takes some pretzelly thinking to reconcile 'progressive' with 'affront to global human rights standards', yes?

We shouldn't be too surprised though. Feminists have never been all that welcome at ProgBlogs or the annual Blogger Bunfest, Canadian Blog Awards.

In fact, deBeauxOs and I started blogging centuries ago at a new feminist blog. We wanted the exposure that belonging to an aggregator would bring, so we applied to ProgBlogs. We were accepted, but the mods at the time felt the need to tell us that their approval was NOT unanimous.

Classy, eh?

(Or just typical boyo-behaviour. 'We'll let you into our treehouse, but you'd better watch your step, ladies.')

What with the War on Women raging in the Excited States in the background to this new assault on women's rights in Canada, I got a little snippy on Twitter with ProgBlogs' site administrator Scott Tribe and alter-ego @Prog_Blog.

@Prog_Blog I'm thinking about a strike by actual progressive bloggers until misogynists are booted. #blogging #cdnprog #cdnpoli

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) April 3, 2012

Here's the reply.

@fernhilldammit @jjhippie That's your decision of course. I won't be blackmailed into making a decision however.

— Progressive Bloggers (@Prog_Blog) April 3, 2012

Well, as you can imagine, twit-spat erupted. Various real progressive bloggers on one side, the usual suspects on the other. Fave old chestnuts like 'circular firing squad' and 'purity test' were aired.

And so on.

Fun.

Scott said he had put the matter to his six moderators for judgement. (Of those six, one is said to be uterusful and one a Dipper. It is not clear if they are in separate bodies.)

The verdict is in.

Those blogpost/sites have been looked at, and it was unanimous amongst the moderators & the site admin (7-0) - we see no grounds for action.

— Progressive Bloggers (@Prog_Blog) April 6, 2012

Again, not surprising.

But this time, we've had it.

It is simply not OK to disrespect and dismiss one's supposed allies.

So, if you usually get here from PB, you'll have to make other arrangements, because as soon as my co-bloggers here have taken the opportunity to say good-bye, we will be gone from there.



Image source.

Women's Health Is Up for Debate

Wanna fight back?

Here is ARCC's action page opposing Woodworth's Wank, aka Motion to Strip Women of Hard-Won Rights, with everything you need to fight back.

There's a link to the petition, which has just zoomed past 6900 signatures.

Link to downloadable and printable postcards to send to MPs, complete with link to an MP finder.

And there's a link to a Facebook page called 'Wombswarm Parliament' (that I can't get into because I hate Facebook), based on this US website that we blogged about here.

ARCC also has lists of MPs: anti-choice and pro-choice and unknown.

Hardworking commenter Laura also has lists of MP's emails here and here, but they might be a bit mixed up as to anti- and pro-choice. The email addresses are dandy though.

Self-Pitying Toews and victims of CON bullies

Rights and Democracy, the organization that Remy Beauregard gave his life to defend, has now been euthanized by the Harper government.

Meanwhile, the Vic Toews pity party goes on and on.

God's wrath is fickle and and unjust.

Remember when Vic Toews threw himself a pity party and nobody came?

Oh. Wait.

While no laws were broken, the Conservatives want to learn if anyone else was involved and if Carroll is being used as a scapegoat to protect key staffers. [...]

Toews also wants the committee to look into Liberal MP Justin Trudeau's role in the affair. He was one of the first to retweet the volleys to his followers.

"It's very clear Justin Trudeau is in vikileaks30 up to his neck," said Toews.

Opposition MPs say the Conservatives are hammering the vikileaks issue to change the channel on allegations of election fraud.

Pretty loose and cheap talk for a serial adulterer and sexual predator. CONtempt of Parliament - it's how the CPC rolls. Attack others for actions that they're guilty of advocating and practicing.

I hope Trudeau sues Toews for slander and defamation, though I suspect his generosity of spirit is greater that Vic's vile spleen.

Get over it.

The boy-os like this one who are eager to let CONs like Wankworth criminalize women and health care professionals when some pregnancies end before the full gestation term is complete have a MASSIVE Mommy problem.

It seems they can't objectively handle the reality that the women who chose to give them life could have chosen differently: their birth mothers had the power to end their pregnancies.

This possibility appears to make them completely irrational, mentally deranged and incapable of thinking straight.

Added: And since they can't lash out at their mothers for having possessed this power, they now want to deprive women of the basic human right to their own bodily integrity and autonomy.

Woodie's wombattlefield: Alison at Creekside

Bwahahaha! Alison has written another brilliant post about Wankworth's little attempt to garner support for "Kanada's Kinder, Küche, Kirche Act" Creekside: Woodie's wombattlefield.

Check out the cartoon - a classic feminist capture of MCP chivalry, still alive and kicking in Wankworth.

Wankers in Favour of Woodworth's Wank

As JJ said in the comments on our post on Bloggers Against Woodworth's Wank, 'with "progressive allies" like this. . . '

She was referring to this piece of faff in which a 'progressive' blogger blames the polarized abortion debate on the media and agrees there should be a 'respectful' discussion.

And now another 'progressive' boyo weighs in. Gordie get his jollies riling the wimminz up.

Fasten your seat belts, here comes the abortion debate. . .
In just under three and a half years I have written or touched on the topic of abortion 21 times.  In fact the most often read post on this blog is "Abortion in Canada Legal – Right Up Until Time of Birth".

Well, here goes number 22.

Wheeeee! Look at meeeee! I'm being controversial!

You can feel the breeze from the wagging of his little tail.

That idiotic post he's so pleased with racked up 24 comments, mostly of the spanking, get-a-clue-you-moran sort.

A fast zip through recent posts reveals that his brain-farts normally garner from zero to three comments.

No wonder he's revved.

I made the mistake of commenting on both posts, as did others.

I regret it and counsel others to refrain. It only encourages them.

Yet, still, and again, I continue to be mystified by the inclusion of such people in any aggregation with the name 'progressive' in it.

ADDED: JJ has a message for the wankers.

UPDATE: Misogyny and debating human rights is all hunky dory with 'Progressive' Bloggers.

Those blogpost/sites have been looked at, and it was unanimous amongst the moderators & the site admin (7-0) - we see no grounds for action.

— Progressive Bloggers (@Prog_Blog) April 6, 2012

And *this* is why the Liberal Party is totally fucked.

Bloggers Against Woodworth's Wank

MUST READ (added April 2/12): Steve Thoms at Some Canadian Skeptic dismantles Stephen Woodworth.

* * *
I've strolled around the tubes and found some more bloggers opposed to Woodworth's Wank, aka M312.

Trapped in a Whirlpool

Anti-Choice Is Anti-Awesome

Abortion Monologues

Blogging for Equality

Socialist Worker

ROAR

Blogue du RSR

Troll Bouquet

And another from the comments: Fat and Not Afraid

And from Twitter: This Week in Harperland

And now for the Fetus Lobby: here, here, here and a most amusing one here, in which we are referred to wrongly and misquoted. Without a link of course. I just commented there. We'll see if it gets through moderation.

Censorship at Wankworth's FB page?!?!

Oh noez! Say it isn't so!

Sadly, according to Laura, t'is indeed what was done to her comment.

I would like to make it known that I just found Stephen Woodworth's facebook page. He made an ironic Twitter statement "International Women's Day is a good time to remember the day Canada's infamous law deeming women not to be persons was rejected."

To which I gracefully replied "How funny you should post this when your misogynist mentality is trying to take those very rights away with your Motion 312 by giving a fetus more rights than the actual woman!"

Bazinga!

Moments later my comment was removed and comments were blocked or he blocked me, haha.

Keep in mind followers of Wankworth and supporters of his M312 have set up an account that claims Madame Justice Bertha Wilson has been "censored" by prochoice activists.

Yeah, the abortion criminalizers lie. And lie. And lie.