Yo! Margaret! (Somerville)

Margaret Somerville is a pearl-clutching dissembler and distorter. (But you knew that.)

In yet another screed railing against Canada's lawlessness on abortion, first she offers the Baby Seals Gambit, with a bit of a new pretzelly brain twist.

Legal protection does not require giving rights to an unborn child, or recognizing him or her as a person, or even that the child is human. We use the Criminal Code to protect from cruelty kittens and puppies and baby seals, which have none of these attributes. Surely, we have at least similar obligations to unborn children.

Legal protection does ^NOT entail rights? Huh? What does it entail then?

Next, the Fetal Pain BS.

There is an increasing recognition and, at the least, resulting deep concern that past a certain point in gestation abortion is a cause of severe pain for the fetus. There is quality evidence (U.K. research) suggesting the beginnings of pain perception in the fetus at 16 weeks gestation and most researchers agree that is a reality at 20 weeks.

BLAAAAT. Nope.

Real scientists agree that the fetal brain is simply not developed enough until about 28 weeks' gestation.

A more recent and very interesting study suggests that fetuses cannot differentiate between pain and touch until perhaps as late as 35 to 37 weeks. Very shortly before birth, in other words.

Next, the Conflation of 'Human Being' and 'Legal Person' Shuffle.

Then the No Restrictions/Regulations SHRIEEEEK.

(I can't believe I'm going to quote a CON to refute that one.)

Gordon O'Connor giving the government's response to Woodworth's Wank last week.

This does not mean, however, that abortion is unregulated in Canada. Abortion is regulated through provincial governments' responsibility for the delivery of health care services in conjunction with the medical profession. All provincial and territorial colleges of physicians and surgeons have declared that abortion is a medically necessary procedure, and delivery of this medical service is regulated accordingly.

Hey, Margaret, I can keep this up as long as you can. But why can't I get paid to do it?

Why do the CONs hate our veterans and our troops?

Actions speak louder than words; the Harper Regime©™ plans to slash and burn programs and services for Canadian veterans.

“While in Charlottetown last week, VAC staff informed me that because they did their job ‘too well’ and had too many veterans coming to the office for service, the federal government was closing the Charlottetown District office,” Stoffer said in a statement. “They were told to direct more veteran clients to the toll-free phone service and the internet.”

From here.

As well, human resources providing assistance with regard to suicide prevention and PTSD care for veterans of Afghanistan will be MASSIVELY reduced. From here:

[...] the Department of National Defence was cutting the jobs of medical professionals involved in suicide prevention and PTSD monitoring — despite claims by DND and the Canadian Forces that dealing with such health issues is a priority. Two unions have been informed by DND of the job cuts. DND has not commented on the cuts but sources confirmed the positions will be eliminated.

At the same time, the newspaper obtained an internal report for senior military officers at CFB Petawawa warning that emotionally damaged Afghanistan war veterans at the base are being neglected by a mental health treatment system that is in “crisis.”

‘MacKay loves to wrap himself in the military flag and as long as these guys are healthy’
The report was written by a group of civilian clinicians who provide much of the care to hundreds of mentally ill soldiers from the base.

It describes a system that is poorly funded, devoid of forward planning, scrambling to provide even basic care and leaving mentally ill, often-suicidal soldiers waiting four months or more before a psychiatrist or psychologist is available to treat them.

Unsurprisingly, the Minister for National Defense, Peter MacKay did nothing to ensure these vital services for veterans are maintained.

Of Gods And Women

It's been observed that the vast majority of those finding a woman's control over her body distressing, repulsive, and just WRONG, have their objections rooted in religious doctrine, even if their faith must be camouflauged in cries that Science supports their stances (and no, repeating over and over that it does, does not make it so).

I'd say more, but I would rather leave it to someone with a track record of analyzing and monitoring both authoritarian religion and women's rights.

American Michelle Goldberg, speaking in 2010.

When the women of Canada are being chided as over-reacting to mild, *mild* I tell you! incursions against their legal status in this country, keep Ms Goldberg's observations in mind.

Wolf at the Door, Blades at Our Backs.

Re: the dust-up between Progressive Bloggers and what became Real Canadian Progressives.

I must have read this from Montreal Simon at the time but didn't keep up with the comments -- all 39 of them.

Tonight I read this great analogy from DJ!'s own Niles.

Mr Simon, no one blames you for wanting harmony inside the cave when the wolf is at the door. Trouble is, some inside the cave started talking about amputating part of a woman's personhood to throw out to the wolf because it wasn't like actually throwing out all of her to be eaten.



Except, those in the cave, especially the women, had seen that happen to other women in caves further south, only to watch more and more womanly person parts get tossed out the door to the wolf and many women could remember their aunts and grandmothers getting tossed out bodily and bloodily to the wolf.

Meanwhile, the cave owners decided such talk of expendable parts was ok for the cave population's intellectual entertainment, never mind what the parable forewarned and anyway, it wasn't as if the hunters would be affected. The women could just stick around the cave more and learn to deal with their restrictions.



So, when those who were looking at amputation said to themselves, 'we can face the wolf but we can't face the wolf *and* the sharp knives at our backs, it's time to find a new cave, no matter how risky it is' and the response was in essence 'typical selfish wussies for not wanting to hear the logic of how amputation will keep the wolf happy for an hour or so' fresh air sounded like a really good idea.



That said, I never came to your site from PB. I got here via links and blogrolls from many of the now ex-cavers and I found some of them off your links after I found I enjoyed your stuff and trusted your opinions (btw: 'allo to the M. Sebastien). I -coff- first saw the aggregator during all this spelunking. Guess I'm really behind the times, eh?

We say again: Women's rights always seem to be negotiable, optional frills.

No more.

Time flies when you're ^NOT having fun.

So it was one calendar year ago today that the majority of voters said WTF? as they took stock of what would eventually be known as The Great CON electoral fraud.

On Twitter, the numerous critics of The Harper Regime©™ vented, expressing some amusing and scathing observations about PMSHithead's first year of rule.

Here's a sample of #Harpers1stYear:

There's a lot more of those, naming the numerous anti-democratic *accomplishments* of this fraudulent governement.

My own CONtribution:

More about the CON elxn41 voter suppression and electoral fraud, here.

Watch where you wank that motion.

Yesterday my co-blogger posted the results of her magisterial investigative efforts.

fern hill showed us the creepy face of the homophobic, racist and Dominionist fetus lobby that is currently attempting to erode women's procreative and sexual rights through Woodworth's M312.

Today we learn

Religious and ideological websites can carry three times more malware threats than pornography sites, according to research from security firm Symantec. [...]

Symantec found that the average number of security threats on religious sites was around 115, while adult sites only carried around 25 threats per site--a particularly notable discrepancy considering that there are vastly more pornographic sites than religious ones.

From here.

So, if you pay a visit to Mike Schouten's gynophobic website, make sure to protect your laptop or device with as much security as possible, essentially the electronic version of this:

More DAMMIT JANET! posts about M312.

Woodworth's Wank: The ARPA Connection

As we reported yesterday, the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) is behind the new player in the Undebate, We Need a Law (that link is to its Myths page; go read).

Also yesterday -- the day of WNAL's launch -- the legal counsel for ARPA, André Schutten opined at LifeShite on the usual blacks, women, and Jews weren't considered human either BS.

Now, since ARPA has been of great assistance to DJ! in ferreting shit out in the past, we decided to look some more.

And we found stuff!

There is a cool page at the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada where one can find out who is lobbying whom.

A search for ARPA revealed this.

On February 3, March 3, and March 27, 2012, ARPA's Executive Director, Mark Penninga, lobbied CON MPs Rod Bruinooge, Mark Warawa (three times), Rob Clarke, and Brad Trost, plus Senator Gerry St. Germain and Liberal MP John McKay.

Bruinooge, Trost, and McKay are well-known fetus fetishists. Campaign Lie rates Clarke as unknown. It doesn't rate Senators, so St. Germain's views are unknown.

So who is this Mark Warawa who merited three visits -- once seemingly just for him? Campaign Lie is still evaluating his status on fetus fetishism.

I think they can upgrade him now.

MP Woodworth Bill 312 was debated today. Motion is to look at scientific evidence re when does unborn child become Human. I will vote yes

— Mark Warawa (@MPmarkwarawa) April 26, 2012

So, over three occasions, ARPA lobbied three known FFs, three unknown and seems to have influenced at least one on this project -- if, indeed, that was the purpose of Penninga's trip.

An odd use of time, wouldn't you think?

Lobbying back-benchers, a senator, and a Liberal.

The search result returned only those 7 reports from this year.
I wondered how to search further back and found nothing useful. For comparison purposes, I searched for 'Canadian Medical Association'. Woo. Found 337 reports going back to July 2008.

Makes ARPA look like pikers in the lobbying department with only 7 reports.

What are they up to? Stay tuned.

Duelling Petitions

Despite the fact that Canada's Parliament has archaic rules for petitions (i.e. paper only), both sides in the fight over Woodworth's Wank are running online petitions.

Pro-debate has just over 3300 signatures.

No fucking way are women's rights up for debate side has over 16,200.

Of the total so far, percentages for and against running about 17 to 83%.

Sounds about right to me.

Go sign the sane one if you haven't already. The fetus fetishists are notorious for freeping polls.

Brought to You by Dominionists: 'We Need a Law'

[ADDED May 27/12: Attention, visitors from NatPo, check this out.]


There's a new player in the UnDebate, or, Woodworth's Wank.

Tada! Unleashed today, We Need a Law (Like a Hole in the Head). Its tagline is 'preborn human rights'.

Here's its glurge-filled media release.

The site was created on January 18, so this has been in the works for a while.

The front man is Mike Schouten of Surrey, BC. An interesting career fetus fetishist/Dominionist.

He ran as a Christian Heritage Party candidate in the last federal election.

I didn't know this. The CHP called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.

The federal Christian Heritage Party is calling for a national moratorium on immigration from Muslim countries to curb increasing radical Islamist power in Canada.

Mike Schouten, CHP candidate for South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale, admits his party's stance on this issue will likely result in charges of racism. But he says it's about protecting Canadian values as outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"This issue, because of the climate of political correctness, is not allowed to be talked about," Schouten noted.

Shocker! He didn't win.

On January 26 this year, it was reported that he parted company with CHP (emphasis mine).

Cloverdale’s Mike Schouten has parted ways with the Christian Heritage Party, handing in his party membership earlier this month.

As the CHP’s candidate for South Surrey - White Rock - Cloverdale in the 2010 federal election, Schouten came in sixth out of nine, with 429 votes.

He told Black Press he did a lot of soul-searching after the campaign, wondering if his “gifts and talents were well used in a political setting.”
. . .
Schouten says his parting with the CHP is amicable. He left because he has another opportunity to concentrate more on the pro-life cause that is his primary concern than he did within the CHP.

His letter to the editor, “Gay lobbyists forcing ideology on youth,” (Cloverdale Reporter, June 3, 2010), which lamented the “hijacking of local anti-bullying campaigns by homosexual advocates,” and referred to homosexuality as a “completely unnatural lifestyle,” drew criticism from other readers.

And he's a fairly regular commenter at ProWoman, ProLie.

More googling. And we find some more stuff.

Schouten (plus, one presumes, relatives Jody and Doug) are aaaallll over the Association for Reformed Political Action.

Regular readers here will remember ARPA, yes? It's where we found that little nugget of info about Tim Hudak pledging to defund abortion.

Here's a sample contribution from Schouten at the ARPA site.

It’s time Canadians stood up to the bullying of the homosexual community. Their militant efforts to force all of us to not only tolerate but to accept and even celebrate their choice to practise a completely unnatural lifestyle needs to be stopped!

Aaaaand now, the REVEAL

Mike Schouten, from Cloverdale BC, was also able to share with the ARPA reps about an exciting new campaign that he plans to lead, under the direction of ARPA Canada, starting May 1st.

So that's who is behind We Need a Law Like a Hole in the head.

ARPA's mission.

The mission of ARPA Canada is to educate, equip, and encourage Reformed Christians to political action and to shine the light of God’s Word to Canada’s municipal, provincial, and federal governments.

A bunch of racist, homophobic, misogynist gord-botherers who want to take over all levels of government.

We clear on that?

Okey-dokey, then.