More abortion laws! Lots more!

I can't keep up. The Merkin healthcare debate and its obsession with abortion has whipped up state legislatures all over the Excited States into frenzies of fetus fetishizing. Abortion! We need more laws on abortion!

And they're getting them. Lots more laws on abortion! Some of them quite nutty. (The people at RH Reality Check do a good job of keeping up with the fetus fetishizing lawmakers in the US.)

Where to start?

How about Georgia? You may remember that a billboard campaign there linked abortion to genocide. Yeah, yeah, you've heard that one before, but wait, the Georgia campaign specifically links abortion to black genocide.

Well, now they have a brand spanky new law enshrining that idiocy.

Last week, the Georgia Senate gave sanction to a bizarre, destructive and racially condescending conspiracy theory. By a 33-14 vote, it approved a bill that purports to outlaw the attempted genocide of black Americans through abortion.

Under the bill’s language, a health care provider could be convicted of a felony and sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for performing an abortion “with the intent to prevent an unborn child from being born based upon the race, color, or gender of the unborn child or the race or color of either parent of that unborn child.”

(snip)

Until approval of SB 529, the dumbest legislation to pass the House or Senate this year had been a bill to outlaw forced implantation of microchips in human beings, which also passed the Senate. However, while it may rival the genocide-by-abortion bill in terms of weirdness, the microchip bill was at least largely harmless.

The abortion bill, on the other hand, puts the state Senate on record as endorsing the claim that black Americans are being targeted for elimination by health care providers. That’s absurd and flat-out wrong.

In Nebraska, where you might recall they are trying to outlaw abortion because of the unfounded claim of fetal pain, they've come up with another doozy.

Before an abortion, women are to be screened for 'potential post-abortion problems'. Well, what's wrong with that, you wonder?

Because the 'problems' they are concerned with are claims that abortion drives women insane.

Greg Schleppenbach of the Nebraska Catholic Conference said the bill doesn't call for drastic changes and would simply put pre-abortion medical consultation in line with normal medical practices in which patients are advised of risks.

"We're just saying that that if the abortion industry acknowledges risk factors exist, isn't it reasonable to screen people for them?" Schleppenbach said.

An official with the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights said there was no connection between psychological problems and abortions.

The measure is in fact a drastic shift in abortion policy, added Jordan Goldberg, state advocacy counsel for the center, and the real intent is to establish a "vague and unconstitutional barrier" to abortions by scaring doctors who might perform them. Goldberg, who tracks abortion laws across the country, said she'd never seen anything like the Nebraska bill.

"I think there's a serious chance it will make doctors wary of performing abortions because they just don't know if they're complying with the law," Goldberg said.

You wanna make women insane, say to them: 'Sorry, honey, I think having an abortion would drive you crazy, so, no, you won't be able to have one.'

Now, more mandatory ultrasound bullshit from Louisiana. What makes this one a little different is that it is being pushed by a Democratic woman.

Senate President Pro Tem Sharon Weston Broome, D-Baton Rouge, said the bill is designed to make a woman "think twice about having an abortion. This is such a serious decision that a woman makes, the process should be exhausted with all the medical information on the procedure" available, she said.

In the privacy-invadingest state in the union, Oklahoma, they're busy taking apart a previous anti-abortion bill that was deemed unconstitutional on the technicality that it dealt with more than one issue and turning it into four anti-abortion laws, including the privacy-invading part.

The information includes race, education level, miscarriages, induced abortions, method of abortion, reason for the abortion and method of payment.

While the woman's name would not be included, the info would be published. As critics point out, some counties in Oklahoma are so underpopulated, it would be a doddle for busy-bodies to figure out who the local slut is.

On to Missouri for another omnibus fetus fetishist bill, dealing with coerced abortion and another stunning bit of privacy invasion.

The bill would also require prosecutors to be informed when an individual under age 18 inquired about an abortion, whether or not the woman completes the procedure.

Ask a question about abortion and get reported??!!! (The specious 'reason' for this is that they want to identify cases of possible child sexual abuse.)

Barriers, lies, shame, intimidation -- all the usual weapons. It's been a grand few weeks in the Excited States for fetus fetishizers.

And a very bad time -- and future -- for American women.

But wait! There are some grown-ups down there. In Michigan, no less, Bart Stupak's state.

Legislation moving to the state Senate would require Michigan emergency rooms to provide emergency contraception to individuals who are sexual assaulted.

Four bills, originally part of a 15-bill initiative promoted by Planned Parenthood, passed the Michigan House last week and would extend access to contraception, said state Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing.

“These are reasonable and applicable methods and laws, which would help prevent unwanted pregnancies,” said Meadows, who sponsored a bill in the package that would require crisis pregnancy centers to tell patients they do not provide information about birth control or abortion.

The bills need to gain the support of the Republican-led Senate to become law.

Other bills that passed include a bill requiring the Michigan Department of Community Health to educate the public about emergency contraception and a bill requiring all school districts to teach “medically accurate sexual education.”

We shall see whether the state-level Stupaks get their knickers in knots and stop this too.

I Can't Keep Up, continued

My apologies for the silence from this corner of DAMMIT JANET!, but again I can't keep up with the orgy of fetus fetishizing in USian state legislatures.

I mean, don't they have a recession down there? A couple of wars? Widespread unemployment? Massive budget shortfalls?

Ah, but that stuff's not as interesting or gratifying as fucking with women's rights.

By the end of March, 825 measures had been introduced in the 44 legislatures that have convened so far in 2010.

From the Guttmacher Institute here's an index of fascinating topics under the general heading of 'Laws for Ladies':

Abortion

Abortion Bans to Replace Roe

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: 'Choose Life' License Plates and State Funding

Crisis Pregnancy Centers

Fetal Pain

Health Reform

Later Term and Second Trimester Abortion

Mandatory Counseling and Waiting Periods

Medical Emergency Exception in Abortion Law

Medication Abortion

Minors Reporting

Parental Involvement

'Partial-Birth' Abortion

Physician Liability

Physician-Only Requirements

Postviability Abortion

Private Insurance Coverage of Abortion

Prohibiting Forcing a Woman to Have an Abortion

Protecting Access to Abortion

Protecting Access to Clinics

Public Funding of Abortion

Requiring Abortion Providers to Have Hospital Privileges

Reporting Statistical Information to State Agencies

Self-Induced Abortion

Sex and Race Selection

State Participation in Abortion

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers

Ultrasound Requirements

With so many intrusive, paternalistic, authoritarian, slut-shaming laws to choose from, it's hard to say which is the winner of the coveted Maurice Vellacott Award, but Oklahoma is certainly a top contender.

Oklahoma's new anti-choice laws, one requiring all women to have a mandatory ultrasound before an abortion, and one allowing doctors to lie to their patients if the fetus has an abnormality, are stirring up a lot of anger (not to mention a looming court battle). But the anger isn't just in Oklahoma, but across the country, too.

From California:

Anti-abortion lawmakers in Oklahoma stooped to a new low this week by passing two bills that constitute a reprehensible intrusion of government into women's lives.

It's hard to tell which of the bills is the most repugnant.

The first requires doctors to force women to watch an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus within an hour before an abortion is performed. The requirement holds even for women who are victims of incest or rape. It will add gratuitous pain to a procedure that for the vast majority of women is already an anguished choice.

The second bill prevents a wrongful life or wrongful death lawsuit against doctors who withhold information about a pregnancy, even when a fetus has severe disabilities.

In other words, Oklahoma doctors are free to impose their beliefs on women and even to flat-out lie to them. Would a law making the same provision for an exclusively male condition ever get through Oklahoma's or any other legislature? Not a chance.

Lying to a patient would be clearly unethical. Fortunately, it's almost certainly unconstitutional as well. The Center for Reproductive Rights filed a lawsuit two hours after the Oklahoma House and Senate overrode Gov. Brad Henry's veto of the bill. The suit will argue that the laws invade a patient's right to privacy and fail to respect patient autonomy.

No kidding.

WARNING: Do not read the next paragraph if you are prone to head-explosions.

The justification for the mandatory ultrasound is 'informed consent' -- you know, we wimmin don't really know what we're doing when we make abortion appointments. Yet the wrongful life/death one enables (encourages?) fetus fetishizing doctors or technicians to withhold information on potential fetal deformities or other problems. Because we wimmin can't be trusted with knowing what's growing in our uteruses.

So, how's it working out? Well, the emotional torture part works good, but the preventing abortion part? Not so well.

Women became emotional and some cried after being shown fetal ultrasound images at a Tulsa abortion clinic Wednesday, a day after Oklahoma enacted what has been called the nation’s most restrictive abortion law.

None of the women, however, decided against terminating their pregnancies, said Linda Meek, the executive director of Reproductive Services in Tulsa.

Now go read Rape Me All Over Again at Those Emergency Blues, which is where I got this photo. And yup, it works just like it looks like it would. (I've had one of these dealies and 'horribly invasive' doesn't begin to describe it.)

Wanna 'reduce abortion'?

Despite the rightwingnutz claim to the contrary, sciency-types demonstrate that contraception use reduces abortion and unwanted pregnancy.

Increases in global contraceptive use have contributed to a decrease in the number of unintended pregnancies and, in turn, a decline in the number of abortions, which fell from an estimated 45.5 million procedures in 1995 to 41.6 million in 2003. While both the developed and the developing world experienced these positive trends, developed regions saw the greatest progress. Within the developing world, improvement varied widely, with Africa lagging behind other regions, according to “Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress,” a major new Guttmacher Institute report released today.

The decline in worldwide abortion occurred alongside a global trend toward liberalizing abortion laws. Nineteen countries have significantly reduced restrictions in their abortion laws since 1997, while only three countries have substantially increased legal restrictions. Despite these trends, 40% of the world’s women live in countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, virtually all of them in the developing world. In Africa, 92% of reproductive-age women live under highly restrictive abortion laws, and in Latin America, 97% do so. These proportions have not changed markedly over the past decade.

The report finds that while the incidence of abortion is closely related to that of unintended pregnancy, it does not correlate with abortion’s legal status. Indeed, abortion occurs at roughly equal rates in regions where it is broadly legal and in regions where it is highly restricted. The key difference is safety—illegal, clandestine abortions cause significant harm to women, especially in developing countries.

“The progress made during the past decade in increasing contraceptive use and reducing the need for abortion is fundamentally good news—the world is moving in the right direction,” says Sharon Camp, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute. “And yet, we still have two widely disparate realities. In almost all developed countries, abortion is safe and legal. But in much of the developing world, abortion remains highly restricted, and unsafe abortion is common and continues to damage women’s health and threaten their survival.”

Unsafe abortion causes an estimated 70,000 deaths each year, and an additional five million women are treated annually for complications resulting from unsafe abortion. Approximately three million women who experience serious complications from unsafe procedures go untreated.

Worldwide, the unintended pregnancy rate declined from 69 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in 1995 to 55 per 1,000 in 2008. The proportion of married women using contraception increased from 54% in 1990 to 63% in 2003. Increases also occurred among sexually active single women. However, regional levels of contraceptive use varied greatly: While 71% of married women in Latin American and the Caribbean were using contraceptives in 2003, only 28% of married African women were doing so. Nearly one in four married women in Africa had an unmet need for contraception in 2002–2007, compared with 10–13% of their counterparts in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The decline in real numbers is even more impressive when you consider world population growth between 1995 and 2008.

In a press conference, Camp compared various parts of the world.

Western Europe is held up as an example of what access to contraceptive services can achieve, and the Netherlands - with just 10 abortions per 1,000 women compared to the world's 29 per 1,000 - is held up as the gold standard.

Here, young people report using two forms of contraception as standard.

Even the UK, which has a relatively high rate, fares well in comparison to the US, where the number of abortions is among the highest in the developed world. The institute says this rate is in part explained by inconsistencies in insurance coverage of contraceptive supplies.

What's the rate in Canads, you ask?

I couldn't find more recent data than this from The Star:

As a result, the abortion rate slipped to 14.1 for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2005 from 14.6 in 2004.

By comparison, the rate per 1,000 women in the Excited States is 19.4.

So, to blog flog a dead horse, let's summarize: access to free/cheap contraception + good, factual sex education + sensible attitude to human sexuality = waaaaay fewer unintended pregnancies and abortions. Restricted access to contraception and abortion + stooopid abstinence-only sex ed = just as many abortions but waaaaay more dangerous ones. Like, seventy thousand dead women a year and who knows how many injured dangerous.

Aside (sorta): the LA Times covered the spin put on this report by various news media.

Headlines can't explain everything but, taken as a whole, they can be revealing nonetheless.

From Reuters: Unsafe abortions kill 70000 a year, harm millions

From Fox News: Abortion rights group: Unsafe abortions kill 70,000 per year

From NPR: Report shows fewer abortions worldwide

From BBC News: Bans 'do not cut abortion rate'

From Toronto's Globe and Mail: Moving away from abortion

And, speaking of spin, here's Lifeshite's take: Propoganda!!!!!! (rightwingnutz usual spledding)

That's the Guttmacher Institute they're calling 'pro-abort propagandists', except when they agree with its studies.

The Lie That Won't -- But Should -- Die

My heart sank a few days ago when I saw yet another headline in the fetus freak media SHRIEEEKING about the abortion=breast cancer (ABC) link-lie. Not because I expected anything other than the usual half-baked BS, but because I've taken on the Sisyphean task of refuting every new -- and they come around like clockwork every couple of years -- AMAZING STUDY that "proves" abortion causes breast cancer.

After I read beyond the headline, I realized it was just Angela Lanfranchi flapping her gums and re-upping her anti-choice creds. Nothing new.

But I got thinking about it from another angle.

Why do they keep doing this? The ABC link has been repeatedly, exhaustively, comprehensively trashed by major medical research organizations every time the freaks roll it out.

Every time.

Yet they keep it up. We know they are desperate for any shred of credibility, so why would they keep thumping this absolutely worthless piece of BAD (biased, agenda-driven) science? It can do nothing but further marginalize their stable of paid pet pseudo-scientists.

So, I wondered, does it work? What does it do for them?

Well, if it is intended to dissuade women from abortion, it's not doing much. In fact, according to anti-choice's own stats, very little is helping on that front.

Amanda Marcotte quotes researcher Nicole Knight Shine:

“Of the 2.6 million clients who visited crisis pregnancy centers since 2004, 3.52 percent, or 92,679 people, decided against having an abortion,” Shine writes. Yep, out of all the women that CPCs themselves describe as “clients who came to the center with initial intentions of Abortion or Undecided and then changed their mind to carry baby to term,” fewer than 4% were deterred by anti-choice propaganda.

Fewer than 4%.

Not even the Magical Ultrasound helps. The freaks have a mystical reverence for ultrasound. They've convinced legislatures in the US to force women to view these murky images, usually with narration of a bullshit script on fetal development written by politicians.

But a recent study investigated whether such viewing changes minds. Surprise, it does not. Under conditions where women were given the choice to view the images or not, of those who chose to see them, 98% went ahead with termination.

Groups such as the Fetal Gore Porn Gang (aka CCBR) insist that graphic anti-abortion images "work", but offer no evidence, just assertion.

I kept looking.

I found tons of studies on the reasons given by people for their abortions. But no studies on reasons given for rejecting abortion.

Lots of anecdotal stories from the freak media. "I just couldn't," "Jeezus spoke to me," etc. but no studies.

(Yes, yes, I know. A negative can't be proven.)

When I finally hit on the search term "abortion-minded women," I thought I might be getting somewhere. ("Abortion-minded" is an anti-choice classification for people stumbling into fake clinics. The others are "abortion-vulnerable" and "likely to carry.")

This search turned up a bunch of pages of advice for sidewalk harassers and fake-clinic bullies. Some of them are hilarious. Like this one, "Reaching the Post-Modern Abortion-Minded Client". Note use (bolded by me) of "girls."

In the 1950s, if you were counseling an abortion-minded woman, you would probably appeal to her sense of morality. Abortion is illegal. Abortion kills your baby. Simply put, abortion is wrong.

Much has changed in five decades. Now, abortion is not only legal, but also staunchly protected by the nation's highest courts. Whether or not abortion is wrong simply depends on your religious preference or political leanings.

A new wave of abortion-minded clients is appearing at pregnancy care centers across the country. These girls have been taught to reject any form of universal morality. These girls grew up believing that having an abortion is as easy as taking a pill. Therefore, pregnancy care centers will have to dramatically change their methods in order to reach these post-modern young women.

It goes on in similarly patronizing and totally out-of-touch style for ten more paragraphs. It concludes:

If current trends continue, public schools will become even greater bastions of post-modern, anti-biblical thought. Abortion, as well as many other sinful choices, will become even more acceptable. Children will be raised with even less biblical and moral upbringing. Pregnancy care centers need to prepare their staff for this shift in American culture, and come up with new ways to reach the post-modern (and very needy) client.

It was published in 2009 and the author promised a follow-up, "The Secret to Counseling the Abortion-Minded Client," but I couldn't find it. I guess the secret proved a little more elusive than she thought -- as evidenced by the dismal 3.52% success rate cited above.

None of the similar helpful advice pages I found included any reference to breast cancer. So, it seems they're not using the ABC lie on the front-lines.

And really, when women are prepared to put their lives at risk to escape forced reproduction, what's a little future breast cancer possible increase?

Back in 2002, Joyce Arthur crunched what we know to be the totally made-up numbers, specifically the 30% increase that Joel Brind, the granddaddy of this scam, still clings to.

For the sake of argument, let's suppose that Brind's ABC link is real. What would it really mean? He claims that abortion may boost the risk of breast cancer by 30%, but this increase is not really that significant anyway. For example, the risk is two to three times higher (200 to 300%) for a woman whose mother or sister had breast cancer after age 50. Even this well-established risk factor is considered moderate by scientists. In comparison, the alleged ABC link barely qualifies—even if it's real, the risk is close to negligible. To put it another way, the National Cancer Institute estimates the current risk of breast cancer to be 1 in 2,525 for a woman in her 30's—if that risk was increased by 30%, it means 1 in 1,942 women would get breast cancer.

But they do not. Because abortion does NOT cause breast cancer.

Still this canard keeps coming around.

The only possible conclusion is that its impact is mostly on legislators and conspiracy nuts. ("What the abortion industry doesn't want you to know."*) For individuals, it's just more of the usual stigmatizing and fear-mongering. But without any resulting dissuasion. Just, you know, torture.

It's not only not my job but counter-productive to advise the freaks on tactics. But in the wake of the US Supreme Court's Hellerstedt decision, in which the notion that making abortion more difficult to access somehow "protects" women was decisively smacked around and kicked down the stairs, they might want to consider abandoning the ABC lie.

But that's just wishful thinking, I guess. I'm so sick of this.

What would be very useful to know is what convinces pregnant people who are considering termination not to. Someone should get at that 3.52% and find out what changed their minds.




*The conspiracy nuts have a new vehicle. It's a film called "Hush" made by a Canadian filmmaker, featuring Kay Mère on her ABC soap-box, and funded by the Alberta government. Or so the filmmakers claim and the Alberta government denies. I'll get to that in a future post.

If you gotta lie. . .

. . . something is seriously wrong with your cause.

LifeShite reports that an old pal of DJ's and father (snerk) of the current BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Abortion Science campaign, David Reardon, is at it again.

A new study of the medical records for nearly half a million women in Denmark reveals significantly higher maternal death rates following abortion compared to delivery. This finding has confirmed similar large-scale population studies conducted in Finland and the United States, but contradicts the widely held belief that abortion is safer than childbirth.

Funny that. It's the complete opposite finding from a study published in January this year that, not surprisingly, concluded that giving birth is 14 times more lethal than abortion.

Dr. Elizabeth Raymond from Gynuity Health Projects in New York City and Dr. David Grimes of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, found that between 1998 and 2005, one woman died during childbirth for every 11,000 or so babies born.

That compared to one woman of every 167,000 who died from a legal abortion.

The researchers also cited a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which found that, from 1998 to 2001, the most common complications associated with pregnancy -- including high blood pressure, urinary tract infections and mental health conditions -- happened more often in women who had a live birth than those who got an abortion.

I say 'unsurprisingly' because obviously women who give birth are pregnant a lot longer than women who terminate, so one factor is simply odds.

The researchers on the real sciencey study are quick to point out that both outcomes are very safe, but that to alarm women considering abortion with bogus health risks does no one any favours.

I was going to debunk this new study but thought I'd tweet the link to James C. Coyne, BAD science watcher, who very ably demolished Priscilla Coleman's latest.

Dr Coyne directed me to this blogpost of his in which Reardon makes a rather startling admission.

Did Priscilla Coleman write her review with the intention of building a literature to restrict access to abortion? David Reardon is Coleman's co-author on ten of the articles included in her meta-analysis and according to the NY Times is know as the "Moses of the anti-abortion movement." In an article, he announced his intention rather explicitly:

For the purpose of passing restrictive laws to protect women from unwanted and/or dangerous abortions, it does not matter if people have a pro-life view. The ambivalent majority of people who are willing to tolerate abortion in "some cases" are very likely to support informed consent legislation and abortion clinic regulations, for example, because these proposals are consistent with their desire to protect women. In some cases, it is not even necessary to convince people of abortion's dangers. It is sufficient to simply raise enough doubts about abortion that they will refuse to actively oppose the proposed anti-abortion initiative. In other words, if we can convince many of those who do not see abortion to be a "serious moral evil" that they should support anti-abortion policies that protect women and reduce abortion rates, that is a sufficiently good end to justify NRS efforts. Converting these people to a pro-life view, where they respect life rather than simply fear abortion, is a second step. The latter is another good goal, but it is not necessary to the accomplishment of other good goals, such as the passage of laws that protect women from dangerous abortions and thereby dramatically reduce abortion rates.

The intent of this BAD science is -- explicitly -- to make women fear abortion.

They admit they are simply creating doubts and raising fears.

This is NOT science. This is propaganda.

Update on the Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill

The Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill is NOT about abortion, right? Let's hear again from Rod Bruinooge on the matter:

Bruinooge insists he’s not trying to push the Commons into a debate the Prime Minister has specifically banned, arguing that nothing in his bill would make it illegal to obtain an abortion.

“This bill doesn’t affect gestational limits or access to abortion in Canada,” Bruinooge told reporters Thursday morning. “It’s something that in fact doesn’t reopen the abortion debate but it does make it a crime to threaten or intimidate a woman into abortion.”

Now let's hear from Mr Kicking Abortion's Ass: Dern tootin'! It is ALL about abortion.

For all the fans of “Kicking Abortion’s Ass” Alert: Abortion.is.going.to.die.in.Canada.

You watch. It’s gonna happen. Not now, but in our lifetimes. It’s something for you to look forward to.

See the problem of whistling to your cretinous followers, Rod? They know what the bill is about but they won't toe the party line and keep their gaping maws shut. Oh, and that 'in our lifetimes' bit? Not bloody likely, according to a poll released today indicating that young Canadians are more abortion- and gay-marriage-loving than ever.

Meanwhile, membership is growing at the new Faytene-free Facebook group, while the wall there is strangely moribund. They seem to be allowing hardcore fetus fetishists again, including Mr KBA -- using his real name, John Pacheco -- and whackjob Bill Whatcott, who writes:

I should also add brutal and premeditated murders like this one, strengthen my belief in the efficacy of capital punishment.

Odd, innit? Fetus-fetishizing and outlaw-lynching so often go together.

And there's a new feature at the website, Share Your Story.

Since the launch of Roxanne's Law we have come to discover that women being coerced against their will to have an unwanted abortion is very common. Many women and men have been coming forward to share their stories. This is your chance as well. By sharing your story you can make something good come out of a horrible experience. Sharing your story will strengthen the argument for Roxanne's Law and help ensure that a woman's right to choose to keep her baby is protected.

Please write your story in 800 words or less and e-mail it to us at contact @ roxanneslaw.ca.

Thank you for your courage.

This will no doubt elicit some creative -- if nearly illiterate -- glurge.

And to round out today's coverage of the Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada today issued a media release*.

Pro-Choice Group Calls for Law Banning Coerced Childbirth
NATIONAL – A bill recently introduced by a Conservative MP to criminalize “coercing” a woman into abortion should be scuttled in favour of a bill prohibiting the much more common practice of coercing a woman into childbirth, says the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), a national pro-choice group.

“It’s wrong to pressure women into an abortion, but this does not occur on the grand scale often claimed by anti-choice propagandists. It mostly stems from situations of domestic abuse,” said Joyce Arthur, Coordinator of ARCC. Arthur pointed to a recent U.S. study that examined reproductive control of women by abusive male partners. “Some were pressured to have an abortion, but women also reported that their partners prevented them from obtaining or using birth control, threatened them with pregnancy, or forced unprotected sex on them. If they became pregnant and wanted an abortion, some partners threatened or pressured them to carry to term.”

In 1989, Chantal Daigle of Quebec had to travel to the U.S. for an abortion after her boyfriend got an injunction preventing her from having an abortion. Canada’s Supreme Court subsequently ruled that male partners cannot force a woman to have a baby.

“It’s not just partners or family members who try to compel women and girls to have babies against their will,” said Arthur. “The entire anti-choice movement has been trying to force women into pregnancy and motherhood for decades, by working to outlaw or restrict abortion. Perhaps we need to protect women from this coercion by criminalizing anti-choice activism!”

Hee. Wouldn't that be fun? Call the cops! SUZY ALL-CAPS is posting fetal pr0n again!


*You can download a pdf of the whole thing, including references, here.

Pro-choice Post-abortion Counselling

Nothing makes me crazier than the preposterous claim from anti-feminists that feminists don't care about women. Forbye the facts that feminists pioneered voting rights, pay equity, quality childcare, abused women's shelters, rape crisis centres, etc., etc., you know, actual rights and services for women, these misogynist maroons not only make this claim but try to have it both ways. According to them, feminists are heartless, power-mad bitches who don't care about women, and/or we are whining, helpless victims.

The current fundy meme 'abortion hurts women' got a (demented) twist recently by Naomi Lakritz writing in the Calgary Herald. Not only do feminists not care about women who have had abortions, according to the title of this piece of dreck 'Women's real oppressors are those who say abortion doesn't hurt them'.

Natch, SHE parrots this idiocy.

There countless women who've been negatively affected by abortion. Feminists toss these women aside as nutjobs, and tell everyone to ignore them.

This is among the reasons why I say feminism is not about women. Feminism is about an ideology.

I've read numerous accounts of women who've had abortions-- even on pro-abortion websites.

And even on these websites, the women express regret and pain.

But the feminists brush this under the carpet.

Because it's an inconvenient truth. They never address the pain of abortion.

Well, you see, SHE is lying again.

It is true that the pro-choice movement was late to this party. Last summer, The American Prospect ran a piece on The Abortion Counselling Conundrum.

"I had a previous abortion at age 21, and it wasn't this hard. It didn't seem like a 'baby' to me at that age. But after raising two children I know now that I really did lose a living being inside me." – An anonymous participant in Emerge, a pro-choice support group for women who've had abortions

Those sentiments would raise the eyebrows of many a pro-choice activist. After all, the feminist movement is built upon the cornerstone of women controlling their reproductive destinies -- on the imperative of valuing women’s lives over the potential for life represented by a pregnancy. In the past, that often meant not talking at all about post-abortive women’s feelings about the fetus.

Well, that and the small matter of the stigma of abortion loudly and persistently upheld by the Religious Reich shouting 'baby killers' at workers and clients of abortion clinics.

But that is changing. The anti-abortion rights movement has become more sophisticated in recent years, co-opting themes of female empowerment to argue that women are abortion's central victims -- a line of reasoning that reached the Supreme Court in last year's Gonzales v. Carhart decision. In response, some reproductive health advocates have decided to deal head-on with the psychological aftermath of abortion. And though they're winning over skeptical elements of the pro-choice movement, these younger activists are having trouble convincing donors to fund their cause.

While most doctors agree so-called "Post Abortion Syndrome" is a myth, there is no doubt that dealing with an unplanned pregnancy can lead to anxiety and depression for some women. "It's about the relationship they were in when they got pregnant, or the fact they're currently financially dependent, or the relationship they had with their mother or father," says Nikki Madsen, associate director of Pro-Choice Resources, a Minneapolis-based non-profit that works to increase access to abortion and other reproductive health services. "An unplanned pregnancy elevates those things in our lives."

So in 2006, Pro-Choice Resources began hosting Emerge, a six-week secular support group for women who'd had abortions -- the first pro-choice after-abortion support group in the nation. And in San Francisco eight years ago, five women in their twenties and thirties who'd had abortions launched Exhale*, a national telephone hotline offering non-ideological counseling to post-abortive women. Both groups are treading uncharted ground; nationwide, almost every support group and talk line for post-abortive women is sponsored by religious groups that oppose abortion rights.

The article discusses aspects of the 'conundrum'. An interesting problem is terminology. Exhale calls itself 'pro-voice', not 'pro-choice'.

Exhale's reasoning, Baker explains, is that women from across the political spectrum choose abortion, and that carrying a highly politicized label such as "pro-choice" would turn off potential clients. Forty percent of women who have abortions identify as Christian or Catholic, for example, and may also consider themselves pro-life. Few women want to talk about politics when they call Exhale, Baker says; many just want to tell someone they've had an abortion, and talk through feelings ranging from relief to grief.

Then there's the funding problem. Foundations are concerned with the controversy and traditional pro-choice supporters are wary.

The piece winds up with two quotes that sum up the conundrum nicely:

"It has a lot to do with how younger women think and feel about abortion these days," says Arons of the Center for American Progress. "That it's important to have legal access, but it's not the same fight that it was for the Second Wave generation of feminists. Abortion doesn't symbolize women's liberation to the same extent as it did."

The Moriah Fund's Saperstein is even blunter. "If you've been in the women's rights arena for decades fighting the same battle over and over and over again, it's easy to feel defensive," she says. "But everyone knows abortion is a complicated experience."

Yes. Everyone does know that. And nobody knows better than those of us who have had abortions.

Here is a link to pro-choice post-abortion counselling programs and one to Project Voice, an oral history project.

Anybody know of Canadian initiatives in this area?

*I blogged about Exhale back at Birth Pangs in March 2007.

No Family Planning, No Contraception, No Abortion = Maternal Health, Public Version

What was behind the subscription wall at Embassy Magazine is now publicly available.

That great friend of women and limousine-hopper, Bev Oda confirms: No abortion or contraception for developing countries because our fundy base wouldn't like it, unless the racists thought about it and then they might.

The federal government won’t add contraception and abortion to a package of initiatives aimed at improving women and children’s health despite pleas from the Opposition to include the practices.

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda said Thursday that Ottawa isn’t changing its policy on what measures will be part of a major initiative with G8 countries to improve the lot of women and children in the world’s poorest countries.

“Canada is not currently going to be changing its approach to improving maternal and infant health,” Ms. Oda said in Halifax, where she announced the port city will host a G8 development ministers meeting in April.

Ah, but, you see, that's a great big porky pie. Canada -- under the ReformaTories -- is changing 30 years of foreign aid policy that, in consultation with the receiving country of course, did include the full range of reproductive services for women and men.

Now, have a gander at this swerve:

“The Prime Minister has been clear since we became government that there’s no intention on regenerating any debate on abortion.”

That is true -- but only for Canada. And he had to say that when Ken Epp's private member's bill, aka the Kicking Abortion's Ass Bill, was about to bite the Cons on the butt before it was tossed under the bus just before the last -- or was it the one before that? I'm losing count here -- election.

(Read the comments at the Globe link -- over 450 when I was there. Just about universally appalled.)

Now, go read Joyce Arthur who has a slew of facty-truthy thingies about how hellyeah access to safe abortion is an integral part of maternal health.

Conservative politicians and commentators have heaped scorn on Ignatieff's concerns, however, and condemned him for turning women's health into a "political football." But most of the politicking is actually coming from Ignatieff's critics, who have launched attacks without the benefit of any facts, and even less compassion for women. Some of the coverage is so shockingly ignorant that it qualifies as being misogynist. Please, if we are going to have this discussion — and we should — please, let's pay attention to some key facts:

* 19-20 million women in developing countries resort to unsafe (usually illegal) abortions every year. 98% of unsafe abortions occur in countries with restrictive abortion laws (generally archaic laws passed by former colonial powers). There are 42 million abortions a year in total.

* 68,000 women die every year from unsafe abortion. 8 million women experience complications serious enough to require treatment. Of those, 3 million never receive medical treatment.

* Thirteen percent of all pregnancy-related deaths are due to unsafe abortion.

* Unsafe abortion is the only cause of maternal mortality that is entirely preventable.

* The highest abortion rates in the world are generally in developing countries with strict criminal laws against abortion. Laws don't stop abortion; they only drive it underground and make it dangerous. (Abortion rates are lower and have been declining in countries where it is legal and widely available.)

* 220,000 children worldwide lose their mothers every year from abortion-related deaths. (Most women in the developing world who have abortions are married with children.)

* When a pregnant woman dies from unsafe abortion, her existing children are 10 times more likely to die within the next two years.

* 215 million women in the developing world have an unmet need for modern contraceptives (meaning they want to avoid a pregnancy but are using an ineffective family planning method or no method).

* Lack of contraception contributes to high rates of unintended pregnancy, which in turn contributes significantly to the maternal death rate. That's because childbirth is dangerous in many developing countries. For example, the lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 in 17 in West and Central Africa, and 1 in 8000 in industrialized countries.

* Additional consequences of unsafe abortion include loss of productivity, economic burden on public health systems, stigma, and long-term health problems like infertility.

* The costs of treating the 5 million women who are hospitalized every year after unsafe abortion is at least $460 million. In Africa, complications of abortion account for 30 to 50 percent of maternal deaths, and hospitals' maternity wards and budgets are often largely diverted to treating these complications.

* Safe legal abortion saves women's lives. Without exception, every country that has legalized abortion has seen dramatic decreases in deaths and serious complications due to unsafe abortion. In western industrialized countries, death from unsafe abortion has been virtually eliminated.

Let's hear from somebody else who knows a thing or two, Keith Martin.

Liberal MP Keith Martin, a doctor who is an expert on the sorry state of maternal health around the world, is one of those supporters. Martin has travelled to Africa dozens of times, and worked there as a doctor several times. He has also been involved in previous attempts to get the G8 to take strong action on improving maternal mortality. He has chaired pre-G8 summits on international health, including maternal and childhood mortality.

Martin says the federal government must articulate exactly what it is going to do when it comes to the G8 maternal health initiative and access to reproductive technology. "I hope they don't take an ideological position."

Harper will be "turning back the clock," Martin says, if the initiative does not include reproductive health: "I can't think of another country that would take that position."

Yeah, well, the Excited States went down that foreign policy abstinence only and screw people vulnerable to AIDS road under the influence of their ChristoTalibaners. And now Motherhood Steve is taking up that slack now that grown-ups are in charge in Washington.

So, I say again: Yo, Iggy, Jack! Ride this horsey!

One Woman a Minute

Pregnancy kills one woman per minute. Unsafe abortion kills one woman every eight minutes. Reproductive Health Reality Check says:

. . .every minute, a woman still dies as a result of pregnancy or childbirth. Ninety-nine percent of these deaths occur in developing countries (primarily in Africa and Asia), and the vast majority of them are preventable. . . .

One in eight of those women dying every minute as a result of pregnancy and childbirth are women dying from unsafe abortions, after all--totaling 68,000 women every year, a figure that hasn't changed in nearly two decades. Nearly half of these deaths occur in Africa, where abortion is largely illegal, and rarely available even under circumstances where it is legal.

We decided to have a look at current news stories from Africa.

First, there's this from Uganda.

Over 1,000 Ugandan women die every year as a result of unsafe abortions and an additional 68,000 suffer serious health complications, according to a recently released report from the Ministry of Health.

"As many as 1,200 unsafe abortions result in death each year. Nearly a quarter (23%) of all abortions result in serious complications," says the report Road map for accelerating the reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in Uganda. . . .

Because abortion is illegal in Uganda, and because of the widespread social stigma attached to the practice, many women who experience complications are not seeking or receiving any help. "Roughly one in five of the estimated 297,000 women who have an abortion each year - a total of 65,000 women - suffer complications that require medical care but do not get treatment in a medical facility," says the report.

Now, let's have a look at Nigeria:

97% of Fetus Fetishists Make Sh*t Up

JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie, among others, doesn't think the Stringing Fetus Fetishists Along Bill has much of a chance of passing, mainly because we already have laws to deal with coercion and threats. Also:

There’s no legitimate rationale for amending the existing law to address so rare a circumstance as “coerced abortion”, especially within the hazy parameters defined by Bill C-510.

But, but, but, JJ, you're wrong! Coerced abortion is rampant! Here's what LieShite said:

A Canadian MP has introduced legislation similar to bills in the United States that helps women who face pressure or coercion when considering an abortion. With surveys showing anywhere from 40-60 percent of women are pressured into unwanted abortions, the legislation can help large numbers of women.

This struck me as totally bogus, so I got googling but I could not find anything that backs up that 40-60 per cent number, or the plural 'surveys'.

But I have found multiple citations of one very precise number -- 64% -- all with the same reference, for example, this 22-page pdf called 'Forced Abortion in America: A Special Report'.

Page 1 headline: 'Most abortions are unwanted or coerced. Many are forced.' Bullet copy detailing anecdotes, duly end-noted.

Page 2 headline: 'The Un-Choice', then some statistical bullet copy with end-note numbers. (There is a lot of bullshit there unrelated to coercion that I'm leaving out. Stuff about post-abortion depression, suicide, other health complications -- all thoroughly and regularly debunked by real researchers. This is the single page with anything like facts on it. The rest of the 22-page report is all anecdotal.)

64% of women reported feeling pressured to abort.1

Most felt rushed or uncertain, yet 67% weren’t counseled.1

79% weren’t told of available reasources.1

84% weren’t sufficiently informed before abortion.1

So what is that all-important Reference 1?

VM Rue et. al., “Induced abortion and traumatic stress: A preliminary comparison of American and Russian women,” Medical Science Monitor 10(10): SR5-16 (2004).

I ran it through Google Scholar and this is what turned up -- miles of anti-choice pseudo-science articles referencing it.

I chased down the abstract at Medical Science Monitor, a Polish monthly that styles itself as an 'International Medical Journal for Experimental and Clinical Research'.

Induced abortion and traumatic stress: A preliminary comparison of American and Russian women
Vincent Rue, Priscilla Coleman, James Rue, David Reardon
Med Sci Monit 2004; 10(10): SR 5 - 16
Manuscript ID: 11784

Institute for Pregnancy Loss, Jacksonville, FL, U.S.A.
Human Development and Family Studies, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, U.S.A.
Sir Thomas More Clinic, Downey, CA, U.S.A.
Elliot Institute, Springfield, IL, U.S.A.

Background: Individual and situational risk factors associated with negative postabortion psychological sequelae have been identified, but the degree of posttraumatic stress reactions and the effects of culture are largely unknown.

Material/Methods: Retrospective data were collected using the Institute for Pregnancy Loss Questionnaire (IPLQ) and the Traumatic Stress Institute’s (TSI) Belief Scale administered at health care facilities to 548 women (331 Russian and 217 American) who had experienced one or more abortions, but no other pregnancy losses.

Results: Overall, the findings here indicated that American women were more negatively influenced by their abortion experiences than Russian women. While 65% of American women and 13.1% of Russian women experienced multiple symptoms of increased arousal, re-experiencing and avoidance associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 14.3% of American and 0.9% of Russian women met the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Russian women had significantly higher scores on the TSI Belief Scale than American women, indicating more disruption of cognitive schemas. In this sample, American women were considerably more likely to have experienced childhood and adult traumatic experiences than Russian women. Predictors of positive and negative outcomes associated with abortion differed across the two cultures.

Conclusions: Posttraumatic stress reactions were found to be associated with abortion. Consistent with previous research, the data here suggest abortion can increase stress and decrease coping abilities, particularly for those women who have a history of adverse childhood events and prior traumata. Study limitations preclude drawing definitive conclusions, but the findings do suggest additional cross-cultural research is warranted.

We'll get to the authors and institutions in a moment, but first, a question. Do you see the words 'pressure' or 'coercion' anywhere in that abstract? Anything about counselling or information?

What I see is a pretty interesting cross-cultural study of the impact of culture on stress-inducing events.

With even more interesting implications. Why would Russian women -- where abortion has been very common and accepted as an unfortunate method of birth control for decades -- experience so much less stress than Merkin women -- where abortion continues to be one of the most hotly contested societal issues with a ton of stigma attached?

Oh. Did I just answer that question?

Still, coerced abortion is not the focus of the study. It appears that the authors were concerned to show a link between abortion and stress. Well, shit, anybody's who has had an abortion or knows someone who has had an abortion could have told them that.

Much more informative and interesting would be a comparison of stress measures between women who had abortions and women who gave birth.

But perhaps information about 'pressure' was gleaned from those Institute for Pregnancy Loss Questionnaires and inserted into a footnote or something. We don't know, do we?

Other obvious problems with it: number of participants (548, fewer than half of whom are Merkin) and date (six years old).

Not to mention the fact that it seems to be the only study anybody cites.

On to the bias part. All the authors and three of the four institutions are anti-choice.

Vincent Rue is the coiner of the term 'post-abortion syndrome' and director of the Institute for Pregnancy Loss, which has no online presence, by the way.

We ran into Priscilla Coleman doing her SHRIEEEKY thing over the most recent -- and no doubt not last -- scholarly debunking of the 'abortion=insanity' equation.

Coleman has published twelve articles in peer-reviewed journals that claim there is a causal relationship between abortion and poor mental health. Her co-authors are pro-life advocates J.R. Cougle, Vincent Rue and David Reardon. Reardon is controversial for misrepresenting his academic credentials and for his research methods.

The statistical methods Coleman and her co-authors use have been criticized by the American Psychological Association (APA). A panel convened by the APA has written that the studies by Coleman, and her co-authors have "inadequate or inappropriate" controls and don't adequately control "for women's mental health prior to the pregnancy and abortion."

And now, the clincher -- the 'controversial' David Reardon, founder of the anti-choice Elliot Institute, creator of the 'pro-woman pro-life' strategy, and profiled in 2005 as an example of 'Christian conservatives [who] have gone a long way towards creating their own scientific counter-establishment.'

Right. The 'make-up-the-facts-to-fit-the-agenda' gang.

So this is what the HonMem Bruinooge is relying on as evidence for his urgently needed bill. Oh, and the tragic murder of Roxanne Fernando who was NOT murdered because she refused to have an abortion, but, seemingly, because she was infatuated with a Really Bad Boy who was so dim that the only way he could think of to get her to leave him alone was to kill her.

And other anti-coerced abortion legislation is based on the same bogus 'research'.

Sen. Jack Johnson has sponsored legislation requiring abortion clinics in Tennessee to post anti-coercion signs. He cites statistics that purport to show that 64 percent of women “were coerced into having that abortion.” Let’s dig a little deeper.

(snip)

In other words, these statistics are 6 years old, are based on a very small data sample (over half of which wasn’t even in the U.S.), and were prepared at the behest of organizations with a clear bias about the outcome.

Is this the sort of informed decision-making we should expect from our legislators?

Apparently. ReformaTories and ReThuglicans never let facts get in the way of their authoritarian, paternalistic, misogynist agenda.

"Parental Consent" Comes to Canada

In what is believed to be a first in Canada, a new partnership between Saskatchewan ProLife and ARPA (Association for Reformed Political Action) is trying to bring parental consent regulations to Saskatchewan.

This is currently the situation.

I’m under the age of 18, do I need parental consent to have an abortion?

There is currently no legislation regarding the age of consent for obtaining an abortion in Canada; however, many hospitals have their own internal policy regarding parental consent. Some hospitals require parental consent for any type of surgery performed on a young person. The age when parental consent is required varies. You can ask about the rules regarding parental consent at your local public health unit. Free-standing abortion clinics do not require a parent’s permission for an abortion, if it is clear that the youth understands what she is doing.

Specificly, here's the deal.

In Saskatchewan abortion is available up to the 16th week of pregnancy (12 weeks in Saskatoon, 16 weeks in Regina) and is covered under Saskatchewan Health, provided a woman has a valid Provincial Health Number (PHN).

But here's what the new gang says: “The capacity to become pregnant and the capacity for mature judgement concerning the wisdom of an abortion are not necessarily related.”

Because if a teen isn't mature enough to decide whether she needs an abortion, she's totally mature enough to give birth. Riiight.

Then there are some small matters of human rights and privacy. If a young woman doesn't want her parents to know, there's probably a bloody good reason.

We remember ARPA, don't we? It's the Dominionist gang who back in 2009 polled potential Ontario Conservative leaders on abortion and whatnot and posted the results for us to find, rather inconveniently for Tim Hudak, who had told the god-squad that he would defund abortion. Oops.

Here is ARPA's mission and it is a Mission.

The mission of ARPA Canada is to educate, equip, and encourage Reformed Christians to political action and to bring a biblical perspective to our civil authorities.

Another familiar outfit in this new bunfest is We Need A Law, fronted by ARPA member, Mike Schouten. (We Need A Law is the bogus grassroots group conjured up to support Woodworth's Wank, aka M312.)

Now that we've got the players sorted out, let's have a closer look at what they want (bold mine).

Parental consent for abortion legislation will not prevent women from requesting and receiving an abortion.  It will not stop abortion from occurring. It will not make abortion illegal.

Rather, parental consent for abortion, drafted to withstand the test of constitutionality, will protect the health and welfare of minors, as well as foster family unity and protect the constitutional rights of parents to raise their children and be involved in the steps of that process. With the loving support of their parents, many young women will be able to bring their babies into the world and not face the physical risks and emotional devastation that an abortion can bring.

Sure. And with abusive and/or fetus fetishist parents who threaten to kick her out of the house or worse, many teens will be forced to bear a child perhaps fathered by a member of that "loving" family.

So far, this campaign is limited to Saskatchewan, but you can bet that there are anti-choicers elsewhere watching carefully, ready to roll out the same bullshit across the country.

There are already moves in several provinces to defund abortion.

We've also got moves to ban certain methods of abortion. For example, the theme for this year's March for Lies is RU 4 Life, a genius play on RU486, the abortion drug still, unaccountably, NOT approved yet by Health Canada.

Now we've got a nascent "parental rights" schtick. Can mandatory ultrasounds, mandatory waiting periods, etfuckingcetera be far behind?

There is absolutely no stomach for reopening the abortion debate in Canada, as even Master Panderer Stephen Harper realizes. But the fetus fetishists are relentless.

And so are we. We will continue to watch and report.

Culture War? Dog Whistle? Ginormous Boo-Boo? Hissy Fit?

So, what the hell is Motherhood Steve up to? We plow through the plethora of punditry so you don't have to. (All emphasis is mine.)

DonMartin:

That’s why it’s takes a selective sense of morality for this government to justify covering the 100,000 Canadian women per year it insures for abortions in sterile medical settings while African women are denied our foreign aid to access the same procedure.
. . .
There’s no obvious easy escape from the mess now. What started as a dream initiative is becoming a policy nightmare for Harper, who should’ve seen this coming months ago when he announced the plan.

Even when pushing a proposal to save lives among those living in wretched faraway conditions as his signature accomplishment, Harper has found a way to set his government apart from the opposition parties.

Given that he’s never seen parliamentary harmony he couldn’t inflame into political divisions, perhaps poisoning this motherhood initiative will end up a fitting Stephen Harper legacy after all.

Edmonton Journal:

Either we as a nation are officially casting ourselves as hypocrites in our dealings with others, since abortion is a right for all women in this country. Surely what is a fundamental liberty for Canadians must be extended to those in the most need who want it, if it is legal in their jurisdiction as it is in ours.

Or, by signalling such a position, Stephen Harper is sending a not very subtle message to his political base that a majority Conservative government in Canada would reopen the debate on a woman's right to choose in this country.

By the way, there's a nifty interactive map of the world at the CBC showing the legal status of abortion in various countries.

Back to the pundits. Barbara Yaffe:

It is unclear why they'd allow themselves to get sidetracked on an international policy that is likely to reinforce fears about Harper's brand of conservatism and potentially deliver a ballot box boot to the backside.

Now Rosie DiManno in what may be the once-in-a-lifetime piece of hers that I actually agree with. She's talking specfically about Africa and the epidemic of rape in some places there. It's a tough read with horrifying stats and stories.

Why should any of these distant horrors matter to Canadians? Because rape as a sexual weapon is driving hundreds of thousands of women in desperate search of abortion on the African continent — where 700 women die for every 100,000 abortions due to backroom butchery — and Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week insisted Canada will not fund abortions in the developing world.

Why Harper would draw this line in the blood-drenched sand, as leader of a country that has no abortion laws and where the medical procedure is covered for Canadian women under the public health insurance plan, is unfathomable. It is particularly contrarian within the context of Canada’s ballyhooed initiative to champion maternal health funding for Africa at the upcoming G8 summit.
. . .
As a result of war and sexual violence, abortion in Africa is indeed a matter of post-violation contraception. For countless women, girls, abortion could provide the slim hope of returning to a life grossly interrupted.

Harper can blather about healthy babies and improved maternal care all he wants. The truth is unwanted babies will die; they’re being murdered right now, because their mothers cannot stand the sight of them — the progeny of their assailants — and cannot cope with exclusion from their communities.

If Harper doesn’t care about these women and girls, would deny them funding for abortions so safely provided to Canadian women, he should at least give a damn about the babies forsaken and killed because they had the misfortune to be born.

Judith Timson in a piece titled 'Ottawa to refuse abortion funding? Not in my name':

Here is a political question that for me, just won’t go away: In exactly whose name has the Harper government decided to withhold funds for access to safe abortion in their international maternal and child health initiative?

Not in my name. And not in the names of countless Canadians who have relied for years on safe access to the procedure at government expense.

The government’s decision has made what should have been international apple pie – a widely applauded global health initiative for women and children – into a political hot potato, not only reviving the endlessly divisive abortion debate, but threatening to have it play out, as one concerned director of an international aid foundation told me, “on the backs of African women and children.”

There’s something fundamentally high-handed about a minority government deciding it won’t offer women overseas the same rights they have here. It’s like a new version of NIMBY (not in my backyard) only it’s the colonial version: NITBY (not in their backyard)
. . .
No, it’s solely up to Canadians to deal with the glaring hypocrisy and paternalism of their government’s stance. While we’re at it, we should also notice how the issue of abortion is being stealthily revived in this country, despite the Prime Minister’s declaration that Canadians have “no appetite” for the debate.
. . .
At the end of that G-8 meeting, Ms. Oda seemed to go out of her way to re-emphasize the government’s position: “So I just want to clarify: Family planning does not include abortion.” Why would she do that, if the Prime Minister wants this debate to go away?

Well, if Bev Oda can “clarify” her position then I will clarify mine: For me and many others, family planning does include abortion. However torturous an ensuing debate, this is clearly a moment that matters in the history of abortion rights in this country. The Conservative government, in a moment of political pandering, has made it matter.

Susan Riley:

Of course there is a culture war raging in federal politics. It's been going on since Preston Manning blew into Ottawa many years ago.

The battle lines are clear. Elitist, cosmopolitan (code for gay, or gay-friendly), urban CBC-lovers -- including "left-wing fringe groups", anti-Israel aid agencies and pro-gay judges -- on one side. Frugal small town and suburban Canadians who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules on the other.

And now, with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's ill-considered G8 maternal health initiative, the deepest wedge of all: abortion rights.
. . .
Leaving aside the paternalism of allowing abortion access in Canada but discouraging it in Africa, and those annoying experts who argue that access to safe abortion is key component of maternal health, this is a true wedge issue -- one that could blow up in Harper's face.

On Monday, women involved in international advocacy will be asking "Where is Canada's leadership in promoting gender equality?" at an event on Parliament Hill. The maternal health initiative -- which was intended to display the Harper's caring side, but has backfired badly -- will be under unfriendly scrutiny. So will what some see as a Tory stealth agenda, aimed at removing funding from agencies that don't promote social conservative values.

If we're having a culture war, this could be a new front line. No wonder those peace-loving Conservatives are having a sudden attack of the vapours.

Chris Selley whose piece is titled 'A contrived little abortion war'. And he does blame the Liberals.

I’m intrigued by the idea, as championed by Stephen Harper this week, that abortion “divides” Canadians. It does, certainly, on an emotional level. But considering how vicious and clamorous the pro-life vs. pro-choice battle is, there’s actually a remarkable consensus among Canadians that abortion should not be illegal. The last major poll I’m aware of, conducted by Angus Reid in June 2008, found that just 4% of us felt abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances.

There are divisions within the other 96%, of course. Angus Reid found 48% of Canadians felt abortion should always be legal. But nearly as many, 43%, felt there should be some restrictions. And when that 43% was presented with an array of possibilities, such as a cutoff date in a woman’s pregnancy or defunding the procedure under certain circumstances, they couldn’t agree on anything.

But the abortion war isn’t supposed to be about conflicting policy choices; that’s not what ostensibly “divides” us. I’ve never seen a T-shirt braying “We’re OK with the vast majority of abortions!” or a placard reading “Save fetuses older than 13 weeks!” It’s supposed to be black and white: All abortions are OK, or all abortions are evil. (These are the only two coherent positions on the matter, in my view, and for the record, I uneasily subscribe to the former.) If only 4% of Canadians actually think all fetuses are human beings — to say nothing of perdurable pro-choicers who blanch at sex-selective termination — then I’m forced to conclude that this whole war is a bit of a sham.

Mr. Harper was explaining his government’s pledge — which came after weeks of hemming and hawing, and is no doubt subject to further review, tweaking or outright abandonment — not to fund abortions in the dusty, faraway lands where it wants to improve maternal health. The government is free to focus its efforts where and how it wishes. But an absolute ban on abortion-related spending on the grounds Mr. Harper cited is dizzyingly nonsensical. No one seems to disagree that, in certain circumstances, and morality aside, abortion can improve women’s health outcomes. Canada has no abortion law. Canadians do not support outlawing it. Canadian governments fund it. And Mr. Harper has sworn blind since being elected that he has no intention whatsoever of changing any of that. Ever. Hidden agenda? Pshaw. Long live our unique legal vacuum, envy of nations!

By the standards Mr. Harper espoused this week, that sounds awfully divisive. And nonsensical. Does he think we value foreign fetuses ahead of Canadian ones? Are women not raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Is there no incest in Haiti? It doesn’t survive a moment’s scrutiny.

Another by the way -- here is a much more recent poll from April 1 this year.

A majority of Canadians describe themselves as leaning pro-choice with regard to abortion. A little more than a quarter prefer “pro-life”, with the remainder undecided.

This finding of a 2-1 margin in favour of the pro-choice position is almost unchanged from the answers Canadians gave to the identical question a decade ago.

More punditry: Susan Delacourt:

For the first time since taking power more than four years ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper this week openly embraced a solid, social-conservative policy of the right — refusing to have Canada support abortion in foreign-aid projects.

Political observers were stunned.

After all this time practising the politics of pragmatism, steering his party away from any of the polarizing, social conservatism that scares off many women, urban and centrist voters, Harper branded his government as anti-abortion.

It’s a decision that could well haunt the Conservatives into the next election campaign, depending on how Harper’s opponents handle it.

Mindelle Jacobs:

If the Harper Conservatives are trying to woo mainstream Canada and gain enough trust to win another election, they have a funny way of doing it.

First, they insist they don’t want to get into an abortion debate in the lead-up to June’s G8 summit in Ontario. Then they deliberately wade into the issue. It’s as if they get a kick out of committing political suicide.

After weeks of obfuscation, the Conservatives have finally declared that Canada won’t fund abortion under our G8 maternal and child health initiative. To top it off, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda made the bizarre statement that “Canada has never funded a procedure that included abortion.”

Jacobs then points out that Canada through CIDA has been funding International Planned Parenthood Federation's work around the world for decades.

Changes may be in the works to that longstanding policy though.

Nearly a year after asking the Canadian government to renew its funding, the International Planned Parenthood Federation is still waiting for an answer and if the money doesn't come through, the agency says the impact on its work in developing countries will be devastating.

The sexual and reproductive health organization depends on funding from governments around the world for a majority of its budget. It has a long-standing partnership with the Canadian International Development Agency but its most recent funding agreement ended on December 31. Months before that, in June 2009, IPPF submitted its proposal to renew the previous funding, worth $18 million over three years.

Is the stalling on IPPF's funding an indication that this has been in the works for a while? Is it a dog whistle to the base base? Or is Stevie ('I'm never wrong and I never back down') Peevie just digging his widdle heels in because the meanies in the Liberal Party tried to force his hand on the issue? No matter that the fucking Liberals failed spectacularly, Stevie was peeved.

Delacourt is right, I think. This issue will kill the ReformaTories at the polls -- but only if the Useless Opposition plays it right. We at DJ! have been shrieeeeking saying this for ages. Canada is a pro-choice country. And nothing will mobilize the women of Canada to get out and vote like trying to turn back the clock on our cherished and hard-won rights.

In a final by the way, the base base as represented by The Freaks aren't buying it. Even they think Stevie is getting his ass kicked over this.

In Which DJ! Resolves the Abortion 'Debate'

It seems to me that the abortion so-called debate in the US has never been more heated as the Democrats make a final push for healthcare reform. The lies and bullshit are flying -- just google 'abortion' -- fast and furiously. Each side is shrieeeeking either that 'YES! Abortion is so funded under the plan!' or that 'NO! Abortion is not atall atall funded under the plan!'

I have no idea whether it is covered or not. And frankly, I've ceased to care about healthcare reform in the Excited States. We at DJ! called it back in July last year. Any attempt to reform the system significantly would founder on abortion. Because there is no common ground on women's reproductive rights.

Bill Clinton, that weaselly triangulator, thought he had it with the mealy-mouthed meme, 'safe, legal, and rare':

Safe, legal and rare. President Clinton first used this phrase, as early as 1992, to capture the essence of a desired national policy on abortion. For the most part, even the most ardent abortion rights supporters have come to embrace this notion and to accept the validity of its two-fold underlying premise: Abortion in the United States must remain legal in order to be safe, and at the same time, even with abortion services legal and accessible to women who need them, abortion can be rare -- or at least far less common than it is now.

Of course, the fetus fetishists leapt on the central idiocy -- trying to speak out of both sides of the mouth -- saying, 'Well, if abortion is no biggie, then why try to make it rare?'

The Democrats dumped that meme in 2008 and went for a policy that, again, tried for common ground, this time by including tepid support for pregnant women and adoption while asserting that abortion should be legal and safe.

And look how well that's working out for them.

There is one hard fact behind abortion rates.

Put simply, abortion rates around the world are high where unplanned pregnancy is high, and they are low where women and couples are better equipped to prevent those pregnancies they wish to postpone or avoid altogether.

Sciencey-facty oriented people cite all kinds of sciencey-facty studies to prove the point.

And, oh, look, here's another one (emphasis mine).

Offering young women free hormonal contraception could lead to a significant fall in abortions, the results of a new health project indicate.

As part of the project, 3,500 women aged 20-24, who were living in two different cities in Norway, were offered free hormonal contraception for one year. By the end of the year, the abortion rate in both cities had halved.

The Norwegian Directorate of Health initiated the project after a previous project led to similar success. In 2002, Norwegian women aged between 16 and 19 were offered free hormone-based contraception. Abortion rates fell dramatically and reached their lowest level in 2005.

In 2006, after the authorities modified the scheme and introduced part-payment for hormonal contraception, the number of terminations among this age group began to rise again. Since then, the abortion rate among 16 to 19-year-olds has risen every year.

There. You want 'rare'? Hand out free contraception.

Shame on THIS Magazine

THIS magazine's 4,000-word cover story, "No Choice: Why the pro-choice movement won't let women grieve after abortion", is a piece of crap.



First the title, sheesh.

Next the deck (likely not written by author):

The anti-abortion movement has newly latched onto Post-Abortion Syndrome, a controversial diagnosis that it claims mimics PTSD.

No. Not 'newly latched onto'.

The tactic is more than 30 years old as the article itself acknowledges a few paragraphs down.

Next, your de rigeur pseudonymous, but like totally believable victim of the piece, "Yana", who is 23 years old but who believed her "semi-boyfriend" when he told her she couldn't get pregnant if he pulled out.

Takeaway from that: Yana is more than a little credulous.

There's an 'angry-looking nurse", stainless steel and Yana's "legs are pushed back".

Right. Abortion is performed by angry, heartless people. (The hospital is identified, by the way, as Mt Sinai, one of the best hospitals in Toronto.)

Afterward, Yana is grieving. OK. There are as many reactions to abortion as there are women who have them. (In the US, it's estimated that 1 in 3 women will have an abortion during her life. In Canada, probably fewer but still, that's a lot of women.)

Then we are introduced to PAS and its proponents proselytizers. The author, Rebecca Melnyk, concedes that reputable researchers and professionals question its existence.

Then she states that "abortion rights advocates, wary and dismissive of PAS, are also largely indifferent to any need for counselling."

After several more meandering paragraphs, we get this:

Post-abortion counselling is an available option at other abortion clinics across Canada. [Joyce] Arthur knows of at least two in Vancouver. Very few attend. Other parts of the country? Arthur polls a pro-abortion right listserv, of which she’s a member. The messages roll in from abortion clinics. Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Yellowknife all have services.

So, there are counselling services available.

Melnyk goes to Everywoman's Health Centre in Vancouver, "an abortion clinic that provides free, non-judgmental counselling services" and talks to Erin Mullan, a counsellor with more than 20 years of experience.

And misquotes her. Melynk's quote:

For the small number of women [Mullan] refers out to other counsellors who offer long-term support, abortion is not the main cause of negative feelings, but rather, “it opens a door of pain.”

What Erin actually said [private communication, quoted here with permission]:

I said "the abortion experience can be a doorway that other pain walks through." It's something I say often in counselling so I know.

Somewhere in there, the evil feminists are rolled out (emphasis mine);

That same month, on a warm afternoon in Toronto Miriam McDonald, an editor at the Marxist newspaper Spartacist Canada, struts up and down a hallway at the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education at an International Women’s day rally. “Abortion is just a medical procedure like getting a wart off, except it’s all politicized,” she says. “A woman’s capacity to control her fertility opens the doors to full equality. That’s why it’s … stigmatized.” Another woman standing next to her in a baseball cap, handing out newspapers, says post-abortive women need counselling, not to overcome negative feelings related to abortion, but rather, to cope with society’s stigma and culture of shame. Three young people in lime green shirts with the words “reproductive freedom fighters” scurry back and forth.

Strutting, scurrying. IN BASEBALL CAPS AND LIME GREEN SHIRTS! EEEEEK!

More glurge, then another pseudonymous "victim", who is not sorry about her decision to abort, but "feels guilty for not feeling guiltier".

Huh?

Now we get biographical. Turns out Melnyk had an abortion too and felt "shame" and "damned".

Then, back to Yana again who is painting a ceramic (cup?) for "a friend's new baby". Yana is "working on not feeling guilty".

End.

The piece is a very strange amalgam of correct information, misinformation and irrelevant information. It rambles and wanders and badly needed a competent editor.

It is weighted heavily towards the fictional PAS side, while acknowledging that PAS exists only in the tiny minds of fetus fetishists.

Nowhere is there any evidence that the "pro-choice movement won't let women grieve after abortion".

In short, it is tabloid crap of the most scurrilous sort. Don't waste your time on it.

THIS Magazine used to be a good progressive publication. Shame on you.

For the record, pro-choice people do not accept that PAS is anything but a made-up scare tactic. Pro-choice people do accept that there is a wide range of reactions among people who have abortions. And ALL of them are valid.

Charter Challenge on Abortion Statistics

I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been a single mainstream media story on this.

So, here goes with my version of an interesting looming conflict over reproductive rights in Ontario.

First, the players. One is amateur statistician and serial shrieeeeker, Pat Maloney. Another is the Dominionist (reluctant) revealer of Conservative leadership candidates' abortion stances, Association for Reformed Political Action with its astroturf stalking horse, We Need a Law Like a Hole in the Head.

The issue: The exemption of abortion statistics from Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA).

Background. In January 2012, FIPPA was extended to hospitals with the following exemptions (scroll down to Sec. 65).

(5.7)  This Act does not apply to records relating to the provision of abortion services. 2010, c. 25, s. 24 (17).

Among its many other exemptions, there's also this:

(5.3)  This Act does not apply to the ecclesiastical records of a church or religious organization that is affiliated with an educational institution or a hospital. 2010, c. 25, s. 24 (17).

You know, just to forestall any accusation that the government is PROABORTION and ANTICHRISTIAN!!!

Here's a news story about the abortion exemption from August 2012.

The Ontario government says it recently restricted public access to records of abortion services because the data is “highly sensitive.” The change has prompted criticism from some anti-abortion groups, saying the public’s ability to request abortion data was important because statistics currently released by government entities are “shoddy.”

Asked to explain the decision, the provincial Ministry of Health said in a statement to the National Post: “Records relating to abortion services are highly sensitive and that is why a decision was made to exempt these records.”

B.C. has had a similar clause in its Freedom of Information act since 2001, restricting the disclosure of information relating to abortion services. The change came after several clinics and hospitals in the province were targeted by anti-abortion groups, as well as violence against North American abortion providers, and was intended to protect the providers, said Wendy Norman, an associate professor of family medicine at the University of British Columbia.

At the time, beyond the "highly sensitive" characterization, the purpose of exemption was never made explicit though concerns for the safety of providers and for the non-entirely neutral use of the information were assumed.

The fetus freaks naturally claimed censorship and scurrilous skulduggery.

Pat Maloney, in particular, seemed to be itching for the martyr mantle.

Anti-abortion blogger Patricia Maloney, however, says her latest request was denied.

“Before this change occurred, a citizen of Ontario could ask for and receive information on abortion statistics. I have done several of these Freedom of Information requests,” she wrote on her blog, Run with Life. “In fact it was my latest FOI, which was refused, that alerted me to the change.”

And now she has a partner, ARPA, in her martyr quest. Here is their factum asking that Section 65(5.7) of FIPPA be declared unconstitutional.

First, the spin claim voiced by the usual suspects that this is aaallll about facts and statistics is just too hilarious. Here's the Focus on the Family astroturf gang:

This is not about being pro-life. We need good statistics to see trends in our society and to know whether education programs are working.

Yeah, sure. Pat Maloney, who used aggregated abortion statistics to call for homicide investigations, is aaaalll about stats.

Also, we do not remember any anti-choice organizations among the 488 groups clamouring to keep the mandatory census for the sake of "good stats," though among those eleven in favour of scrapping it was "gendercide hero" Mark Warawa.

And now there's another wrinkle. The Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA) is backing the call for the release of information.

“The exclusion effectively prohibits expression on the excluded records, and thereby violates the Charter right to free expression of the requesters of the information,” said the OCLA position paper. “The OCLA seeks to raise the concern that there is palpable institutional bias against pro-life advocates in Ontario and that this is harmful to society and substantively unjust towards members of the community.”

Bias against "pro-life advocates" seems an odd tack to take, though. (Not to mention the very odd use of the phrase "pro-life" by what one would like to think of as unbiased intervenors.

It seems to us that there is a simple solution. There are grounds for refusal to disclose information under Section 10(1)(b) of FIPPA.

10. (1)   Subject to subsection 69 (2), every person has a right of access to a record or a part of a record in the custody or under the control of an institution unless, (b) the head is of the opinion on reasonable grounds that the request for access is frivolous or vexatious.

Judging from the uses to which fetus freaks have put this kind of information previously, "frivolous" and "vexatious" would both apply.

Finally, if the antis had their way, abortion would be criminalized or at least defunded and then what kind of stats would be available?

None.

Except for skyrocketing death and disability stats from self- or amateur-administered abortion.

As a fan of facts and evidence, DJ! generally supports the release of information, provided the safety of patients and providers is guaranteed.

Like the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), we're not convinced that can achieved by this means.

ARCC supports the release of general statistics on abortion, because that's needed for research purposes and health planning to improve services etc., while posing no risk of identifying individual providers or facilities. The amendment apparently does not prevent that.

BONUS: Most recent Canadian abortion stats (Feb. 2015) from ARCC.



h/t to Joyce Arthur for some help in clarifying my thoughts and for law links