Wednesday 4 January 2012

Hidden Agenda Watch

To keep up with DJ!'s mission of eternal vigiliance, aka 'Fuck the Debate', here's the latest addition to the Contempt Party abortion recriminalization crew: Jeff Watson*. That's four: Trost, Woodworth, Ambrose, and now Watson chimes in on the effort to 'reopen the debate'.
“My layman’s read of the public mood, if you will, around life issues [is] I think most people mistakenly believe that there’s already restrictions on abortion, and so this issue is already settled,” he explained.

Watson said that when he informs people that there are, in fact, no restrictions, “they’re quite alarmed and feel something should be done about it.”

Waaaah. Something should be done about it!!!

But, despite the 'strong, stable majority' -- hey! the abbreviation would be SSM, let's use that! -- LifeShite gripes:
Since winning a majority in the May election, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has remained adamant that they will support the status quo on abortion, and has re-emphasized the point in the media whenever one of its caucus members raises the issue.

Under Harper in recent years, pro-life MPs have struggled to bring forward any discussion on abortion, even around broadly supported initiatives such as a ban on abortion coercion and or protections for unborn victims of crime, in part because abortion supporters frame them as backdoor efforts to re-criminalize abortion.

Um. Yeah. Because that's what they fucking are.

Oh, but look. We sane people are 'old-fashioned'.
“My gut feeling is that groups who support free access to the procedure of abortion won’t have the broader discussion. They’re content to frame every discussion as being about the re-criminalization of abortion,” Watson observed. “They want to frame it in old terms. … I expect a very strong resistance by groups that favour full access to the procedure of abortion. I expect them to be full-out name-calling and everything else that characterizes groups like that.”

“I think we’re mature enough as a society, I think we need to be mature enough as a Parliament, to deal with these questions head on,” he added.

Again with the characterization of prochoice being insensitive and immature name-callers.

See what they're doing here? The Fetus Lobby® is trying to paint itself as the serious ones, the mature ones, the *gag* 'modern' ones.

And they are absolutely wrong. Read the comments on two recent stories about the lack of abortion services in PEI, here and here.

The overwhelming majority of Canadians DO think this is a settled matter and do NOT want the so-called debate reopened.

The overwhelming majority of Canadians are sane, modern, mature, and sensitive. They, unlike the Fetus Lobby®, understand and respect a woman's right to autonomy. And do NOT want to go backwards as a society.


* We checked out Watson's rating at Campaign Lie . Yup. Anti-choice all the way, babeeee.
Rating Comments: Has not responded to CLC's 2011 questionnaire, but in 2006 he said he would support measures to introduce and pass a law to protect every unborn child from the time of conception (fertilization) onward.

No hidden agenda there. It's right out in the open.

ADDED: Dave at the Galloping Beaver is paying attention. He says the LifeShite story is older, from the December 26 Windsor Star, playing now to keep the faux 'debate' current. He also points out that the religious, anti-science Contempt Party members have been sitting on their hands in quest of the Strong Stable Majority (aka SSM). Now they have it and they're going to call in their markers. The Hidden Agenda decloaks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The other 'framing' going on is 'agitating the base' to say the 'issue is most certainly not settled'. That's going to be the meme. Oh and feminists are sub-human.

Regards, Toe (miss you guys)

Beijing York said...

With all this doom and gloom austerity talk, maybe these retrogrades think it's "modern" to re-open a debate on slavery.

I'm just worried that with the new proposed health accord, the Harper Government™ will let the provinces impose severely limited access to abortion. I can see PEI, New Brunswick and Alberta falling in line to imitate their right wing counter-parts in the US.

fern hill said...

I think your worry is entirely justified, BY. NB and AB are conservative. But I've been following the situation on PEI over the last few weeks. I think the government would like to be sued by pro-choice forces. Then it could throw up its hands, say 'we were forced', and no one pays a political price. Will take a while though.

PEI is tiny. Amazingly tiny. There are probably more people in a kilometre-wide swath between me and Lake Ontario than there. Island people have to get along.

That said, it's gonna be open season on all minority (doncha love it when women are lumped in with 'minorities'?) rights for four more long years.

Women need to make common cause with others threatened.

Anonymous said...

Ontario is not immune either. The Don Drummond austerity report will be released soon. Don't be surprised if abortion funding is suggested collateral damage in the fight to eliminate Ontario's deficit. McGuinty is crafty and won't get caught "debating" reproductive rights. However, basic eye exams & physiotherapy were delisted years ago with no electoral consequence. Again, McGuinty is a crafty survivor. If the elimination of abortion funding comes up in the legislature, Hudork & enough Cons will take the bait & vote to eliminate in the name of tough times require tough choices "wink, wink, cough, cough". Minority government, McGuinty gets to blame the Cons.

It's exhausting to have to continue to constantly have to keep "debating" a basic right that Canadians confirmed many years ago. No abortion law = Canada has one of the lowest abortion rates in the world.

k'in

fern hill said...

No province is immune, I agree, k'in. But in the recent Ontario election, abortion *ahem* did come up, specifically the defunding of. McGuinty is crafty, as you say, but it would take all the Cons and some Libs (assuming NDP abides by its policy) to overturn abortion funding. If it came to a vote.

And if the Libs tried some jiggery-pokery without a vote, they couldn't blame Hudork.

I don't see it going that way.

But you are right again in how fucking exhausting all this bullshit is.

On the other hand, look what happened when our Merkin cousins took their eye off the ball. Ambush! And they were totally unprepared for the onslaught. At least here in Canada we haven't had any time to rest on our success.

Which turns out to be a good thing.

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