Yo! Progressive Bloggers!

On March 16, DJ wrote:

Yesterday on Twitter, a few pundits (Kady O'Malley for one) deigned to admonish us pro-choicers as alarmist, over-reacting, yadayada. We were told to consult the numbers. This motion will never pass, they said. Don't worry your purty little heads.

Well, as of this writing, 4,500 Canadians (mostly) are pretty fucking alarmed that the abortion debate is being reopened.

Feminist bloggers have been on it for months. Alison at Creekside here and here. JJ the Unrepentent here and here.

And of course, DAMMIT JANET! passim and ad nauseum.

Yes, yes. We are fully aware of other horrible things Harpolini and gang are doing to Canada and do not propose taking our collective progressive eye off any of those slime balls.

But could we get a little help here?

Particularly from male progressive bloggers who might like to alert their readers to this aspect of The Hidden Agenda® that is decloaking at the moment?

If you're really really busy on More Important Matters, maybe you could help out with a tweet directing people to this petition.

THXKAIBYE

OOPS! Forgot Dave at The Galloping Beaver. Thanks, Dave.

Sunday UPDATE: Kev at Trappped in a Whirlpool speaks up. Thanks, Kev. And Anti-Choice Is Anti-Awesome.

Creekside: Happy RoboCon Election Fraud Budget Day

Go read Alison at Creekside: Happy RoboCon Election Fraud Budget Day.  Now.

Con "Mononcle" Garry gives high school girls advice.

Dianna Sakisheway wrote a scathing letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews this week. Her complaint stems from a speech Breitkreuz — known as the father of the legislation to repeal the long-gun registry — gave during a career day at Canterbury High School [in Ottawa] on March 7.

“I am outraged at the irresponsible conduct of the federal government in promoting gun violence to schoolchildren,” she wrote. “You have gone much too far.”

“Mr. Breitkreuz spent most of his allotted time discussing firearms and cited a Texas study that showed women who carry guns are less likely to get raped, including a specific number of women who avoided rape as they were armed,” Sakisheway wrote [...]

From here. Hmm, I wonder how Toews will react to that. If the teenage girl who babysat for his family had been armed with a gun, his political career might have been cut short.

So CPC MP Breikreuz agrees with DJ! that women should "Stand their ground"? Who would have guessed.

In other news relating to the "future" the Harper government has laid out for Canadian youth, the Flaherty budget has slashed, effective immediately, the operating grant contract it had with Katimavik.

The move comes as a surprise to the Katimavik organization, which says it has been kept in the dark about any upcoming cuts. Its National Director of Marketing and Communications Victoria Salvador has said, however, that the group is trying to diversify its funding in order to stay afloat.

Despite the Tories' determination to kill the program, the group expressed hope in a statement Thursday that lobbying the government can still save the program.

Katimavik expressed "extreme disappointment" over the funding decision and argued its purpose is more important than ever. "At a time when civic engagement and voter turnout are at an all-time low, when youth unemployment rates are double the national average, this is clearly the worst time to cut Katimavik," the group wrote.

In this tweet the author of the news item claimed: "One Tory told me today, they view it as a Liberal recruiting ground..." which begs the question where the CPC gets its own recruits: Fundamentalist christian churches? Reactionary school bullies? Armed forces rejects?

As Calgary Sun columnist Stephen Lautens observed: "Katimavik - creating young people too smart and kind for the Cons for 35 years."

Lamest Tactic?

One of the oddest and lamest tactics in the fetus fetishist toolbox is the use of celebrities' support for or rejection of pro-choice values.

Remember when they went nuts over 16-year-old twit Justin Bieber's anti-abortion quote?

Today, it's somebody called Elizabeth Banks.

The movie Hunger Games is the most popular film in the nation and star Elizabeth Banks is already trading in her newfound popularity for a chance to get on the soap box and preach her values to the public.

Banks has written a blog for the iVillage blog series CelebVillage in which she talks about the birth of her son Felix, who turns 1-year-old today, via a surrogate. Pro-life advocates have long held concerns about surrogacy because it takes the focus off of adoption of children who are seeking good homes and because surrogates could change their minds about the surrogacy contract and decide to have an abortion.

Banks also credits birth control pills for allowing her to have her son and promotes their usage.

Seriously. Who gives a shit?

Lifeshite advises its mouth-breathers readers to complain.

Complain to Banks on twitter at https://twitter.com/#%21/ElizabethBanks or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elizabeth-Banks/258899277471565

Doesn't look like many of her 701,000+ followers are following that advice.

Just Plain Spite

Here is Katimavik's reaction to Stevie Spiteful's axe (bold added).

It is with extreme disappointment that we learned today that the Government has decided to end its funding commitment to Katimavik. 

Today’s announcement comes as a surprise, since we are entering the third year of a funding agreement whose terms end March 31st, 2013. The decision is even more surprising considering that the recently made public Canadian Heritage summative evaluation of our programs makes very clear how Katimavik’s programs are not only relevant, important and valuable, but also how the organization attains its targets and the programs tie in with government-wide priorities and the department’s strategic objectives.

For the past 35 years, Katimavik has helped shape a civically responsible Canada by harnessing the power of our young volunteers to help those in need in communities across Canada. In that time, over 30 000 Canadian youth have made a difference in communities from coast-to-coast-to-coast. They participated in our program gaining valuable work, life and leadership skills all the while fostering community development and civic engagement. Their parents had peace of mind knowing that their sons and daughters were participating in a structured, time-tested program, while they navigated the transition from emerging adulthood to adulthood.

In the coming days, our Board of Directors and management staff will be convened to plan the next steps.  

We appreciate the ongoing support of the thousands of Canadians and community organizations that have been touched by our programs. At a time when civic-engagement and voter turnout are at an all-time low, when youth unemployment rates are double the national average, this is clearly the worst time to cut Katimavik. Our mission to promote and instil long-term social responsibility and civic involvement and provide job skills to our young people is now needed more than ever; as is the tangible help to our not-for-profit work partners in communities all across Canada so they can deliver essential services to those that need them the most.

There is still time to reverse the government’s decision. In the weeks and days to come, we hope we can count on Katimavik’s many supporters to speak with their elected officials about their experiences and articulate the value and benefits of a strong Katimavik for Canada.

My best friend's youngest brother was something of a screw-up as a teen. Not a bad kid, just aimless and drifting. My friend did some research and convinced bro to try Katimavik. Bro loved it and came back a different kid.

MT “@althiaraj: A Tory told me they view #Katimavik as a Liberal recruiting ground.” Because it produces smart & caring people #cdnpoli

— Stephen Lautens (@stephenlautens) March 30, 2012

 

But we can't have that, can we?

Catholic Church only *protects* The Fetus©™, not girls.

At DAMMIT JANET! we write a lot about pedophile priests since it's one of the perfect examples of the utilitarian character of Catholic doctrine that claims to defend and protect the interests of the unborn - zygote, embryo, fetus - yet abandons children to the sexual vicissitudes of its clergy.

Here's the latest example of Vatican Taliban hypocrisy.

She was a 13-year-old girl, fifth child of seven in a devout Catholic family in suburban Roslyn whose mother attended Mass once or twice daily.

But the girl dreaded Sunday mornings.

Not because of a crisis of faith but because she knew it would mean another morning of groping by the Rev. Albert T. Kostelnick.

The woman, now in her mid-50s, told a Philadelphia jury this morning about how Kostelnick, now retired, fondled her for two years as she worked in the rectory of St. John of the Cross church in Roslyn - and then did the same to two of her sisters who followed her into the job.

"I didn't know what to do," the woman told the Common Pleas Court jury. "I felt helpless and trapped. My parents expected me to work."

The woman's testimony continued the prosecution's effort to show how Msgr. William J. Lynn and other church leaders shuffled and protected priests suspected of sexual misconduct or abuse.

Lynn, who as secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004 ran the office that recommended priests' assignments, is the first church official nationwide to be tried for allegedly enabling or covering up clergy sex-abuse.

His codefendant, the Rev. James J. Brennan, is charged with attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Both have denied the accusations.

Although Kostelnick is not criminally charged in trial, city prosecutors are citing his case and others to show a pattern in which Lynn and officials of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia showed concern for the sexually abusive priests, but not their victims.

"... a pattern in which ... officials of the Archdiocese ... showed concern for the sexually abusive priests, but not their victims ..." Multiply that by thousands and thousands, in every country in the world, since the first century.

Turning the tables on the Fetus Lobby.

From here - it means to reverse a situation and gain the upper hand.

Read and rejoice:

[Todd] Stave is the landlord of a medical clinic in Germantown that offers abortions. Reproductive Health Services Clinic became a big focus of anti-abortion protesters when it was leased to LeRoy Carhart, one of the few doctors in the nation who acknowledges performing late-term abortions.

There are always protesters outside the office park property quietly praying or holding a vigil, with signs, rosaries, statues of Mary and bloody, gory posters of mangled fetuses.

“Totally appropriate. It’s their right. They are protected by the First Amendment. And outside the clinic is probably the most appropriate place for them to express their views,” he told me this week.

This has been a way of life for Stave. He’s not just a landlord. That office was his father’s clinic. Then his sister ran it.

“I’ve been a member of this fight since Roe v. Wade. Since I was 5 years old,” he said. The office was firebombed when he was kid, and protesters gathered outside his father’s home as he was growing up. So he’s no stranger to the harassment and bullying of doctors and their families.

It’s become routine for protesters to distribute fliers, posters and create Web sites with all of a doctor’s personal information and urge others to target them. Kansas doctor George Tiller was killed in 2009 and his protegé, Carhart, had his farm burned to the ground. [...]

But his harassers crossed the line last fall, when a big group showed up at his daughter’s middle school on the first day of classes and again at back-to-school night. They had signs with his name and contact information as well as those awful images of the fetuses.

Soon after that, the harassing calls from protesters started coming to his home. By the dozens, at all hours. Friends asked him how they could help. He began to take the names and phone numbers down of anyone who contacted him with an unwanted call. And he gave those lists to his friends and asked them to call these folks back.

“In a very calm, very respectful voice, they said that the Stave family thanks you for your prayers,” he said. “They cannot terminate the lease, and they do not want to. They support women’s rights.”

This started with a dozen or so friends, then grew. Soon, there were more than a thousand volunteers dialing.

If they could find the information, Stave’s callers would even ask the family how their children were doing, and mention their names and the name of their school. “And then we’d tell them that we bless their home on such and such street,” giving them their address.

In some cases, the family of a protester who called Stave’s home could get up to 5,000 calls in return.

Hmm ... I know a couple of women in their sixties, wonderful grandes dames who belonged to Les filles d'Isabelle (the Knights of Columbus Ladies' Auxiliary) until they couldn't stand the sight of their peers being told to suffer silently while their ostentatiously pious businessmen husbands abused them, beat their children and eventually dumped their families for young trophy girlfriends.

How difficult could it be for them to infiltrate the local Fetus Lobby group that organizes 40 days of Harassment©™ and vigils outside the Women's Clinic - to get their hands on a database of all the shrieeeking abortion-criminalizing wingnuts?

To paraphrase the Golden Rule: Do unto others as they would do unto you.

And also: remember when Blob Blogging Wingnut suggested, in HER typical passive-aggressive manner, that "abortionists" (and their supporters) in Canada should be documented?

How to Kill an Abortion Bill

Step one: Wait for a politician to say something stupid. Repeat.

This is what we have to do to stop Motion 312, aka Woodworth's Wank. (Read the whole thing.)

“One of the things that happened in Idaho was that the legislators assumed people weren’t going to pay very much attention,” says Luther, who helped organize a social-media campaign against the bill. On the ground, Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU in Idaho, agreed: “The public outcry is what killed this bill.” She pointed out that a 20-week abortion ban passed relatively quietly last year. “I think really it’s a nationwide trend that Idaho is participating in.”

Activists in other states that have successfully beat back anti-reproductive rights laws have noticed a similar pattern: A legislator says something terrible and condescending; women use social media to stoke nationwide outrage about the comment; and the legislators, cowed by the unexpected attention, back down.

We've already made a good start. The petition, started on March 22, already has more than 3300 signatures. It has a nifty feature: one can mouse over 'view' in the Comment column to read what people have added. A great many of them express shock, dismay, and disgust that we have to fight this battle again.

But, sadly, most Canadians are too distracted by their own troubles to pay attention. I mentioned this to my dentist's assistant the other day and she had heard nothing about it.

To put it bluntly, we have to make pains-in-the-ass of ourselves. Tell everyone. Bug the hell out of our friends, relatives, and co-workers to sign the petition, write to their MPs.

Continue writing blog-posts and tweets.

We cannot allow this crack to open even a nanometre.

Because this is what they have in store for us:

ShriEEEk!!! Only Anti-choice freedom of expression allowed.

Seven students at St. Patrick's Catholic High School in Thunder Bay were suspended for wearing handmade pro-choice stickers on white t-shirts during a school sanctioned pro-life 'Day of Silence'.

Students were asked by the school to sport white t-shirts that said 'Life' in red tape, which in and of itself is a bit odd. Telling kids to become billboards for the church's policy...

So fifteen-year-old Alexandria Szeglet along with 23 other kids that disagreed with the event decided to sport green stickers that said "choice."

The school asked them to remove the stickers... 17 complied and the seven who didn't were suspended.

Imagine that... a school in Canada suspending kids for taking a position that is actually legal in Canada.

From here.

Have anti-abortion students been prevented in secular schools from wearing a Tshirt that simply said: "Life" ? I don't think so.

Added: the predictable abortion-criminalizing spin, claiming the "Choice" students were disruptive.

Also: contrast and compare - a number of posts at DJ! about those elaborate sham displays titled "Echoes of the Holocaust" (produced by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform) that have been challenged wherever they have bullied their way onto university campus.

Eenie-Meenie, Pro or Anti

After I wrote the open letter to opposition women's caucuses and Antonia Zerbisias retweeted it, it got some attention from Elizabeth May and Carolyn Bennett. (Djaouida Sellah is on twitter [@DSellahNDP] but hasn't weighed in and BQ's Maria Mourani seems not to have a twitter account.)

May said:

@ElizabethMay: @AntoniaZ @DSellahNDP @Carolyn_Bennett Thanks so much for your work! Do not leave out #CPC women MPs. Many (most?) are pro-choice. #cdnpol

Well, Antonia and I got busy checking both at ARCC and Campaign Lie.

According to ARCC, there are only six known pro-choice CONs: John Baird, Michael Chong, Peter Kent, Gordon O'Connor, Joe Oliver, and Lisa Raitt.

This surprised Ms May.

@AntoniaZ @fernhilldammit @DSellahNDP @Carolyn_Bennett I am surprised. Thanks for checking. #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything #cdnpoli

— Elizabeth May MP (@ElizabethMay) March 27, 2012

ARCC's 'probable' anti-choice MPs list

Listings are based on voting record, anti-choice designation in previous elections, partial survey responses to Campaign Life Coalition, indicative public statements, and/or statements made to individual constituents. They are all Conservatives unless otherwise noted, and newly elected MPs are in bold. These MPs are also included on the Unknown list.
• Eve Adams
• Steven Blaney
• Ray Boughen
• John Carmichael
• Tony Clement
• Jim Flaherty
• Parm Gill
• Ed Holder
• Kevin Lamoureux (Liberal)
• Ben Lobb
• Lawrence Toet
• John Weston
• Terence Young

All of these are rated by CLC as 'caution', with a cute little yellow traffic light. They are 'still evaluating'.

There are a good number of MPs whose position is unknown, including three Liberals, rated by CLC with a 'caution': Sean Casey, Kevin Lamoureux, and Francis Scarpalggia.

Interestingly, CLC rates Shelly Glover and Mike Wallace, who told a constituent he'd vote against M312, as pro-abortion.

For CON MP Bruce Stanton, who told a local paper he'd vote against it, CLC has 'evaluation pending', but notes his position on M312.

For the record, here is Carolyn Bennett's reply:

@ElizabethMay @AntoniaZ @DSellahNDP #cdnpoli We are appalled @pmsh gone back on promise not2 reopen #choice debate nds2 reel in @woodworthmp

— Carolyn Bennett(@Carolyn_Bennett) March 27, 2012

Do you know whether your MP is pro-choice or anti-choice? Take advantage of Campaign Lie's handy-dandy search tool. All you need is the MP's last name. When the 'Bio' comes up, click on the next tab 'Contact' and zip him or her a quick question on M312, or as I'm calling it, Woodworth's Wank. You might want to include this link to ARCC's counter arguments.


ADDED: Go read JJ. Is there a blogburst brewing? Do we have WOMBemtum?

An open letter to Opposition Women's Caucuses

Dear Djaouida Sellah (NDP), Carolyn Bennett (LPC), Maria Mourani (BQ), and Elizabeth May (GPC):

As you are no doubt aware, Stephen Woodworth's Motion 312 (snappy nickname yet to be determined) is a thinly veiled attempt to reopen the abortion debate.

Prime Minister Harper pledged that his government would NOT reopen this settled matter and yet here we are.

There are far more pressing matters facing Parliament and Canadians than this complete waste of time and resources.

But, ever vigilant, ordinary Canadian women and their allies are taking steps to inform people and Parliamentarians about this American-style attempt to run the clock backwards.

The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has prepared counter arguments and launched a petition, with at this writing over 2100 signatures in five days.

Two (at least) Facebook groups have been formed: here and here.

An anti-choice Facebook page has also been formed, co-opting Mme Justice Bertha Wilson's name in a disrespectful and sneering way.

All the usual anti-choice suspects, like Campaign Life, are gearing up for the fight.

One CPC MP, Bruce Stanton, has voiced his opposition to this 'divisive' manoeuvre.

This would be a grand opportunity for the Women's Caucuses of the opposition parties to cooperate and coordinate a response to this forthright attack on hard-won women's rights.

Personally, I'd love to see each Opposition member rise during the debate and say something along the lines of 'Mr Speaker, with respect, I decline this opportunity to waste this House's time on a matter most Canadians consider settled' and sit down.

However you choose to oppose M312, it is time for pro-choice MPs to stand up for women's rights and say a resounding 'NO' to a Canadian 'War on Women'.

We look forward to hearing your response.

Thank you.

UPDATE: A woman named Alysha emailed her Con MP, Mike Wallace, about the motion. Here is his reply: 'I am opposed to this motion and will be voting against it.'

That's two.

Aileen Wuornos is My Homie.

It's a no-brainer, right?

If christian rightwing nutjobs like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Coren can justify George Zimmerman's killing of a black adolescent in Florida, then Aileen Wuornos deserves a posthumous pardon - using the same logic they've deployed to exonerate Trayvon Martin's execution.

Imagine the following scenario: Long-gun-toting (thanks for C-19, CONs!) feminists patrol the highways and streets of the state of Florida in the hope of encountering slobbering pigs like Coren and Limbaugh so they can blow their heads off.

Stand by your ground defense: "Officer, I was checking the outside of the motel to make sure it was safe for the families staying here and I saw this pervert prowling around, looking for a little girl or a little boy to molest. He said bad cuss words and made rude, threatening sexual gestures at me so I had to protect myself."

A credible source once told me that Coren owns an impressive collection of porn that features nubile girls, so it shouldn't be difficult after the fact to prove one's claim.

Even Michelle *Howler Monkey* Malkin can join in the fun! C'mon down, Michelle - you can bury your anchor baby embarassment by blowing away those drooling, racist, fat white men who keep you down. Use the Feminazi Panic Defense©™!

Viva Thelma and Louise!!!

Okay, all kidding aside, go read this, this and this.

Humpty Dumpty Initiative in Canada

Personhood initiative in Oklahoma.

Who does this remind you of?

I asked Skerbitz what he thought of the “war on women” rhetoric that had lately taken root. He replied, perfectly on-message, “We believe our first and foremost duty is to protect the rights of all people, including the unborn, including unborn women.”

Born women, you’re on your own.

Oh yeah. Our own Personhood Promoter.

@AntoniaZ When we allow any law to say that some human beings are not human we endanger everyone's rights #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything

— Stephen Woodworth (@WoodworthMP) March 14, 2012

We've gotta stop this in its tracks. We do NOT need a War on Women here.

Online petition approaching 2,000 signatures. Sign and pass on if you haven't yet.

Mme Justice Wilson Would Be Amused

They are so creative, the anti-feminist Fetus Lobby. In the US, they named their fund to elect anti-choice legislators the Susan B. Anthony List for the famed suffragist and feminist. (They claim she was anti-abortion, but historians dispute this, saying rather she said nothing about abortion.)

Now in a similar brain-dead attempt at appropriation, they have come up with their own name for Woodworth's Wank, M-312, intended to reopen the abortion debate.

They want to call it the Bertha Wilson Motion.

Har-de-har-har.

Bertha Wilson, for the history-impaired, was the first woman Supreme Court Justice and a fierce feminist, who definitively and irrevocably shook up the old boys' club that was the law in Canada.

One of Wilson's most important decisions on the court was a family law case involving the division of property. After breaking up with her common law partner, with whom she had built a beekeeping business, Rosa Becker was left with 40 beehives and $1,500.

Wilson said the trial judge had grossly underestimated the value of Becker's contribution and awarded Becker a one-half interest in the business capital and revenue.

Later, in her nine years on the Supreme Court, Wilson helped her colleagues understand the "feminist critique" of equality law, which was that seemingly neutral laws often operate to the disadvantage of women and minorities, said Toronto legal scholar Peter Hogg.

The landmark 1990 case of Angelique Lavallee, for example, considered self-defence from a battered woman's perspective. Wilson, writing for the court, upheld the acquittal of Lavallee, who had shot her common law partner in the back of the head.

In the 1988 Morgentaler ruling striking down Canada's ban on abortion, Wilson's reasons focused on a woman's right to choose.

Roach thinks Wilson was affected but not embittered by barriers she encountered. "This was never a person who was ever in anyone's old boy's club."

In 1994, Wilson chaired a Canadian Bar Association task force on gender equality in the legal profession. Its highly critical report stressed the difficulties faced by women lawyers with children, urging the profession to measure a lawyer's performance by standards other than hours billed.

Ultimately, because Wilson "was such a highly respected member of the Court, it became much easier for governments to appoint women to the Court," said Hogg.

The Fetus Lobby's reason for naming Woodworth's Wank after such a stalwart feminist? Two sentences Mme Justice Wilson wrote on the landmark R. v.Morgentaler case that effectively struck down abortion law.

Wilson J. wrote her own concurring opinion taking a significantly different approach. In it she decided that section 251 violates two rights: liberty, and security of person. She emphasized how section 251 violated a woman's personal autonomy by preventing her from making decisions affecting her and her fetus' life. To Wilson, the women's decision to abort her fetus is one that is so profound on so many levels that goes beyond being a medical decision and becomes a social and ethical one as well. By removing the women's ability to make the decision and giving it to a committee would be a clear violation of their liberty and security of person. Wilson scathingly noted that the state is effectively taking control of a woman's capacity to reproduce.

Wilson goes on to agree with the other Justices that section 251 (prohibiting the performance of an abortion except under certain circumstances) is procedurally unfair, adding that the violation of section 7 also has the effect of violating section 2(a) of the Charter (freedom of conscience) in that the requirements for a woman to be permitted to obtain an abortion legally (or for a doctor to legally perform one) were in many cases so onerous or effectively impossible that they were "resulting in a failure to comply with the principles of fundamental justice." The decision to abort is primarily a moral one, she notes, and thus by preventing her from doing so violate a woman's right to conscientiously-held beliefs. With the abortion law, the government is supporting one conscientiously-held belief at the expense of another, and in effect, treats women as a means to an end, depriving them of their "essential humanity".
She also stated that

The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.


In her analysis of section 1, Wilson notes that the value placed on the fetus is proportional to its stage of gestation and the legislation must take that into account. However, here, the law cannot be justified as the law takes the decision-making power away from the woman absolutely, thus cannot pass the proportionality test.

Nothing anti-abortion there, right? Here are the two sentences they've seized on from section 258 here.

The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state's interest in its protection becomes "compelling" I leave to the informed judgment of the legislature which is in a position to receive guidance on the subject from all the relevant disciplines. It seems to me, however, that it might fall somewhere in the second trimester.

None of this is a surprise to those of us who know a thing or two about law and history and feminism. But the Fetus Lobby has fastened on it and think they have found a real gotcha.

Mme Justice Wilson left it to the legislature, which with one unsuccessful exception, has run screaming from this third rail of Canadian politics.

Meanwhile, in the 24 years since that was written, Canada has done quite well thank you without any abortion law atall atall. Canadians and their healthcare providers have worked out a practice that involves no panty-sniffing, slut-shaming, privacy-invading law.

Here is a Canadian doctor who works in the Excited States laying it out. The title is 'What happens when there is no abortion law'. She compares abortion in Canada and the US.

So how does lawless Canada stack up against regulated America?

In Canada, the teen birth and abortion rate is 27.0/1,000 women between the ages of 15-19 versus 61.2/1,000 in the United States.

The abortion rate among all women of reproductive age (15-44) in Canada is 14.1/1,000 versus 20/1,000 in the United States.

Put another way, the teen birth and abortion rate is more than 50% higher in the United States versus Canada and the abortion rate is about 25% higher in the Unites States.

Canadian women also have something else. They have access to health care and sex education is widely taught in the schools.

Laws, cost, and indignities don’t reduce abortion, knowledge and contraception do.

To go back to the Bertha Wilson Motion. Sure, call it that if you want. I'm sure Mme Justice Wilson would be amused. And we are amused too that a great feminist will be honoured by morans unfit to shine her shoes.

Thoughts from an Unhappy Post-Partisan

A few thoughts on the NDP leadership.

First, Aaron Wherry offers us an opportunity to compare and contrast.

From Bob Rae:

“I want to offer my warm congratulations to Thomas Mulcair on winning the leadership contest in the New Democratic Party.  I know Mr. Mulcair well and look forward to working with him to ensure Parliament acts on behalf of all Canadians.

“I also want to congratulate the NDP for a successful leadership convention, particularly in opening up the selection process to Canadians across the country.

“I also want to salute Mme Nycole Turmel for the integrity she showed as Interim Leader of the NDP. Her grace was apparent as she courageously carried out her duties admirably in the wake of the tragic passing of Jack Layton.”

From the Contempt Party:

Today in Toronto, the NDP have chosen Thomas Mulcair to push their agenda of high taxes, high spending and less economic growth. Thomas Mulcair is an opportunist whose high tax agenda, blind ambition, and divisive personality would put Canadian families and their jobs at risk. Mulcair has said he would bring back a risky, job-killing carbon tax which would raise the price of everything – even though Canadians overwhelmingly rejected carbon taxes. Canadians can’t afford Mulcair’s dangerous economic experiments.

Also, Thomas Mulcair has vowed to bring back the wasteful and ineffective long gun registry, and his soft on crime positions would take Canada back to policies that put the rights of criminals ahead of those of victims. 

Canadians gave our government a strong mandate to create jobs and economic growth. For hard-working Canadian families looking for a government that will put them first, it is clear that the only choice is Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.

I am not a Dipper, but of all the contenders, I have to say Mulcair was my last choice.

Consider his position on marijuana.

Earlier in the campaign:

I also support the party’s existing policy on further decriminalising the possession of marijuana for any use with the goal to eliminate the influence of organised crime on the production and distribution of marijuana.

Later, asked again about decriminalization:

No. I think that that would be a mistake because the information we have right now is that the marijuana that’s on the market is extremely potent and can actually cause mental illness.

Mental illness? Seriously?

On the environment.

[Dewar] would also ban bulk water exports and took Thomas Mulcair to task on the issue for comments he made in support of such exports in 2004 as a Quebec Liberal environment minister.

OK, he may have changed his mind about that, but I'd like to hear him say so.

Now a really troublesome matter. Israel.

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) has launched a video to challenge Thomas Mulcair's positions on Israel and Palestine. According to IJV, Mr. Mulcair's leadership campaign represents an electoral coalition with Canada's Israel Lobby.

Lorne Nystrom, the national co-chair of Mr. Mulcair's leadership campaign and a former long-time NDP MP, is likely familiar to many who follow federal politics. However, many NDP members may not be aware that Nystrom currently sits on the board of this country's major pro-Israel lobby group, which actively campaigns in support of the Israeli government's inhumane and repressive policies towards Palestinian and other non-Jewish citizens.

Finally, on cooperating with other parties to beat the fucking CONs:

One thing Mulcair is clear on is that he’ll go after Liberal supporters, but won’t work with the rival party.

“N.O.,” he told HuffPost. The NDP tried to form a coalition with the Liberals in 2008 and then the Grits “lifted their noses up on it,” Mulcair said.

The coalition experience taught Mulcair everything he needs to know about the Liberals. They’re untrustworthy and he said he’ll never work with them again, whether in a formal or informal coalition.

“The no is categorical, absolute, irrefutable and non-negotiable. It’s no. End of story. Full stop,” he said.

End of story? CON majorities for the foreseeable future.

As I say, I am not a Dipper. So that's it from me. For now.

This is the future that antichoice CPC politicians want

When a government criminalizes abortion, forcing women to carry fetus that have stopped growing and to maintain toxic pregnancies that endanger their lives, the next step is to declare "unwed mothers" unfit to be parents and to facilitate unconsented adoption schemes such as these.

Since the National Post launched an investigation earlier this month into coerced adoptions between the 1940s and 1980s, dozens of mothers have said they were forced by social workers, medical staff and churches into surrendering their child because they were young and unmarried.

But some of these women say they never surrendered their child at all: They say they were told their child was stillborn or died shortly after birth [...]

A Canadian named Tina Kelly filed a UN report a decade ago alleging that, as an unmarried woman in 1970, she was falsely told her baby died overnight because of heart trouble. She claims she was not allowed to see her son, whose adoption she alleges was arranged by a doctor who took a bribe.

The Australian Parliament says the so-called dead baby scam happened there, and a nun in Spain was charged last weekend with allegedly committing this very crime over the course of the 1950s to the 1980s. During those decades in Canada, abortion was illegal or difficult to access, birth control was not readily available and unmarried mothers were seen as loose women too feeble-minded to parent.

An Australian Senate committee investigating that country’s historic adoption practices recently reported that especially swift transfers had a formal title, rapid adoption.

“This generally referred to the process whereby a married woman whose child had been stillborn was offered a child for adoption in its place,” says the committee’s explosive February report, which urged the government to apologize for forced adoptions.

One Australian woman named Valerie Linlow testified she was heavily drugged during labour and that medical staff told her she gave birth to a stillborn. Three decades later, she said a man knocked on her door saying he was her son.

From here.

Grand merci to Julie Lalonde, via her tweet.

This is NOT the Slow Clap Movement Approved by DJ!

Sadly, the talk about #slowclap reminded me of this.

I saw this the other night in a sports bar/pub, where once again I was reminded by society that women apparently don't drink alcohol except in pastel colours and loaded with sugar and don't have money to spend on luxury products like hooch what with having abortions every five minutes in between rounds of using up vast stores of contraceptives.

Not that the depiction of men is any better.  I had hoped the trend of alcohol ads employing the exploitation of masculine anxiety to fit in with the 'approved' stereotypes of 'real man manly man' behaviour had tapered off, but hooboi, this puts the boot to that.

Kindly note how our 'hero', quivering with rupturing anxiety on how he might be perceived by other men near him for the fact he is carrying a stereotypical *feminine* item (underlined twice by the fact it is Pastel Pink), drops it to the floor and proceeds to obviously and deliberately treat-it-like-odious-female-dog shit-he-must-clean-up-without-sullying-himself.  I could hope they did not imply the B-word, but that action was wayyyy deliberate, so I am inclined against merciful interpretations Wiser's marketing firm is just pig-mud for brains stupid.

Said geeeeeenius action is then applauded by a meta-gathering of meta-men representing all that is good and machismo and men's rights activism. And a lamp.

Adding insult to injury, it was a *forced* awkward, stupid contrivance to start!  What, in the Name-of-Sanity reason does the woman have to hand off her small purse, which I presume contains her money and other valuables, to the guy with her and head-into-the-store-where-she-hopes-to-make-a-purchase. Neither of them had purchases already.

Maybe the ad means welcome to the Loserhood. A truly wiser man this ain't.  But, I'm sure I just can't take a joke. Ah well, I'll cry in my single malt Dalwhinnie 15, which oddly, doesn't rely on crap messaging like this.

Time-wasting and Grandstanding

There is another anti-choice martyr, in addition to fetus fetishist poster-granny, Linda Gibbons, though they seem to work as a tag team.

This one's name is Mary Wagner and her legal troubles go way back too. (All links come from LifeShite; I can't find any other reporting of this momentous case.)

She was charged with mischief and two counts of failing to comply with probation orders (indicating previous brushes with the law, yes?).

She'd been harassing patients and workers at the Bloor West Village Women's Clinic. But she's not content to stand on the sidewalk with gory pictures; she enters the clinic with flowers, brochures, and counselling in-person harassment.

First on the witness stand was Patricia Hasen, who described herself as a nurse and 50 per cent owner of the abortion centre Bloor West Village Women’s Clinic Inc., which was established in 2005. . . .

On November 8, she said there were 10-12 patients and their escorts at the site when she was alerted by a co-worker that “Mary is in the clinic” and called the police, as she usually does in such circumstances. She said she then asked Wagner, whom she saw carrying roses and pamphlets, to leave several times, but Wagner refused to do so.

Hasen claimed, “People were getting upset, crying, asking why we weren’t doing something” about Wagner’s presence. She then asked the patients’ escorts to leave the site and brought the patients themselves into a secure area behind bulletproof glass, where “counselling” takes place and abortions are committed. She said Wagner moved to enter the secure area and tried to “push” her way through by holding the door open, but the door was eventually closed and police arrived in 15-20 minutes.

Toronto police officer Douglas Eaton was the second Crown witness and testified that he arrived at the abortion site to find “a lone female standing in the lobby” and arrested her under the Trespass to Property Act after asking her to leave and she refused. He noted she was holding a bag and flowers at the time. Under cross-examination by Browne, Eaton acknowledged no attempt had been made to interview any of the patients who were allegedly so upset at Wagner’s presence.

Her lawyer argued there was reasonable doubt. The Crown countered:

Ishak continued there was no evidence that Wagner was there simply for the purpose of communicating with patients. Holding the door, he added, went beyond simple communication. Finally, he said, there was no justification for Wagner’s presence in the first place, as she was forbidden to be there by a probation order.

The next hearing was held March 21 and that's when the shit hit the fan.

An Ontario Court of Justice judge erupted in a lengthy, angry tirade against pro-life activist Mary Wagner – and ejected a spectator from the public gallery – in a downtown Toronto courtroom Wednesday. The judge then sent Wagner to jail for an additional 92 days, added to 88 days already served prior to trial, after finding her guilty of mischief and two counts of failing to comply with probation orders.

The Crown and defense had agreed to ask for time served and a three-year probation.

But [Judge S. Ford] Clements emphatically rejected the submission.

“She can sit in jail, if that’s the only way to protect people,” he fulminated, calling Wagner “cowardly” for “abusing other human beings” and not having the courage to make her views known through other channels. “This is an extraordinary waste of resources. Get a grip!”

“You don’t get it, do you? What’s the rule of law? You’re required to abide by it … You’ve lost the right as a citizen to be anywhere near an abortion clinic or to speak to an employee,” he said.

“You’re wrong and your God’s wrong,” he continued. “You have complete contempt … There is a right to (abortion) in this country … You don’t have a right to cause (abortion-seeking women) extra pain and grief the way you do.”

“[Abortion] is legal,” he continued, “that’s all you have to understand … You start causing people emotional pain and harm, you think that’s okay?”

He then asked Wagner whether she would stay away from abortion sites for three years as required by the proposed terms of probation.

“I will not,” Wagner replied firmly.

“Then you’re going to jail,” said Clements.

Oo. Sounds like at least one member of the judiciary has had it with these time-wasting, grandstanding fetus fetishists seeking martyrgasms.

Natch, LifeShite is going berserk.

No word yet on an appeal. But you can betcha there will be.

Time-wasting and grandstanding. . . Right. Have we reminded you to sign the petition opposing M-312 aka Woodworth's Wank in the last couple of hours? No? Then do it.

ADDED: For them's as can stomach it, the The Freaks are freaking out. There is one brave soul over there, calls himself smallLliberal, taking some serious heat. They are all twisted up over dissing the Christian god, activist judges, free speech, baby murdering. FUN!

Philosophy 101, aka Woodworth's Wank

This petition is cool. You can read comments by mousing over 'view'.

This is my fave so far (by Anonymous):

This is such a ridiculous waste of time and discussion. If you want to ponder life and humanity, join a university philosophy class, don't try to make your opinion law.

Slow Clap Movement

A man spits into the face of an Air Canada baggage handler during a wildcat walkout at Toronto's Pearson International Airport early Friday. The job action began Thursday evening and left hundreds of passengers in limbo after they had to disembark from several flights already on the tarmac. (Victor Biro/Canadian Press)


Seriously.

The wildcat strike started after the airline, which has had bitter and continuing labour problems over the past year with its pilots, mechanics, flight attendants and now ground crews, suspended three workers at Pearson International Airport on Thursday evening, setting off a chain of events.

The workers had apparently applauded sarcastically as Labour Minister Lisa Raitt walked through the airport on Thursday evening.

The employees were suspended for 72 hours. The striking workers said Friday morning that's how long they'll keep up their protest.

We Canadians are not a demonstrative people. We embraced jazz hands and/or twinkle fingers in places where failed kindergarten teachers Council Speakers banned actual sounds from onlookers.

But, now it appears we're getting seriously uppity-er. Making real noise. Real threatening noise.

Let your voice sarcasm be heard. Join the #SlowClap movement.

Woodworth's Wank

While the jury deciding on a name for Stephen Woodworth's abortion debate gambit may still be out, I have decided what I'm going to call it: 'Woodworth's Wank'.

I suppose it could be called 'The Fetus Lobby's Wank' because they are all panting to join the circle, but hey, this is personal.

It's a wank because it serves no purpose other than the gratification of the participants.

It's a wank because -- if successful -- it will create a mess that others will have to deal with.

And it's a wank because it has nothing to do with Reality® (I know, I know, another one of those 'liberal' concepts).

And it is not just a 'discussion' as Woodworth the Wanker insists. It is the opening of The Wedge and look what that has wrought in the Excited States.

RESIST!
• Sign the petition opposing it.
• Check out the Facebook page.
• Send a letter to your MP.
• Include ARCC's counter arguments to aid your MP's thinking.

Canadian women have fought too hard and too long to go backwards.

Emma the Embryo: The Formative Years (Days?)

I was looking for early uses of 'massive' as MASSIVE. (Saw a tweet about the #millionhoodies protest with 'MASSIVE'.) I thought 'we' (being Canadian feminazis) initiated the use over the MASSIVE push-poll that tried to discredit the award of the Order of Canada to Dr Morgentaler.

Can't verify that yet, but look what I found.

Emma the Embryo: the early years

Earlier this week we launched a new Emma the Embryo strip, as penned by Alison at Creekside and voiced by pro-choice activists - every one, once an embryo - I might add.

Alison created Emma a few years ago and she's been going strong since then.

Watch for her!

She has a LOT to say to Womb Wacko MP Woodworth and to his anti-choice colleagues in Parliament.

We Can't Stop Here...This Is Wombbat Country!

(boihowdee, when blogger said it wasn't supporting my browser on this machine, it meant it. sorry. hopefully fixed)

This, is a wombat.
A busy little tyke, like all marsupials, in times of physical stress her ability to abort offspring is easily done, as she's usually already carrying it in an external pouch.  Marsupial infants can be artificially raised apart from a maternal lactating pouch long before they can independently survive, as they are already predisposed to a non-placental environment.

This, is a womb-bat.
A busy little tyke, when it comes to bearing offspring, he thinks human women are marsupials too! Isn't that cute?  But being the big, grown-up Conservative Boy he really is, he's economically responsible and still prefers human women to continue placentally incubating human offspring instead of forcing the government to transfer the wee human bairns to expensive, although Totes Possible, artificial care until their human ex-utero viability date is signed-off on by Responsible Overseers.

He knows convincing irrational human women not to depend on modern artificial convenience to shorten their personal investment in the genetic future of Canada may turn out to be very problematic, but the issue is likely to be solved by the expedience of making the recalcitrant hysterics solely bear the costs of the artificial intervention.  There will be a further economic savings in that other human women will consider abstinence to be the far more wily economic choice after seeing the financial consquences of transferring a formative-human to its new, inhuman abode.

Some will say that once a human woman has started internally replicating another human, nothing should interfere with the countdown of the already clockwork course of events that result in full term birth, but our 'Mr Smith Gone to Wombington' believes that in this modern age, there is no reason to punish women for being sexually active when there is massive, highly delicate medical technology waiting to welcome formative-humans by the thousands.  The connected operating theater time, wound recovery, and of course, expense, will be more than punishment enough.

Given enough time, as more medical technology developments occur, the human female infants put into care as a result of these human-saving interventions, when not adopted out, can be incentivized to pay off their pre-childhood debts by becoming out-source womb surrogates.  This will drastically reduce the number of medical technicians required to monitor a formative-human.

The organic option, will of course require seeing the institutionalized human girls are raised in a manner optimal to internally supporting a new human capable of being adopted out to human parents shopping for the best human product, but since the formative-humans will be matured under the moral guidance of faith-based organizations, as our busy Womb-bat has been, what could possibly go wrong?

What could possibly go wrong...
 What could possibly go wrong...
   What could possibly go wrong...

This episode of "Fatherland Who's Who" has been brought to you today by Woodworth Fertilizers, where you can call bullshit good for business, but until it's broken up and lets light through, all it does is choke anyone downwind.

Elxn 41 minus RoboCon = No Con Majority

Yup, it's exactly as the polls said and the non-CON insiders who engineered the voter suppression scam and the election fraud scheme knew: Creekside: Election 41 minus RoboCon = No Con Majority

Not the Slightest Sliver

Canadians have been a LOT smarter than their USian cousins when it comes to abortion.

Even 'progressive' politicians there have been coerced into stigmatizing abortion -- think 'safe, legal and rare'. They all wring their hands and talk about 'reducing' abortion. Also known as the 'no-one likes abortion' feint. Or 'abortion is the most traumatic decision a woman can make' BS.

And there's the crack that the nutbars down there are now driving semi-trailers through.

To wit:
• It's A-OK for doctors to lie about a woman or fetus's medical condition if it will stop her opting for abortion. (That site is the source of that fabulous graphic.)

• Some braindead legislator wants to make sure women don't lie to take advantage of a rape exception by requiring a medical 'rape test'.

• In Alaska, another legislator is musing about getting the impregnator's permission before an abortion can be allowed.

• Another thinks it's no big deal for women to carry dead fetuses to term just like cows, pigs, and chickens.

There are more such examples. Many, many, many, many more.

But in Canada there is no law on abortion that panty-sniffing misogynists can tweak, amend, and just generally fuck around with.

Canadian women and their allies have watched in horrified fascination at what the batshitcrazy crew gets up to in the Excited States.

And that's why we have fought like hell to stop even the slightest sliver of interference in Canadian women's right to autonomy, privacy, and equality.

And that's why Stephen Woodworth's Kanada's Kinder Küche Kirche motion will get the shortest of shrifts.

Just say no to Amerikan abortion insanity.

^NOT the sharpest knife in the drawer.

As fern hill demonstrated in the previous blogpost, the dumbassitude bar has been set low, when CPC MPs claim they're the smartest guy in the room.

MP Woodworth has been working on this Motion 312 - his anti-science project for awhile now.

Choice Joyce at Abortions Rights of Canada has exhibit XY:

Attention supporters! We need to help out Stephen Woodworth because the poor guy lacks imagination. He couldn't even think of a title for his motion! Let's help him out by naming his motion for him. Please email your clever, funny, or subversive titles to info@arcc-cdac.ca. We'll pick the best one and go public with it!

Joyce ArthurExecutive DirectorAbortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) joycearthur@shaw.cawww.arcc-cdac.ca

This contest has spilled onto Twitter, of course. Check out some of these #M312 gems:

"Women Aren't Persons Unless Childbearing Act"

"Motion to Regress and Oppress"

"Kanada's Kinder, Küche, Kirche Act"

"Hidden Abortion Agenda Motion" or HAAM

"The Handmaid's Tale' Motion."

"The *Catholic Sharia* Pregnancy Control Act"

"The Coathanger of White Male Prominence act"

The "Everything I Know About Being Pregnant I Learned From Watching TLC" Motion

So far, the usual zygote zealots and womb zombies have been unusually quiet. They probably learned their lesson from the last or perhaps before-last time they counted their preborns before they were hatched.

Bill C484 will be forever known as "Kicking Abortion's Ass" because John "Sperm Holocaust" Pacheco unfortunately crowed about it passing 1st reading in the House.

The Smartest Guy in the Room

As anyone who has tried 'debating' Stephen Woodworth will tell you, he thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. (Well, considering the rooms he hangs out in, it may well be [terrifyingly] correct.)

I went a couple of rounds with him tonight and you be the judge.

Round 1:

Stephen Woodworth ‏ @WoodworthMP

Bahais are persecuted in Iran simply because of their religious faith.Why does simple belief seem threatening to some?

Fern Hill ‏ @fernhilldammit

@WoodworthMP Because it's not simple belief if the holders of it want to impose their laws on others. Like the Vatican Taliban.

Stephen Woodworth ‏ @WoodworthMP

@fernhilldammit I don't think Bahais want to impose anything on anyone.

Fern Hill ‏ @fernhilldammit

@WoodworthMP Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Who *does* impose religious values, Mr. Knight of Columbus? #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything

I don't know if I knocked him out, but that was the end of that.

Round 2:

Stephen Woodworth ‏ @WoodworthMP

It is a simple truth that no law is legitimate that claims any human being is not human.Not for any ideology.Not for any policy.

This, by the way, is his only 'reason' for reopening the abortion debate.

Fern Hill ‏ @fernhilldammit
@WoodworthMP Hasn't that Tautology 101 course I ordered for you arrived yet?

And that was the end of that one.

You know, for all that we say Fuck the Debate, maybe we should welcome it. Be a lot like shooting fish in a barrel.

But we're not cruel that way, are we?

Tar Sands: difference between The Tyee and StunTV is journalism

The Tyee responds to Ezra Levant's shallow, confrontational StunTV "Straight News Hard Talk" questions about its journalistic approach to covering the tar sands.

In your online reply to my comments, you say the Tyee's reporting is balanced. Have you ever published a pro-oilsands article?

The news reporting we publish does not set out to be pro or anti oil sands. We are interested in reporting that helps everyone get a better idea of whether the oil sands are sustainable, where the wealth they generate goes, how the oil sands might affect climate change, and such. We start with questions and are pleased to publish whatever answers we unearth. If the answers we arrive at aren't considered 'pro' oil sands by you or others, well, that's where the facts took us.

Here is another - and also hilarious! - spoof about the tar sands, one that features Harper government Enviro Minister Peter Kent.

The used

I was reading this essay by Arundhati Roy (h/t Yves Smith). It's a (typically for Roy) very long, but quite interesting read. I don't agree with all of it, but this bit stood out for me:

Mischievously, when the government or sections of the Corporate Press want to run a smear campaign against a genuine people’s movement, like the Narmada Bachao Andolan, or the protest against the Koodankulam nuclear reactor, they accuse these movements of being NGOs receiving “foreign funding”. They know very well that the mandate of most NGOs, in particular the well-funded ones, is to further the project of corporate globalisation, not thwart it.

The rise of this talking point in Canada is sort of telling. Canadians need to realize that while they are very, very much better off than the average Indian, being primarily extractors of goods for the benefit of others (and not even establishing a decent-sized sovereign wealth fund or charging nearly enough royalties...) puts them firmly in the category of the used, not the users, in our dog-eat-dog global economy, which is not a good place to be.

Emma the Embryo is back.

Emma is the potential everyhuman being.

She is prochoice because gestation is a procreative process.

She's a pragmatist because pregnancy is not *motherhood*.

She believes that every child should be wanted and welcomed, and every mother willing and supported.

Added: deBeauxOs is co-author on this post.

Added by fern hill: Please steal and post farnwide.

I Despair, Part Umpty-Five

I was just working on a blogpost encouraging Liberal and NDP women MPs to coordinate a strategy to shut down Woodwank's Dog and Pony Show, when my Twitterstream belched a bunch of crap about Olivia Chow throwing a hissy fit in today's by-election in Toronto-Danforth.

This seems to be the source of it.

@oliviachow kicked out of polling station in #TorDan after abusing scrutineer privileges & telling voters to "not vote Liberal". #shame

— Michelle Johnston (@JohnstonMich) March 19, 2012

Michelle Johnston's profile:

U of T Student, History and Political Science; President, @uoftliberals; Fighting hard for Ontario; Views are my own

Of course it's not true. Olivia is a class act, not to mention waaaay too smart.

Just a lying smear from a junior good ole gal trying to play in the big leagues.

One would think the respective women's caucuses would be salivating at the chance to take on TheoCon dinosaurs like Woodworth, Vellacott, Del Mastro, Trost et al.

And one would be wrong.

Even the women of the Fucking Useless Opposition® are too busy fighting each other to fight for us.

And pundits wonder why Canadians are turned off politics.

So, it's back to Facebook, Twitter, and the blogs. It's up to us regular Canadians to protect our rights.

A Practical CPC* MP

Wow. A CPC MP has come out publicly against Woodworth's dog and pony show.

Simcoe North MP Bruce Stanton will not be supporting a fellow Tory backbencher’s private member’s motion to open the discussion on when life begins.

Stephen Woodworth, a Conservative MP from the riding of Kitchener Centre, filed a motion in February proposing a parliamentary committee be created to discuss when a fetus is defined as a human being — a move that has publicly reignited the abortion debate.

“I don’t support the motion,” Stanton said, noting that Woodworth’s motion would undoubtedly bring the “divisive” abortion debate back into Parliament.

“The Supreme Court has given ample position on the rights of moms and I believe we need to keep the law the way it is.”
…

“If we go back 30 years to the public health problems that were posed when there were criminal sanctions in place, you have a whole set of other problems,” said Stanton, about the possibility of changing the current, clearly defined legislation. “The anti-abortion crowd would have us believe that we should just go back to that,”? [sic] said Stanton.

“They tend to overlook the implications of doing that.”
…

“I don’t want to in any way diminish the respect I have for people who feel differently,” he said.

“They have a right to do that but I don’t think they can impose their particular view of things on other moms that have those kinds of personal life choices to make.”

A bit odd, innit, to speak of 'moms' in this context. But whatever.

Let's revisit the handy list of anti-choice MPs as compiled and updated by the indefatigable Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. Stanton opposed the Order of Canada for Dr Morgentaler, supported Epp's C484 ('unborn victims law'), but is not 'designated' anti-choice (go to the link for criteria for this assessment).

Interestingly, Stanton did not respond to Campaign Lie's questionnaire and so is listed as 'evaluation pending'. Evaluation will probably abruptly stop pending after this little interview.

He seems to belong to no committees in this Parliament but has served on the Aboriginal Affairs and Status of Women committees.

Here's his email address: bruce.stanton @ parl.gc.ca. Let's zip him a message commending him for his pragmatic stance on this long-settled issue that, as he rightly foresees, is nothing but trouble. Perhaps encourage him to help his fellow caucus members to consider the 'implications' that he sees.

Like, not getting re-elected. Ever.

ADDED: Oh. Look. He's on Twitter.

*ADDED 2: On consultation with co-blogger deBeauxOs, I changed the title. We are going to reserve 'CONmen' for CPCers who toe the Hidden Agenda line and lie lie lie. Bruce Stanton does NOT belong in that gang.

The Giantess Has Awoken

It is very gratifying to see US women politicians pushing back against insane new abortion and contraception laws with satirical proposals of their own. See here and here.

But now the giantess has awoken and has taken to social media to vent her ire mockery.

Some are calling it #ProjectTMI and, like our Canadian #TellAntiChoiceMPsEverything, women are schooling CONmen about the yuckier bits of being female and/or asking sarcastic questions of 'expert' male politicians.

US women are using the hashtag #mybodyyourchoice, which I think is brilliant, playing off the old feminist slogan while playing into what CONmen believe is their Right.

As with any of these organic thingies, it's going off in all directions. Some are using governors' and legislators' Facebook pages to ask ingenuous questions like: 'When I have a period, it's red, not blue like on tv ads. Is something wrong with me?' (Actually, I think that one came from a Canadian contributing to #TellAntiChoiceMPs.) Stuff like that.

An off-shoot I really like is Government Free VJJ with the tag line:
'If we knit you a uterus, will you stay out of ours?'

It has knitting and crocheting instructions for items like the Snatchel, Womb (fave word of TheoCons), Felt Cervix, Happy Uterus, and the Knitted Vulva, with glow-in-the-dark clitoris 'so she's always easy to find'.






The site includes suggestions on what to do with the resulting art. They're working on arranging hand-delivery to congressional offices.

These measures are desperately needed as we are discovering just how hilariously sadly ignorant the men who want to regulate our lady parts are about said bits.

Rachel Maddow makes hay with the fact that ReThugs actually don't know what's in their anti-abortion legislation.

The War on Women is raging now in the US. Here in Canada it is just warming up with Stephen Woodworth's private member's motion yet to receive its first hour of House debate in April.

But it is certainly ON.

Our evul goal here at DJ! is to have made the subject so toxic, so risible, so ridiculous to even consider in the 21st century, that only the hardest of hardcore Fetus Fetishists will have the gall to rise in the House and pretend to seriously discuss it.

To end on a hopeful/wishful note: Do we in Canada have a female pol with ovaries enough to make and hold a sign like State Senator McIntyre? Any nominations?