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
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.
12 comments:
As your USian counterpart let me stress that you can't fight this soon enough or loudly enough or enough enough. Seriously, two years ago I was making "paranoid" claims that the Teapublican conservatives in this country wanted to set back women's rights, and their fight against abortion was going to lead to a fight against contraceptives. My few readers were not convinced and on other blog comment sections I was actually pooh-poohed as reading too much into their final objectives. Well, I wish for once I could proudly claim to have been wrong. The insanity seems to be creeping northward. Sorry - keep up the good fight.
Signed + Tweeted.
As Jeri points out, I think it is entirely possible that Canada slips into a US style abortion culture war. It is imperative that we actually address these issues, with force and emphasis, at every relevent opportunity.
Yes.
As you no doubt know, I'm about the LAST person to pull alarms -- when I start getting concerned about something, there's a problem. And I'm genuinely concerned about this.
A couple of hours of debate about something so silly might not sound threatening to some people, but the long term potential for women's rights could be devastating. They're not just having this debate because they need something to fill an hour of their time on those 2 days: there's always a Long Game. It remains to be seen if Harpie will play.
PS Jeri: Cool name ;) Only the coolest people have that name ;) :p
I just wanted to share this video if you have not seen George Carlin's skit about abortion and Pro Lifers. He raises some really great points!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCWC4sHbIV0
Oh, yeah, perennial fave here, our St. George of Carlin.
Clickable.
I would like to make it known that I just found Stephen Woodworth's facebook page. He made an ironic Twitter statement "International Women's Day is a good time to remember the day Canada's infamous law deeming women not to be persons was rejected."
To which I gracefully replied "How funny you should post this when your misogynist mentality is trying to take those very rights away with your Motion 312 by giving a fetus more rights than the actual woman!"
Bazinga!
Moments later my comment was removed and comments were blocked or he blocked me, haha.
I have a *really hard time* supporting George Carlin because of his view that rape is totes hilarious, so I went into this immediately thinking, "Oh goodness I'm going to want to flip tables, aren't I?" ... and came out pleasantly surprised. Very good points.
I'm scared shitless that this will pass and I'm throwing it on Tumblr, Twitter and such as much as I can. Yeah, it *might not* pass, but it *might* and that's really scary.
Bravo Laura! You can count on the fact either fern hill or myself will bring out your censorship by the forces who manage Wankworth's FB page as a shining example of their odious hypocrisy.
BTW, if you're on Twitter you can challenge him directly and he can't erase your tweets.
@WoodworthMP
I already have! Haha.
I highly doubt he will reply. Just like I am sure he will not reply to my numerous emails I am sending him. :D But, since I am also CCing the PM and MP's to all my emails regarding this Motion. Someone will read it.
I have been posting on numerous sites and have been pleasantly surprised to get support from older generation women. They actually had to live through the days when abortions were illegal.
Is there a place where we can post letters that we have written to Wankworth?
Laura, I don't have one nor do I frequent FB pages, but I did a quick search of my co-blogger's posts and she recommends these two, here and here. You might be able to post your letter there.
Thank you so much for the links! I did not know about those ones.
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