Lawlessness Is Good

Maddow demonstrates how frighteningly fast a fringe element can seize power and radically alter what was thought to be a settled matter.


Watch.

Link to video that Blogger ate.

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In the 2010 election, which swept all those RWNJs into the US Congress and, more importantly, state houses, five Republican Senate candidates supported removing exemptions for rape and incest victims from abortion bans. (Four out of five lost.)

As of now, eight USian states have enacted laws removing those exemptions. Maddow stresses that before 2010 such a thing was anathema to even the most conservative antichoice politicians.

Anathema.

Now it is the law of the land in eight states. See how that works? You have a law. Some nutbar doesn't like it, wants to tinker with it.

Tinker, tinker. Gestational limits. Method bans. Mandatory ultrasounds. Personhood initiatives. And today, bogus fetal-pain based gestational limits upheld.

Tinker, tinker, tinker.

And now, the crack-down on rape and incest victims.

In Canada we don't have a law on abortion. Here abortion is a private, elective procedure regulated by medical bodies.

No law, no tinkering.

Woodworth's Wankers and supporters want a law they can tinker with. Any law.

We won't let them take the first step. Motion 312 will be crushed.

ADDED: The video disappeared. Blogger is being wonky today.

Today in M312 News

I started the conversation here. I reported on the first reply from the author of Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, here and what I thought would be the end of it here.

But no. There's more. From today's email:

I`m sorry that you find an honest attempt to initiate an evidence based dialogue about the important implications of a law which deems to be non-human children who are in all likelihood as humans as you and I to be insulting. Rest assured that I do not consider scientifically descriptive evidence of the development of a child to be a "circus", regardless of what might occur elsewhere.   I simply believe we all have a grave and clear duty of conscientious objection when faced by a law like subsection 223(1) which constitutes an assault on the principle of universal human rights.

My staff apologizes for the typographical error which you so importantly noted.

Typical Con, eh? Superiority, condescension, snark, and blame shifting. Some crappy sentence structure to boot.

I am leaving the conversation here.

In other M312-related news, there's a new arrow in the fetus fetishists' quiver. Yet another website pressing the 'personhood' gambit.

But like the zygote zealots yipping on Twitter and blogs, this gang didn't get the memo about M312 NOT being about abortion atall atall.

Look what adorns its Contact your MP page.

The usual headless, featureless incubator with the All Important Fetus.


And look who holds the copyright. A gang called Life Issues Institute. Surprise! It's USian!

We don't want this BS in Canada. Contact your MP and tell her or him that.

FFS, Stop Lying

Over at SUZYALLCAPSLOCK's Fetal Pr0n Gore Fest, the top three categories/tags are prolife, abortion, and fetal rights. So maybe it's just a twitch when SHE tags nearly all HER tweets about Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, aka The When Does a Blob of Tissue's Rights Outweigh the Incubator's Rights Motion with #fetalrights.

Right? Just an automatic typing twitch. SHE's feeling revved and types #fetalrights because it feels gooooood.

Because M312 is NOT about abortion.

Right?

Let's look into fetal rights.

Much opposition to legal abortion in the West is based on a concern for fetal rights. Similarly many pro-choice groups oppose fetal rights, even when they do not impinge directly on the abortion issue, because they perceive this as a slippery slope strategy to restricting abortions.

Oh dear. 'Fetal rights' and 'abortion' together right there. Also. 'Slippery slope'.

Last night, SHE tweeted:

SHE has me blocked like most of the gutless yobs who are whining for the Debate, but block anyone who comes back with facts or uncomfortable questions. Also, being blocked is a ginormous pain in the butt. I can't retweet, can't embed, can't expand the conversation, i.e. see the context...

I replied:

@roseblue: Examples of countries 'recognizing' #fetalrights without affecting abortion, please? #M312

— Fern Hill (@fernhilldammit) July 27, 2012

I've repeated it at least three times since and it's been retweeted a few times too.

There's been no reply.

So, again I do the fetus fetishists' research for them. Back to wiki.
I found four countries that have enshrined fetal rights in law: some US states, Iran, Ireland, and Germany. The case in Germany is a bit twisty.

In 1993, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany held that the constitution guaranteed a right to life from conception, but that it is within the discretion of parliament not to punish abortion in the first trimester, providing that women agreed to undergo special counselling designed to discourage termination and "protect unborn life".[citation needed] The intermediate decision was the result of an attempt to join East Germany's abortion law to that of West Germany after reunification in 1990.

Ireland is no surprise. The case in Iran is also a bit twisty.

And we know how fetal rights play out in the US. In the ipso facto criminalization of pregnancy.

Under the heading 'Behavioral intervention', wiki says:

No U.S. state has enacted a law which criminalizes specific behavior during pregnancy, but, nonetheless, it has been estimated that at least 200 American women have been criminally prosecuted or arrested under existing child abuse statutes for allegedly bringing about harm in-utero through their conduct during pregnancy. Reasons for pressing charges included use of illicit drugs, consumption of alcohol, and failure to comply with a doctor's order of bedrest or caesarean section. Drug addicts have been accused of "supplying drugs to a minor" through unintentional chemical subjection via the umbilical cord. Others have been charged with assault with a deadly weapon with the "deadly weapon" in question being an illegal drug. Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota allow women who continue to use substances while pregnant to be civilly committed. Some states require that medical providers report any infant who is born with a physical dependency, or who tests positive for residual traces of alcohol or drugs, to child welfare authorities.

Giving fetuses rights takes rights away from women. Moreover, fetal rights creates a new class of people -- pregnant people.

Every pregnant person would be subject to an entirely different regime of law.

The fetus fetishists know this. Are okey-dokey with it.

But continue to lie that Woodworth's Wank is NOT about abortion and women's rights.

It bloody well is.

A WIN for Good Science

It has taken a while but finally the Right Thing ® may be about to happen. A 2009 piece of scientific bullshit journal article by one of DJ!'s fave BAD scientists, Priscilla Coleman, has been so thoroughly debunked as to be retracted.

Earlier this year, an analysis by leading researchers completely discredited a key article used as "evidence" by the state of South Dakota and anti-choice supporters in their arguments to the 8th Circuit Federal Appeals Court supporting a law forcing doctors to tell women seeking to terminate a pregnancy that abortion is linked with higher risks of suicide and depression.

The researchers also called on the editors of the Journal of Psychiatric Research (JPR) in which the article was originally published in 2009 to retract the article, a step now under consideration by the editors, one of which cited the article's "serious deficiencies."

Now if only the British Journal of Psychiatry would woman/man up and retract her most recent piece of shit.

And kudos to the real scientists who persist in investigating and destroying BAD Science. Real scientists like the ones at the new and desperately needed Bad Science Watch. Its purpose is to promote good science in Canadian public policy.

Canada needs real change. Bad Science Watch is here to make that change a reality.

We are creating what will be Canada’s most effective and consistently successful force countering bad science, strengthening consumer protection regulation, and advocating for sound science in making important societal decisions.

Please support our work. Help us achieve the change our country needs by donating to Bad Science Watch, and joining the fight, through our Action Alerts mailing list.

Lying Liars WIN!

Back in 2009, it seemed like some sanity was breaking out in the US when some over-reaching abortion laws were struck down, at least partially like this one in South Dakota.

But sadly, the insanity has set in again.

The U.S. state of South Dakota can require doctors to warn women seeking abortions that they face an increased risk of suicide if they go through with the procedure, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the portion of the 2005 South Dakota law dealing with the suicide advisory 7-4.
. . .
The four dissenting judges said multiple studies cited failed to take into account factors such as pre-existing mental health issues, domestic violence and a young age at the time of pregnancy.

"The most reliable evidence in the record shows that abortion does not have a causal relationship to the risk of suicide and that South Dakota's mandated advisory is not truthful, but actually misleading," Circuit Judge Diana Murphy wrote for the dissenting side.

The state, in supporting the law passed seven years ago, disagreed, submitting several studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals to demonstrate a "statistically significant correlation between abortion and suicide." Planned Parenthood relied on another study to argue its belief that certain underlying factors, such as mental health issues, predispose women to have both unwanted pregnancies and suicidal tendencies.

Which 'peer-reviewed' medical journals, we wonder. The ones that publish BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science?

Or real, prestigious, ethical journals, like The Lancet (from December 2011)?

Past studies on the effect of an induced abortion on mental health have been mixed in terms of their quality, findings, and interpretation. Some have shown no harm while others have found associations with mental disorders. Last week, the world's largest, most comprehensive systematic review on mental health outcomes of abortion was published by the UK Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC). The review claimed to provide a definitive answer: having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems.

The review included 44 high-quality studies done in developed countries and published between 1990 and 2011. It found that a woman's mental health outcomes were the same whether she chooses to have an abortion or continue with the pregnancy.

Might be time to revise the Hippocratic Oath.

First, I will tell no bullshit state-mandated LIES.

Hissing vs Pissing

This is what Antonia Z tweeted about earlier, here and here.

It's not politically correct to call it this, but a real cat fight has broken out between B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford. One of my colleagues jokingly called the war of words between the two women "premier-on-premier violence."

While it hasn't come to blows, the rhetorical rage between Canada's two most western premiers has ramped up to an uncharacteristic hissing match.

By some accounts, things didn't go well between the two last Thursday, when Clark flew to Edmonton for a surreptitious meeting at the Alberta legislature.

It would have been refreshingly honest for Licia Corbella to start off her piece of dreck with: "It's sexist and a cliché for me to call it thus, but ..."

Men have disagreements, conflicts, disputes, and quarrels with one another. Jason Kenney may call an Alberta CON colleague a "complete and utter asshole" - though it's viewed as rude and tactless, there's a tendency to shrug it off as the virile way men conduct themselves when they do business.

The Ultrasound Circus Comes to Canada

The convo with MP and point-man for the Vatican Taliban, Stephen Woodworth, continues.

To recap, I asked what witnesses he would propose if Motion 312, aka Woodworth's Wank, passes. I also asked what 'modern' science persuaded him that the motion was necessary.

His reply:

As mentioned, it will be for the Committee to determine the witnesses.  You are getting ahead of matters.

Let`s stay with first things first.  As to important advances in the last 400 years, I will mention one for you, 21st century ultrasonagraphy [sic] permits imaging of the organs and limbs of a child before birth in a manner impossible 400 years ago.

Still weaselling on the experts and a misspelled example of an imaging technology. (His punctuation isn't too hot either.)

How unsurprising that he cites ultrasound as the convincer. We've done a fair bit of reporting here at DJ! on the fetus fetishists's fetish for ultrasound.

Here is my response (with link embedded).

You refuse to give examples of credible experts from your no-doubt extensive research. Fine. Canadians will draw their own conclusions on your silence.

But you cite (and unfortunately misspell) ultrasonography. Perhaps the committee will be treated to the circus presented to Ohio legislators when two fetuses 'testified' by means of ultrasound.

That, by the way, was in aid of passing an anti-abortion 'heartbeat' bill.

Well, why not? This government has already made Canada a laughing stock on the international scene for its treatment of real science. If M312 passes, we can add to that reputation by accepting only junk science.

Your strategy of deliberately conflating biology with law is well-known and -documented in the various 'personhood' initiatives in the US. Such initiatives consistently fail spectacularly even in the most conservative US states like Mississippi.

Canadians are at least as smart as Mississippians. You insult each one of us with this transparent ploy.

Thank you for replying. I'm done now.

Beyond one robo response, there has been nothing from the two online backers of M312, whenamihuman and weneedalaw to my simple question. And I don't expect any from them.

M312: Suckering the Rubes

Of course somebody has figured out a way to make money off Woodworth's Wank, aka M312.

A set of postcards to send to MPs.

These people have obviously done extensive market research into the prime target audience for this scam opportunity.

Here's a look at our newest postcard design which is now at the printer. We are very excited about the message on this card and believe it will have a big impact on those who read it. Besides, who could help but love that beautiful pink little baby!

Coz PINK babies are the most wonderfulest!

Order yours today!

Birth is not Magical - Full Kit
This kit includes 320 postcards, enough for all our MPs plus a few to give to friends so they can see what you're doing and write a few of their own!

Included are
• 320 (4x6 postcards)
• full checklist of MP names
• instructions

Pricing includes
• 320 cards @ $0.042ea = $13.44
• Canada Post anywhere in Canada = $15.50
Total = $30.00

Racist Christaliban entrepreneurs suckering the rubes. Ain't Canada a grand place?

(If you'd prefer to express your opposition to opening the door to decriminalizing abortion to your MP, here you can get pro-choice postcards. FREE.

Wanted: Prebornchildologists

I got a reply to my email (bold mine; underlining his).

Good Morning Ms. Hill

The Motion sets out instructions to the Committee, which will then direct the study.  You will see that the Motion poses medical and legal questions.  My expectation is that, the Committee would hear from experts in medical fields who might describe the development of a child before birth, including cellular biology, fetology, anatomy, genetics, neurology, neo-natal medicine, surgical medicine, etc.  I’m not in a position to propose witnesses at this time, but hope the Committee will seek my input when it is appropriate. There have been significant advances in these fields in the last thirty years, not to mention the last 400 years. Rather than suppressing or avoiding modern information about a key human rights issue.  I hope Members of Parliament will embrace it.  If Motion 312 passes, the only result will be to better inform Canadians. 

Thank you for your keen interest.  I hope you will agree with me that every human being should be recognized as such in Canadian law.

Sincerely
Stephen Woodworth
Member of Parliament
Kitchener Centre

Here is my reply.

Mr Woodworth,
Thank you for your prompt reply.

Unfortunately, it does not answer my question.

I am baffled by the assertion that you are 'not in a position to propose witnesses' yet imply that you have important 'input' to offer.

In preparation for your motion, did you not research potential witnesses? You list some fields, but no individuals or even institutions. Are the needed experts available? Willing? Canadian?

You say there have been 'significant advances'. How do you know that? What source persuaded you that this is an issue of vital importance?

It seems to me that there are two possible reasons for your position. Either you are refusing to reveal the experts you have identified. Or, you have not done the research and are proposing to waste everyone's time and Parliament's resources on a whim.

Is there another reason Canadians and their MPs are not to be told which experts might be invited before we and they decide whether to host this party?

Thank you.

Here's the relevant section of M312 in all its semantically twisted glory.

that the special committee present its final report to the House of Commons within 10 months after the adoption of this motion with answers to the following questions,

(i)            what medical evidence exists to demonstrate that a child is or is not a human being before the moment of complete birth?,

(ii)            is the preponderance of medical evidence consistent with the declaration in Subsection 223(1) that a child is only a human being at the moment of complete birth?,

(iii)            what are the legal impact and consequences of Subsection 223(1) on the fundamental human rights of a child before the moment of complete birth?,

(iv)            what are the options available to Parliament in the exercise of its legislative authority in accordance with the Constitution and decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1)?

The only people who could answer these bogus questions are prebornchildologists.

Invitation to the M312 Bun-Fest

I just sent this email to: mike @ weneedalaw.ca, contact @ whenamihuman.com, stephen.woodworth @ parl.gc.ca

Good morning,
I am a prochoice blogger, resolutely opposed to M312. I blog here.

I have been asking at my blog and on twitter a simple question for M312 supporters: If M312 passes and a committee is formed to hear testimony intended to 'modernize' the definition of personhood, which experts would you like MPs to hear from?

There have been no replies.

Presumably, in your research and activism on this subject, you have identified, at least provisionally, a list of such experts.

Since Canadians will be paying for this exercise, I think we are entitled to a glimpse at the proposed guest list.

After all, how can MPs be asked to vote for a discussion without some idea of the sort of information they will be seeking? Science? Law? Medicine?

I await your answers.

Thank you.

fern hill

Will there be any replies?

Me, I don't think so.


UPDATE: Zoom! Auto-reply.

Thank you so much for contacting us! This site is run by volunteers (not Mr. Woodworth or his staff), and we will get back to you as soon as we can. For all media inquiries, please contact Mr. Woodworth directly at stephen.woodworth@parl.gc.ca. Sincerely, the When Am I Human Team.

UPDATE 2: More auto-reply.

Good morning Ms. Hill,

On behalf of Stephen Woodworth, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre, I would like to acknowledge receipt of and thank you for your email.

Please be assured that your correspondence will be brought to Mr. Woodworth's direct attention.

Sincerely,

He's got me blocked on Twitter. We'll see how much direct attention I get.

Emel Mathlouthi at Nuits d'Afrique

In January and February of 2011, fernhill and I followed the Tunisian uprising and posted about the events.

This young woman came to my attention, via a #Sidibouzid tweet that drew attention to footage posted of her singing at one of many huge protests in Tunisia.

Last evening I attended her concert in Montréal. She is a gifted musician, a dedicated activist, and an emerging artist who reaches her audience in many inspired and uplifting ways.

First: her voice. None of the online videos do justice to the range, strength and power of this petite woman's live performance.

She talked to us between her songs, sharing the stories behind their creation and recognizing the contribution of poets and other writers who gave her bits of text to set to music.

Her signature song is "Kelmti Horra" - "Ma parole est libre":

Je suis une étoile dans l'obscurité,

Je suis une épine dans la gorge de l'oppresseur,

Je suis un vent par le feu attisé,

Je suis l'âme de ceux qui n'oublient pas,

Je suis la voix de ceux qui ne meurent pas.

Mathlouthi set the words of Amin El Ghozzi to her music; she first sang this song of revolution in 2007 in Paris, foreshadowing Mohamed Bouazizi's act of self-immolation that would set off the Arab Spring.

In addition to her own compositions, she sang "White Rabbit" from Jefferson Airplane in a manner that honoured Grace Slick, then enlisted our voices in support of a very joyous version of Cohen's "Allelujah". That was an inspired convergence of Abrahamic traditions that nurtured optimism.

The pathology of your choice, justified by religious dogma.

Oh yeah?

Well, I want a law making it legal and mandatory for men who believe they will sexually assault women because of the way they're dressed, or for those who have violated women for those very reasons, to be given skewers to poke their eyes out.

Problem solved.

Thus women can continue to dress *provocatively* if they choose to do so, without risking physical or emotional violence. The people who can admire and enjoy their *provocative* attire will assume complete responsibility for their actions and thus won't be projecting their own fetishizing pathologies or sexualized proprietary claims onto *provocatively* garbed female bodies.

Just in case you thought this was an exclusively islamist misogyny, check out the poster held up in the background by a christianist zealot.

The Science of Personhood

Because I was getting no action on my oft-posed question to supporters of Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, I decided to help them out.

I went looking for the sort of experts fetus fetishists would want to hear from and found this *science* page at Personhood Canada. (BTW, it is a project of Alliance for Life Ontario, the gang behind the Merkin anti-abortion ads currently showing on CTV.)

I was doing my debunking thing, when I hit the bit from the 40+ year-old pamphlet from New Zealand and got that déjà vu all over again feeling.

Yup, I had LMAO'd at it more than two years ago. But, despite the strong evidence that it hasn't changed -- why leave in that lame-o reference if they actually had anything better? -- I'm going to do it again in the current context of M312. (Also. I had already found a buncha links.)

Here's the page, unaltered, except broken up.

There is no question about when human life begins.

In the widely used medical textbook, The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, Moore, Persaud, Saunders, 1998, states on page 2 that “The intricate processes by which a baby develops from a single cell are miraculous .... This cell [the zygote] results from the union of an oocyte [egg] and sperm. A zygote is the beginning of a new human being ....” On page 18 this theme is repeated: “Human development begins at fertilization ....”

From a website at University of New South Wales, the first text listed is indeed Moore, Persaud, et al., but not surprisingly, the 2011 edition, which is not the edition cited. Does the newer edition not contain the key words -- 'baby' and 'new human being' -- so ardently desired by the fetus fetishists? Dunno, do we?

Dr. Jerome Lejeune, “Father of Modern Genetics” and discoverer of the cause of Down’s Syndrome, stated, “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place, a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”

‪Jérôme Lejeune‬ is who they say he is and if he said that, big surprise. He was Catholic and tight with the Polish Poop.

Afterward, Dr. Lejeune regularly traveled to Rome to meet with the Pope, to attend meetings of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and to participate in other events, such as the 1987 Synod of Bishops. The Holy Father wanted to name Jérôme Lejeune as the president of a new pontifical academy that was dear to his heart: the Pontifical Academy for Life[1]. Dr. Lejeune painstakingly drafted its bylaws and the oath of the Servants of Life that each member of the Academy must take. He wanted the Academy, founded on February 11, 1994, to be a true center of contemplation and action to expand the culture of life.

But the doc died before he could get things really rolling. He's up for sainthood though.

Now the howler from New Zealand, from a pamphlet intended for new parents, mind.

"The unborn baby is alive from the first moment of conception of a single egg and a single sperm." N.Z. Health Department: Pamphlet No 83 Your New Baby (Government Printer) 1969.

Next one is kind of interesting.

"Dr. McCarthy de Mere, medical doctor and law professor of the University of Tennessee, testified: "The exact moment of the beginning of personhood and of the human body is at the moment of conception."

Googling the good doctor nets one a bunch of links to fetus fetishist sites citing that very quote. And searching the University of Tennessee's site gets one bupkis. Total fabrication?

Then they trot out poor conflicted Bernard Nathanson, the Abby Johnson of his day. (Blogpost coming on Ms Johnson.) Note helpful paraphrase in square brackets.

Former abortionist and founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, said "It is atrocious for anyone now to maintain that a fetus [unborn child] is simply a lump of meat, or something insignificant or an unprotectable life."

From Wiki:

Nathanson grew up Jewish and for more than ten years after he became pro-life he described himself as a "Jewish atheist". In 1996 he converted to Catholicism through the efforts of an Opus Dei priest, Rev. C. John McCloskey.

And he was married four times. Some issues there.

The most breathtaking piece of chutzpah is citing Dr Evil Incarnate, Alan Guttmacher.

In 1933, abortion advocate and former medical director of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Dr. Alan Guttmacher, wrote, “We of today know that man is born of sexual union... and that the embryo is formed from the fusion of two single cells, the ovum and the sperm. This all seems so simple and evident to us that it is difficult to picture a time when it was not part of the common knowledge.” And in 1961 Dr. Guttmacher wrote, “Fertilization, then has taken place; a baby has been conceived.” If a man who has dedicated his life to promotiong contraception and abortion can acknowledge the scientific facts of when life begins, why can’t we?

Dr Guttmacher also said:

"No woman is completely free unless she is wholly capable of controlling her fertility and...no baby receives its full birthright unless it is born gleefully wanted by its parents."

The page ends with some links to videos of THE MIRACLE of mammalian fetal development.

So, some of these people are dead and others are, er, difficult to locate. The dates are not terribly recent, which is the supposed point of this whole Wank -- to modernize an OLD law.

But that's all they got, people.

Bupkis.

Overproduction

To me the biggest lesson regarding the continuing and on-going megafail that is the Eurozone is the fact that we have definitive, living proof that is productivity is not a virtue, and that it is indeed possible to over-produce. That leisure and "laziness" have positive merits. When some countries (people) produce more than they consume, it isn't necessarily a sign of individual national (personal) virtue, and it certainly is not reliable evidence even of their own prudence.

Germans in particular were encouraged to produce more than they consumed. Since we live in a world in which the law of conservation of matter holds, this means that there are only two possible destinations for the surplus:

1. The landfill/incineration/midden heap/the sea.
2. Other people.

We haven't yet entirely reached the level of depravity where we'd openly admit to doing (1). So the excess was exported to other people: most importantly, other Europeans. What wasn't exported directly to them were turned into savings that chased investments in, e.g., the Spanish housing sector.

But what was consumed by other Europeans was exactly what the other Europeans in the indebted countries did not produce, or stopped producing. Which makes perfect sense, because subsidized excess production sold from country A to country B means that it's not economical to produce in country B, especially when country B can no longer protect (ECONOMIST ALARM BELLS) itself from country A.

What should happen is that country A eventually increases its consumption, and brings everything back into balance, or country A stops overproducing.

Country A (i.e. Germany and, really, all the other Eurozone surplus countries) is not increasing its relative consumption, even though its goods have been purchased with enormous debt from country B. And the citizens of Germany are coming to the increasingly angry realization that they aren't going to be paid back for what they produced and have now apparently given to the "slackers" in the Euro south. Who, in the meantime, are suffering under massive unemployment and state austerity.

So the (quite literally) trillion-dollar question is, where did all those payments go? What was all that debt created for?

I leave that question as an exercise for the reader.

Crickets. . .

I keep asking and asking. Finally, I got not an answer but at least an acknowledgement of the question.

@fernhilldammit good question,who would you like?

— Russ Bosch (@RussBosch) July 17, 2012

If Motion 312, aka Woodworth's Wank, passes in September, Canadians will be on the hook for the costs of the ensuing 'discussion' of when women's rights become subordinate to a blob of tissue's.

Do we not have the right to get an idea of the proposed guest list?

Surely, the people in favour of holding this discussion have done their research, yes?

Surely, they have drawn up a list of expert witnesses they would like MPs to hear from, yes?

It is a good question. I want an answer.

*Pussy Riot* grrrlz are threat to Putin and thus Russia.

Imagine living in a country where the government leader flouts the democratic traditions and exploits the system to stay in power, with the assistance of rightwing religious groups and corporate interests.

That would be Russia, not Canada though the Harper regime is moving us closer to Putin's totalitarian ideal every day it remains in power.

Three women - workers, artists, mothers and students - and members of the punk group *Pussy Riots" were arrested five months ago. They have been kept in prison since they performed a prayer to the Virgin Mary to rid the country of Putin, in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

The issue has divided Russian society into two camps. The first group thinks that their song represents an insult to the religious sensibilities of the majority, which ought to be a criminal offense punishable with jail time.

A significantly smaller group – concentrated among Russia's intellectual and artistic communities – argues that while the women may be guilty of bad behavior, their actions should not be considered a serious crime in any secular society. Legal experts now agree, warning of a decrease in public confidence in the Russian judiciary and government institutions.

Some 35,000 people have signed an Internet petition calling for the women's release, and last month more than 100 prominent Russian artists, musicians and public intellectuals signed an open letter to the Kremlin that declared "the criminal case against Pussy Riot compromises the Russian judicial system and undermines confidence in government institutions on the whole."

Some liberals insist that the surprisingly harsh prosecution of the women is being pushed by the Kremlin at the behest of the Orthodox Church, which has grown in political power in recent years and increasingly takes public stands on social matters such as the way Russian women dress and anti-religious artistic expressions. The church denies any direct involvement in the case.

From here; more here and here.



And. Also. We're going for the Abrahamic religious trifecta, thanks to Sarah Silverman's raunchy *indecent* proposal to one of the billionaires meddling in US politics.

Warning: it is NSFW and not for anyone who might be offended by the dubious juxtaposition of ethnocultural jamming, blatant political venality and lesbian sexual practices. Sarah uses her dog to illustrate what she is pitching, though the critter doesn't appear to have been harmed psychologically or otherwise.

Thirdly: a crackpot preacher and recent convert to Islam regurgitates the standard gynophobic fundamentalist ideology that shames women for men's behaviour.

Instead of mandatory burqas, why not issue blindfolds to men who are incapable of taking responsibility for their violence and their abusive actions towards women?

It does raise the question of why women chose to participate in their own objectification and sexualization. Recent studies such as this one observe this phenomenon can be detected beginning at the age of six. Yes, you read that correctly.

Grand merci to Le Devoir, Weywerd Sun, and Dred Tory.

Scientists: They're not mad, they're angry.

Kady O'Malley's news story about the scientists' march and protest is here.

Slide show of inspiring placards and slogans. Take note of the inflated planet earth with "scorch" zones, and the chart that explains climate change succinctly in 50 words or less to open minds. I met the scientists who brought these items to the march: they work at a local university, and this was the first political protest they attended.

As Mike Soron said here: It’s extraordinary and inspiring to see the research and scientific community speaking up in this way.

The march and protest was organized to coincide with this well-attended international and interdisciplinary scientific event, held at the Ottawa Congress Centre.

This will be the first time that these five societies have met together, creating a truly international event that spans the fields of ecology and evolution. The meeting will be the premier showcase in 2012 for the presentation and discussion among peers of the latest, leading-edge research in ecology and evolution, and will also be an important forum for outreach and education.

Over 2000 scientists, people working in support of scientific research and graduate students marched to Parliament Hill last Tuesday, bearing a coffin that held scientific evidence the CPC government wants to bury.

Meanwhile, the Harper Regime's decision to slash funding for Parks Canada programs and services but to generously endow one single site, has been trumpeted by none other than Tony *Cashmere* Clement. The tourist attraction is CONveniently located in his riding, of course.

Compare and contrast: the G20 Fake Lake and the Experimental Lakes Area project.

Located in Northwestern Ontario, the Experimental Lakes Area is a series of 58 lakes that have been the site of environmental research for over 40 years. The lakes have served as an invaluable natural laboratory where scientists have been able to study issues such as acid rain, climate change and farm fishing. Scientists at the ELA have been responsible for discoveries that have impacted freshwater systems across the globe.[...]

The loss of this vital facility will be a deep one for Canada. Not only will we lose our place on the world stage as leaders in freshwater ecology science, but we’ll lose our ability to predict how our freshwater will be affected by external factors such as pollution and fish farming — and thus, protect our own water supply.

The closure of the ELA research facility will not only impact the health of lakes and rivers, but for the health of Canadians, as our lakes are our direct source of drinking water.

And last, but not least ...

from virtually the moment the Conservatives took power, scientists in the employ of the government have not been permitted to speak freely to journalists, at least not without the con-sent of media relations officers. This approach, which has much in common with the way cults operate, effectively limits the dissemination, to the public, of the fruits of scientific endeavours. So too does the elimination of the National Science Advisor position, which the Conservatives axed in 2008.

In fact, government control over information, scientific and otherwise, has become so intense that Canada's freedom-of-information ranking has now fallen to 51st out of 89 countries scored by the Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy. That places us below such bastions of freedom as Angola, Colombia and Niger.

Yet as totalitarian governments have always learned, evidence has a way of getting out. And when uncomfortable evidence rears its head, the Conservatives have been right there, ready to twist it off. Consider for example, the 2008 Health Canada report on chrysotile asbestos.

After trying, and ultimately failing, to hide the report, Industry Minister Christian Paradis falsely claimed that panel members disagreed about the safe use of chrysotile - a move that prompted the panel's chair to speak out about the "gross misuse and misinterpretation" of the report.

Similarly, after 130 physicians and scientists accused former Health Minister Tony Clement of misrepresenting and suppressing the scientific findings on Vancouver's supervised injection site, Clement proceeded to, well, misrepresent and suppress the findings.

Indeed, Clement convened his own hand-picked panel of experts to assess the site's value, and after the expert panel's report was submitted, two members of the panel lamented that Clement misrepresented their findings. And if that weren't enough, Clement then tried to pass off a poorly writ-ten opinion piece about the site as the equivalent of two dozen published studies - a clear indication of the value Clement places on science.

Source of illustration.

Rape Jokes: Feminists have no sense of humour, redux

More and more comedians are coming out of the woodwork to defend their colleague Daniel Tosh for his defense of rape jokes. For those of you who missed the controversy, a woman who saw Tosh at the Laugh Factory reported that the comedian made “some very generalizing, declarative statements about rape jokes always being funny, how can a rape joke not be funny, rape is hilarious, etc.”

She yelled out, “Actually, rape jokes are never funny!” So, Tosh responded by saying, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, five guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…?”

From here.

The media reports regarding Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulting boys at Penn State would have been *hilarious* if not for all those kill-joy feminists who don't get the point of rape jokes, right?

Here's a powerful account from one Sports Illustrated reporter who gets it.

On Pseudonyms

A couple of days ago, Andrea Mrozek, the faux feministe, mused on why pro-choice bloggers and commenters do not use their real names. She thought it might have to do with employment. You know, because Canada is such right-wing nut-job country, pro-choice people would be shunned. Or something. (Delusional much, Andrea?)

SUZY's 24-hour Fetus Fest took a more confrontational position.

The social consensus on legal abortion is so strong,that they have to hide behind a pseudonym to say what they say. #irony

I also think they're anonymous so they can spew any kind of libel they want about pro-lifers without fearing any legal consequences.

In other words, they're cowards. They don't have the guts to stand by their words.

http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2012/07/prolifeprowoman-asks-why-are-so-many.html

I commented at both blogs, citing small concerns about rape threats, stalking, murder, arson, and terrorism fetus fetishists are so quick to resort to.

Read the comments. I won't recount them here. It's the usual BS.

One thing amused me. Mrozek responded to my taunt about not having to worry what an employer thinks when one is paid by them to blog.

Her reply.

Andrea Mrozekon 13 Jul 2012 at 9:10 am
Oh, and please let the record stand. I don’t get paid to blog. When I started ProWomanProLife of my own free will, instigation, idea, I specifically told my employer that it would be independent of work, and they didn’t want to be affiliated with it, either. This was important to me, because I did not want to need to confirm, ever, anything, with a higher up.

From her bio:

Andrea currently works at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada as Manager of Research and Communications.

What is that, you ask?

It's a creature of Focus on the Family Canada, 'a Canadian affiliate of the American evangelical Christian organization Focus on the Family'.

The organization has funded efforts in the courts and in its media broadcasts to help "preserve traditional values and the institution of the family." It has focused its efforts on the following areas: same-sex marriage (and homosexuality in general), abortion, pornography, premarital sex and child discipline. Focus on the Family supports the continued legality of spanking as a form of discipline for children.

Focus on the Family Canada has also established the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada/Institut du Mariage et de la Famille Canada (IMFC). The IMFC is located in Ottawa, Ontario, near Parliament Hill, where the staff conduct and compile social policy research from Canada and around the world. The IMFC’s mission is "to positively influence public opinion and promote public policy that values human life, the pre-eminence of marriage and the institution of the family." Its involvement in social issues is not limited to activism, as it has intervened in court cases such as one case in 1999 where it supported denying same-sex couples the right to apply for alimony from one another. The organization had intervenor status in the precedent setting case of Canadian Foundation for Children, Youth and the Law v. Canada (Attorney General), in which the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the legality of child spanking in Canada.

So, while there may not be a box labelled 'anti-choice blogging hours' on her pay stub, it's pretty clear her blog fits rather con-veeeeniently into her employer's mission.

And I do mean mission.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Wouldn't be a hoot if Mrozek were, let's say, *dissembling* in her day job and is actually, secretly pro-choice? Maybe I am Andrea Mrozek. Maybe deBeauxOs is Andrea Mrozek. Maybe ALL Canadian pseudonymous pro-choice bloggers are Andrea Mrozek!


UPPITITY DATE: JJ has some thoughts on the subject.

BAD Journalism Makes Science BAD

Babs Kay has her pearls in a death grip again. And gives us a dandy example of how journalists *cough* either deliberately or simply stupidly misread reports resulting in biased, agenda-driven (BAD) science info.

First she provides a link to a recent study that finds increased risks of psychiatric problems for children born prematurely, or pre-term birth (PTB).

Then, gripping those pearls, she goes on to SHRIEEEK that abortion is a MASSIVE risk factor for PTB and rattles off a scary bunch of numbers from a study 'proving' it.

Interestingly, she does not provide a link to that study.

But commenter KentsKorrections does provide a link then proceeds to take Babsy out behind the woodshed in two comments.

He -- rather patiently I thought -- points out the fatal flaw in the MASSIVE numbers she cites.

BTW Odds ratios are NOT a measure of risk but of effect size (sorry for Wiki but it was easier to find a simple explanation for the issue).

"Odds ratios have often been confused with relative risk in medical literature. For non-statisticians, the odds ratio is a difficult concept to comprehend, and it gives a more impressive figure for the effect.[13] However, most authors consider that the relative risk is readily understood.[14] In one study, members of a national disease foundation were actually 3.5 times more likely than nonmembers to have heard of a common treatment for that disease - but the odds ratio was 24 and the paper stated that members were ‘more than 20-fold more likely to have heard of’ the treatment.[15] A study of papers published in two journals reported that 26% of the articles that used an odds ratio interpreted it as a risk ratio.[16]

This may reflect the simple process of uncomprehending authors choosing the most impressive-looking and publishable figure.[14] But its use may in some cases be deliberately deceptive.[17] It has been suggested that the odds ratio should only be presented as a measure of effect size when the risk ratio can not be estimated directly.[18]"

I am 100% behind providing as much information as we can to patients no matter what the procedure as everyone should be made aware of the risks. However it should be CLINICALLY RELEVANT. This is why we have doctors and not journalists deciding what information is relevant to disclose.

Good to see more volunteers stepping up in the BAD Science Watch.

UPDATE: Another snarky and informative comment from the appropriately named smarterthanyou.

You would think a crack journalist like Kay might take the time to look at a real consent form for abortion before she writes about the subject.  These consent forms are often much more comprehensive than your typical hospital consent form for any other procedure, and give women way more information than they typically get if continuing a pregnancy. (Nobody ever told me that peeing and pooping could be problematic and post-natal psychosis could be in my future. But I digress.)  

Why does she not name the studies she claims definitively prove her claims?  Consent forms typically state that which is proven and accepted in the medical community as fact. Consent forms may even stretch a bit and mention possible risks when the jury is still out. But in service to the truth and accuracy is helping their patients assess risk, they don't jump on every bad science claim that comes along, unlike the brilliant Postmedia writers such as Kay, Jonathan Kay, Fr. de Souza, Margaret Sommerville, Naomi LaKritz and Susan Martinuk.These anti-choice writers love to exploit every possible claim that abortion will cause every bad thing that ever happens to you after without question. They never saw an anti-abortion study they didn't like. They never question why these claims are not supported by any major medical organization like the SOGC, CMA, Canadian Cancer Society, or Health Canada. Anti-abortion studies have become an industry. Any academic who starts spitting them out can get instant play from the likes of the above mention writers, who are eager to jump on any bad news about abortion that supports their belief that all women should be forced to continue all pregnancies all the time, because they think so.

ALSO: KentsKorrections says both at NP and here in comments that he (she?) tried to post an argument-destroying link that wasn't allowed.

On the *healthy* priapism of privileged androcentrism

Erotizing and fetishizing the dehumanization of women is a necessary instrument required by any form of social conditioning that reinforces a man's *right* to an erection - and his *right* to breed.

Mark Steyn proclaimed here that gendered sexual terrorism was the exclusive domain of one belief system; Robin Morgan proposed in "The Demon Lover" that all three Abrahamic religious traditions are responsible for promoting such ideals.

There is this, my emphasis.

During a brief telephone call Wednesday at the detachment, Brown declined to comment about the pictures and the "Kilted Knight" persona featured in them.

He acknowledged being aware of the material.

"I am familiar with an internal investigation that was conducted," Brown said tersely. "It concluded in March or April and it was decided it was a non-issue - There was no victim."

Lawyer Jason Gratl was astounded by the images and said Brown's even peripheral involvement in the missing women investigation was troubling.

Gratl, who represented Down-town Eastside community groups at the public inquiry into the Pickton police investigation, wondered why Commissioner Wally Oppal wasn't informed when he was conducting hearings at the very moment the RCMP learned of the material.

"This pictorial enactment of a kidnapping and torture by an RCMP investigator crystallizes the ethical nexus between the detachment and the farm," Gratl said.

Victim: A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.

Then there's the "innocent" victim, a distinction which implies a person had no control, influence or role with regard to the event that caused them harm or injury.

I loathe how the use of the term victim has been co-opted by the aggressors, the predators and the bullies.

BlobBloggingWingnut recently wrote a more bizarre than usual post that was consistent with HER religious zealot approach to blaming and shaming victims. SHE declared "You had it coming!" is an appropriate response to any circumstance where the victim might have somehow contributed to the negative outcome.

"They had it coming!" is the implicit subtext to the expensive theatrical production recently staged by the BC government - The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry - which was directed by its lead performer Wally Oppal.

There was little, if any evidence allowed to counter the dominant view that the women who were savagely murdered by Willy Pickton, and by other alleged participants involved with the activities at the pig farm, "had it coming".

Requests to secure all relevant information were stonewalled, again and again.

A. Cameron Ward, the lawyer who valiantly tried to advocate for the Missing Women's families, blogged here about his ongoing efforts to monitor the proceedings, and to intervene effectively.

As I stated in the comment thread after this post, it seems to me much of the bloviating about Cpl Brown's gawd-given right to damn well get an erection in whatever way he wants, circumvents questions relevant to his professional deportment.

Nobody has said Brown would actually mutilate and murder a woman in the name of his liberté d'érection, but that possibility evidently stimulates his libido. As it would for many men who avidly devour p0rn0graphy that features the continued debasement of women and the depiction of violence exerted against their humanity, in every conceivable way.

Bad Science Watch

While we here at DJ! are not scientists, we try to track down and expose BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science, especially in the area of reproductive rights.

Today, great news! Real scientists are organizing to promote good science at a time when science, rationality, and evidence-based policy making are pretty much at war with the ignoramuses running this country.

Meet Bad Science Watch. Here's their press release:

Toronto, ON – Monday, July 9th, 2012 – Bad Science Watch, a new Canadian science advocacy group, has issued a challenge to the Canadian government: stick to the science in the development and implementation of important policy decisions. This group will work diligently to ensure Canadians are protected from exploitation by unscrupulous organizations peddling useless and potentially harmful products and services.

Bad Science Watch strives to serve as a key Canadian lobbying organisation, dedicated to challenging lax consumer protection measures and fighting for the rights of Canadians to accurate information when making decisions which affect their health, prosperity and well-being.

“The Canadian public has been poorly-served by a government which displays little respect for objectivity and science”, said Bad Science Watch Executive Director, Jamie Williams. “Consequently, weak consumer protection regulations allow the sale of products and services that don’t work, and Canadians are exploited by the unscrupulous or misinformed.”

Bad Science Watch will announce details of its first projects in the coming weeks. Among them: targeting bogus food-intolerance testing in Canadian drugstores, and an intensive investigation into the state of the Canadian anti-WiFi lobby.

“Bad Science Watch will fill a unique role as the only national organization in Canada with a focus on strengthening consumer protection against bad science,” explained Chair of the Board of Directors, Michael Kruse. “With a strong commitment to the most professional and transparent non-profit practices, our experienced Board of Directors, Steering Committee, and Executive are striving to create the most effective and consistently successful force countering bad science in Canada.”

Canadians interested in volunteering and donating to Bad Science Watch can find more information at www.badsciencewatch.ca.

If Woodworth's Wank, aka M312, passes, we'll need all the voices of sanity and reason we can round up.


h/t

It's an insult to pigs to call cops by their name.

News that Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jim Brown (aka the “Kilted Knight”) posted graphic photos of himself holding a knife to a woman’s throat on a website devoted to sadomachism has prompted significant public concern. Although this appears to be just another black eye for the nation’s police force, there is potentially a much bigger issue here.

Cpl. Jim Brown isn’t just a police officer who is a sexual deviant on his own time and who likes to connect with other like-minded individuals to share their twisted experiences. He is the RCMP member who produced informant Ross Caldwell in mid-July, 1999, almost three years before the RCMP accidentally discovered evidence that Robert Willy Pickton had been disposing of women’s bodies on the Port Coquitlam property he shared with his brother David. Caldwell was an acquaintance of the Picktons who reported that Willy Pickton had been seen skinning a woman in the barn, that he kept handcuffs under his bed and that he owned night-vision equipment, a semi-automatic rifle and wigs that he wore when he went trolling downtown.

From here.

Xtra and Dan Savage have weighed in on Twitter, claiming that CBC news coverage about RCMP Cpl. Brown is an invasion of his privacy and that his personal sexual preferences should not be a public concern.

Given his close connection to the Pickton investigation - and that someone in the fairly tightly-knit and protective BDSM community found his photo re-enactment of actual crime scenes where women were tortured, murdered, dismembered and fed to pigs, disturbing - Brown's professional deportment should be scrutinized.

During the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, a number of police officers who worked on the investigation that eventually led to the trial of Willy Pickton were exempted from examination.

Willy Pickton didn’t kill up to 49 women by himself, not according to the jury who convicted him of six counts of second degree murder. The women whose remains were found at the pig farm were likely the victims of a group of sexual sadists and torturers, who likely included convicted murderer Willy Pickton himself.

How did Cpl. Jim Brown meet informant Ross Caldwell? Was Cpl. Jim Brown one of the sexual sadists frequenting Piggy’s Palace? Why didn’t the RCMP act on the important information he brought forward? Were the RCMP monitoring the gang activities, including the Angels’ visits to Piggy’s Palace? Why did the RCMP seemingly ignore a ten year string of serial murders? Did they have bigger fish to fry? How many murderers remain at large?

All of these questions should have been answered by the just-concluded Missing Women Commission of Inquiry. We tried our best to pry the lid off and get the evidence out, but our attempts to have Cpl. Brown, Ross Caldwell, Bev Hyacinthe and David Pickton testify (among others) were rejected, as were our attempts to get access to the records of the Organized Crime Agency of BC that would reveal the nature and extent of police surveillance and gang infiltration activities involving Piggy’s Palace.

The Missing Women Commission of Inquiry is patently incomplete. Now it has been revealed that the Coquitlam RCMP had a sexual sadist in their ranks who was sufficiently connected to the Picktons to produce a key informant, someone who tipped the police what Willy Pickton was up to three years before he was arrested. The Commission hearings must be re-opened. If it does not re-open the hearings, it will be perpetuating a police cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Canada’s worst serial killing case.

Instead, the Commission targeted a number of minor players, including this police clerk. It was a travesty of justice miscarried in order to protect Pickton's buddies-in-crime.

The RCMP has become emblematic of the worst examples of male sexual entitlement and privilege.

Added: Rabble has a long screed regarding Brown: "Private fantasy, Public Reality". It's not that great. The author is clearly not familiar with the premise of 'safe, sane and consensual' activities that informs ethical practitioners of BDSM. As well, she misrepresents Terri-Jean Bedford who is a professional dominatrix - not someone who currently experiences abuse, exception made for the violence of a "justice" system that criminalizes sex trade workers to "protect" them.

Competent research, precise knowledge of legal questions, including the criticism directed at the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry and a better understanding of boundary issues would have been highly helpful to Meghan Murphy and it would have made her rant referral-worthy.

Is the CPC a criminal organization?

According to this recent Supreme Court of Canada decision which defines a "criminal organization", Harper's CONservative party is that, in its repeated and sytematic and widespread disregard for Elections Canada laws and regulations.

The Criminal Code defines “criminal organization” as any group of three or more people “however organized” whose main purpose or activity is the commission of serious crimes.

The definition excludes a group that just gets together to commit a single office.

Fish wrote that courts should take a flexible approach in defining what constitutes a criminal organization.

“Care must be taken, however, not to transform the shared attributes of one type of criminal organization into a ‘checklist’ that needs to be satisfied in every case.”

Not every gang has to be as structured as the Mafia or the Hell’s Angels.

“Courts must not limit the scope of the provision to the stereotypical model of organized crime — that is, to the highly sophisticated, hierarchical and monopolistic model,” he wrote.

But there should be some structure and some longevity.

“Some criminal entities that do not fit the conventional paradigm of organized crime may nonetheless, on account of their cohesiveness and endurance, posed the type of heightened threat contemplated by the legislative scheme.”

How CONtemptuous! How CONvenient!

Source of illustration: Montreal Simon's blog.

Open Letter to Pro- and Anti-M312 MPs

I've been having stupid conversations on Twitter about Woodworth's Wank, aka Motion 312.

I've been asking for days now 'which expert witnesses would pro M312 people like MPs to hear from?'

No takers, unsurprisingly.

Just now in a spat about 'bias' in science and 'irrelevant scientific facts', I asked who then would decide which facts were relevant. MPs?

Like Maurice Vellacott?

Got this answer.

@fernhilldammit @jjhippie @libertylover555The special committee that would be formed under #m312, who would hear all Cdns. #prolife

— Promac (@DVCMAC) July 6, 2012

I'm trying to correct the dunderhead about 'all Canadians' not being qualified experts in the 'modern' science Woodwank is supposedly trying to bring to bear.

We know how successful that will be. . .

And now we come to the Open Letters part.

Dear MPs who would like to debate when women's rights become abrogated for those of the fetus:

Do some homework over the summer. Come prepared with names of experts you would like to hear from.

Such lists wouldn't be binding of course, just examples.

We at DJ! will help. Do NOT choose experts from these BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science outfits or your whole 'this has NOTHING to do with abortion' meme will be revealed for the BS it is.

You're welcome.


Dear MPs who see this ploy as a total waste of time intended solely to reopen the settled matter of abortion:

Please acquaint yourselves with the above practitioners of BAD Science to better howl down the fetus fetishists.

You're welcome too.

Anti-choice LGBT: Who Knew?

On Twitter, Kady O'Malley wondered about Julian Fantino and some bother he might have once been in over abortion. I googled and came up with his Campaign Life profile.

CLC rating: Evaluation pending
Rating Comments: Fantino did not answer CLC's questionnaire despite several requests. It is also notabe [sic] that as police commissioner he gleefully marched in the homosexual Pride parade.

To which Kady replied:

True, but there is a pro-gay pro-life contingent.

When I expressed scepticism, she said:

I can think of a few who I know personally, and I always assumed they weren't the only ones in the entire world.

Then she supplied this link to the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL). (PLAGAL sounds like an ointment for an uncomfortable ailment.)

Click on that link and tell me any fabulous gay or lesbian had aught to do with the site design.

While the site is not only butt-ugly, it seems somewhat out of date. The group hasn't put out a newsletter since 2009, for example.

Its about page claims to have membership of 800 individuals and cites some activities.

We have sponsored forums on abortion and breast cancer — anticipating more general public recognition of the highly probable link — and preventing HIV infection in the children of HIV+ mothers. We have participated in the annual January 22nd March for Life since 1991, local Pride events in DC, Philadelphia, and Boston, the 1993 March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, and a number of demonstrations and counterdemonstrations. We have surprised, confounded, confronted, and enraged both pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

I bet. I wonder how welcome they are among the fetus fetishists.

Its blog is more up to date.

And it has a page at ProLifeBook. With 9 likes!

It would be fun to see a Venn diagram of fetus fetishists and gays and lesbians. (Hint to graphics whizzes.)

Do we have anti-choice LGBT organizations in Canada? Inquiring minds. . .


Image source.