We Will Win

May 30 and 31 are important dates for progressives in Canada and the US.

We remember two heroes: Dr George Tiller, who was vilified, persecuted, and assassinated, and Dr Henry Morgentaler, who had his share of troubles, but who was celebrated and died in his home at the age of 90.

By the way, abortion services have have returned to the very same building Dr Tiller had to turn into a fortress.

We lose some battles, but the war will be won by the sane, compassionate people.

On Those Who Missed Getting the Memo on Abortion Being Settled - Maybe*

I'm sticking this here because the comment box on the post before said, oh nooo, you're not running on in *this* spot.

The desired, concrete outcome of "This Is Eviltm" 'debate' on willful biological intervention in human pregnancy aka abortion, (and this is my cynical observation) is for one In-group to be privileged over others. 'Debate' is what happens when unilateral Commands aren't possible. Misinforming 'Debate' still allows stoking the sexual and Out-group fears in authoritarian followers (google: Bob Altemeyer Authoritarians) and bolsters a power base that too often unquestioningly supports against the defined Enemy Other.

Human zygote abortion as the topic for inciting Fear is incidental to authoritarian stoking. It's simply an emotional appeal that has the highest profile at this moment in time for this society. Miscegenation, LGBT, minorities based on sex, colour, creed, poverty aid, have been, can and are all slotted into the same framing.

Over and over such Tribal Fear topics are a test of control of society by the powerful using the powerless as political voodoo dolls. How many pins can you stick in a subject before someone that affects your pocketbook starts feeling pain? Everyone in recorded history *knows* this, which is why, slowly, over the eons, societal agreements, aka Laws of the Land have been developed to offset ,or at least momentarily balk, the human desire to scapegoat the ‘uncivilized’ Other out-group.

Human abortion as a hot button for Othering still works because there is empowering benefit to the groups doing the Othering. In Canada at the moment, such groups have lost State empowerment to exploit abortion Fear, but they're still monetarily benefiting as ‘private’ organizations and obviously hoping to re-up the political benefit because of the free media influence piped in from fellow travellers in the U.S. (and I wouldn’t doubt substantial monies piped in from the US efforts. The usual American suspects are quite openly exporting anti-abortion influence to other countries – which makes me laugh when Harper waves his hands hepwesswy about how he can’t do nothin’ but birthin’ them babies.)

"Respecting" aka uncritically coddling, historically privileged religious In-Group *feelings* (and honestly, I don’t give a crap about so-called ‘secular’ arguments against abortion when they’re the same atrociously awful arguments with the rosary filed off plus religious people helping to found the ‘athiest’ groups) is being asked to enable them to maintain their societal image privilege without cost or scrutiny. Handy for them. Not so handy for anyone challenging them.

Of *course* religious leaders don’t want to give up social status of pseudo-legislators and have to come down and live in parity with the rest of Canada’s civilians, who they helpfully label as murdering savages at every turn.

But let’s presume for a moment that we all go ’’’oh golly gosh, these religious folks with their feelings and faux-facts, their divinely revealed morality is superior and we now ban abortion after 20 weeks’’’. Is that going to satisfy them? History and present examples say FUCK NO. A complete ban on abortion? FUCK NO. Because this isn’t about abortion. Complete ban on medical contraceptives? FUCK NO. Because this isn’t about contraceptionwhichreallyisabortionreally. Enforced investigation into miscarriages? FUCK NO. Because this isn’t about induced miscarriages. Pregnant humans imprisoned to force pregnancy to term? FUCK NO because, really, it's about NO FUCK (until we, your moral overlords tell you it's ok...sorta...if you don't enjoy it too much...and we can punish you for it at whim...but don't look behind the curtain).

'Debating' abortion as Badddd, has so far been about control over human beings by an In-group, exploiting the primal biology of our species to set up Group-Betrayal Guilt. Whatever accessions given unaccountable In-Groups, recorded history sez the leaders thereof will *always* demand MORE. It doesn’t matter how irrational and inconsistent the demands are because that's not a bug, it's a feature. The more irrational the demand, the better, because acceding to such signifies the level of control achieved over large groups. Once fearful followers surrender the standard of evidenced truth, they are more and more unquestioningly vulnerable to obeying any demand made by an authority. And if the leaders grant *some* of the fearful followers *some* authority over what are now the even less empowered, obedience becomes invested with privilege and divides what opposition might arise.

“Pro-aborts” are not standing against just the invasion of uterus owners’ autonomy. They are standing against irrational demands upon a population, fought on a specific battleground of under-empowered women’s bodies. Gender-identified women, especially Not-White women (and for disempowered Bingo, those who are also disabled *and* sexually queer ) are factually and universally the least empowered and least prioritized members of human societies. Their bodies, their legal enfranchisement, are historically the testing ground for ‘stealth’ *and ‘dirty bomb’ social control.

If anyone wanting to ‘debate’ the human species' biological event called abortion has motives that, once stripped of hand wringing and pseudo-lie-nce, don’t rapidly curve around to authoritarian strangers' objectification and control of women’s bodies and their collateral existence to benefit a privileged, unaccountable few, that would be a new one on me.

/*edited for not noticing my edit to the title didn't take first time

What would be the point of an abortion debate?

About that debate that nobody wants and yet seems to be raging all the fucking time nonetheless...

I will have more to say about this (biiiig surprise, regular DJ! readers are thinking), but for now (I'm really busy) I just want to put a couple of points out there.

Here's a question no one seems to be asking: What would be the purpose of an abortion debate?

Rabid political partisans are obviously betting that it can score them some votes or at least some points.

Rabid anti-choicers want to roll history backwards and if not recriminalize abortion altogether (which even they admit is not on), then create some kinda law -- any kinda law -- on it.

The sneakier of those two groups take another tack. They want to debate the funding of abortion. This gang has an ally in Prime Minister ShitHead who said yesterday that abortion funding can't be part of the Maternal Health Initiative because it's extremely divisive. (Bulletin, Mr Harper: So is vaccination.)

Media outfits want an abortion debate because it's sure-fire click-bait -- have a look at any story about it and check the comment count. Some pundits want to sell books or freelance pieces. A few boyos want to exercise their middle-school debating skills and they'll do it purely for fun.

I call this aim the #AbortionDebateClub -- debating the fundamental human right to autonomy for FUN and PROFIT!!!!

Am I missing anything? Political points, legislation, funding, FUN. What other end could an abortion debate serve?

Here's my question for now. If legislation is the purpose, under what aegis?

Criminal Code of Canada? All recent Conservative private member's bills have been framed as amendments to the Criminal Code. Effectively this means criminalizing some types of abortion (medical bad, surgical OK?), some aspects of abortion (early OK, late [howlate?] bad?), some reasons (sex-selection VERY BAD) for abortion.

We need only look southward to see where partial criminalization leads. Once there is a law, people will inevitably try to screw around with it. The more forthright of the fetus fetishists admit that they will not stop until abortion is so ringed around with restrictions and regulations and paperwork that it becomes practically unobtainable.

How about the Constitution then? Section 2 of the Charter could have a few words added, no biggie.

2. Everyone (including the zygotal, embryonic, and fetal) has the following fundamental freedoms:

Easy peasy, yes?

Or maybe the Canada Health Act? Again, we could insert a couple of words.

An Act relating to cash contributions by Canada and relating to criteria and conditions in respect of insured health services and extended health care services, except abortion

My serious question again: What is the desired concrete outcome of an abortion debate?

Because if we can't agree on a purpose for a debate, it does seem to me to be simply "extremely divisive."

And totally pointless in a country where a lawless abortion regime has worked very well for more than a quarter of a century.


ADDED: Joyce Arthur offers a distinction between "backwards" and "forwards" abortion debates. What we should be talking about she says is access, funding for women in developing countries, and international advocacy for our successful #LawlessAbortion regime.

Fuck the Debate: Part Eleventy-One

Fetus fetishists wonder why we won't debate them.

Here's example number umpty-trillion.

Sun News tries a moronic gotcha on Justin Trudeau. Publishes story with this headline: "Justin Trudeau Would Not Stop Sex-Selective Abortion."

The anti-choice stenographers pick it up. Here's LifeShite with the headline: "Justin Trudeau: sex-selective abortion a 'right'; Liberals won't consider ban."

SUZY ALL CAPS does her obeisance under "Justin Trudeau Supports Sex-Selection Being Legal." (Plain text url for the usual reason: http://www.bigbluewave.ca/2014/05/video-justin-trudeau-supports-sex.html)

And the Focus on the Family gals at ProWomanProLies: "When gendercide become [sic] a Charter Right in Canada."

Here's the question (full transcript at the Sun link):

MARISSA SEMKIW: A woman comes to you. She says she's pregnant with a girl and she wants to terminate the life of the child because it's a girl. What would you say to her?

We all know that Justin Trudeau is not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Someone with a bit more on the ball might have replied: "Hello? I am the leader of a political party, not a counsellor or an advice columnist. What the hell kind of BS question is that?"

He didn't. He waffled around, finally -- after persistent badgering -- settling on: “I will leave discussions like that between a woman and the health professionals that she encounters.”

This is just like the idiotic harassment pro-choice demonstrators endured at the hands of another SunLife light-weight, who asked if rape should be legalized to "make it safe".

I ask the well-meaning pundits who think pro-choice advocates should welcome the "renewed debate": what do you suggest we do when we run into such intellectual dishonesty and duplicity?

Seriously: What the fuck should we do?

Abortion: Not a Moral Issue

The 2013 Pew Center's Global Morality survey is out.

The Pew Research Center’s 2013 Global Attitudes survey asked 40,117 respondents in 40 countries what they thought about eight topics often discussed as moral issues: extramarital affairs, gambling, homosexuality, abortion, premarital sex, alcohol consumption, divorce, and the use of contraceptives. For each issue, respondents were asked whether this is morally acceptable, morally unacceptable, or not a moral issue.

The Star has a piece on the survey, hitting the highlights of most and least tolerant countries of the various practices.

But the real story is in the third category -- "not a moral issue."

Have a look at the results for abortion.

Canadians rate abortion as unacceptable at 26%, acceptable at 29%, and not a moral issue at 37%.

For comparison, those numbers for the US are 49%, 13%, and 23%.

And for France: 14%, 38%, and 47%.

Canada is second only to France in the world in considering abortion not a moral issue, edging out Jordan at 36% and Australia at 32%. (We're doing all right in the morally acceptable category too, but still far behind Czech Republic [49%], Japan [44%], Germany [43%], and France [38%].)

Pro-choicers in Canada obviously still have work to do, but this survey gives good grounds for optimism.

Canadians are comfortable with our lawless abortion regime -- a solid majority of us (66%) think abortion is acceptable or not an issue.

The inescapable takeaway: Canada is a pro-choice country.

And not likely to change despite fetus fetishists' SHRIEEEKING.

Getting Physical in New Brunswick

In New Brunswick, it is certainly Game On.

A new organization, Reproductive Justice New Brunswick, has organized a Twitter campaign for this week. It targets specific anti-choice legislators each day.

Please support this uprising using hashtags #NBProchoice and #ProchoixNB.

A bit of a snag. Like antediluvian governments elsewhere, New Brunswick refuses to acknowledge electronic communication as real. Convenient, eh?

Somebody has come up with a work-around. Send your emails here for printing and mailing.

As the tagline states: Let's get physical. And force New Brunswick into the 21st century.

Timmy TeaBagger's Woman Problem Continued

Oh, dear. Like the USian ReThuglicans, the Ontario Progressive *cough* Conservative Party seems to have an ongoing woman problem.

Newsflash to Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak: a job-cutting plan shouldn't bank on women leaving the workforce after they have a baby.

But that seems to be what PC MPP Lisa MacLeod said over the weekend when she appeared on Sun TV to defend her party's campaign pledge to cut 100,000 public sector employees if the Ontario PCs form government.

MacLeod emphasized how "a lot" would be through attrition -- "whether there's maternity leaves or retirement."

Bloggers got on it: BigCityLib and Youth and Work.

After someone tweeted a link to the latter blogpost, MacLeod said:

Nope. That's a lie. Didn't say that. "@PatriciaKarpiuk: .@MacLeodLisa, a PC MPP, wants to fire young mothers.

— Lisa MacLeod (@MacLeodLisa) May 20, 2014

Watch for yourself:



Certainly sounds to me like she has a basic misunderstanding of how both attrition and maternity leave work. Which is kinda amusing considering Ms MacLeod held the position of Critic for Children and Youth Services from October 2006 to January 2008.

But she does have a history of misunderstanding how to count job losses and their effects.

Nepean-Carleton Conservative Lisa MacLeod attacked Ontario’s Liberal government Friday for policies she said have cost Ottawa 3,684 jobs since 2006.

But she dodged questions at a “media availability session” about cuts to the public service by the federal Conservative government that have eliminated more than four times as many jobs in the National Capital Region since 2012.

Given the Ontario Conservatives' track record on women's issues, doncha think voters deserve a clarification on whether indeed young mothers face HudAxe's axe?

March4Lies Part 2: Faith and truthy-ness

So, this happened on Thursday May 8.

There was a lame attempt by antiChoice Faith Goldy, a StunTV performance-artist-wannabe-Ann-Coulter, to bully members of the Radical Handmaids as well as other proChoice counter-protesters into saying something, anything while the camera was recording that could be edited and spun into a sensationalistic GOTCHA! - à la Ezra Levant school of faux-journalism.

What is it with StunTV media circus performers and their penchant for fake or trumped up news? Their broadcasts are never-ending infomercials, infotainment or simply outrageously skanky and amateurish filler engineered by Levant and his entourage.

Fortunately the media-savvy Julie Lalonde was one of the protesters approached by Goldy.

A pro-life rally in Ottawa Thursday that drew thousands of people to Parliament Hill got wall-to-wall coverage from Sun News Network, but some of the pro-choice activists who staged a counter-demonstration say the conservative news channel’s Faith Goldy crossed the line with her aggressive questioning.

Ottawa-based social justice activist Julie Lalonde said Goldy and a cameraman approached her and other pro-choice demonstrators and began peppering them with questions without introducing themselves or asking what brought them to the annual March for Life event.

“They were super fast, rapid-fire questions and the very first one was something about whether I supported abortion after 32 weeks. No ‘Why are you here today? What’s your group about?’” she wrote in an email to Canada.com. (Full disclosure: Lalonde has previously contributed to our site.)

“She filmed me extensively, even when I asked her to back away and leave us alone. She actually did a close up on me when I told her to leave us alone and said, ‘Or else? If I don’t walk away, what are you going to do?’

“She was clearly trolling and trying to provoke us to build some outrageous footage.”

From here.

She called out the unscrupulous tactic and followed up on Twitter and sent a media advisory to actual professional journalists and legitimate news gathering organizations.

And thus, just like the two FEMEN protesters, Goldy and her agit-prop shenanigans became the subject of other news media coverage of the March4Lies.

Fitting, is it not?

"New" New Democrats: Ambition over Principles

You gotta wonder: WTF is up with the NDP?

There's this recent genius move from Niki Ashton, a motion for the House to "formally affirm" a woman's right to choose abortion.

Unlike the Woodworth gambit — which was ultimately defeated despite garnering the support of just over half the government caucus, including a half-dozen senior cabinet ministers — Ashton's motion could easily be interpreted as a criticism of current government policy, which would make even the most stridently pro-choice Conservative MP pause before giving a thumbs-up.

Such an outcome would almost certainly provide a major boost to the morale of the anti-abortion movement, which, despite taking centre stage briefly during the Woodworth and Warawa debates, has had little to no success in forcing the issue back onto the floor of the House of Commons.

That flagging political relevancy was apparent during last week's March for Life. According to police estimates, the annual Hill rally attracted just over 8,000 activists in 2014, which would put it at as little as half the RCMP estimate for the previous year, when Warawa's gender selection motion was still in play. Even the 23,000 claimed by march organizers was lower than their 2013 estimate of 25,000.

After formally affirming for years that abortion is a settled matter not open for debate, the NDP decides to take a swipe at the Liberals, kinda overlooking what ammo such a move serves up to fetus fetishists.

Well, we shouldn't be surprised. This isn't the first time the NDP has seen an opportunity to poke the Liberals by turning women's rights into a political football.

A couple of days later, the NDP brain-trust got a grip and decided to nix opening the abortion debate in favour of whinging about CBC funding cuts.

OK, then.

But here's Chantal Hébert's take (bold mine).

On the heels of Trudeau’s announcement that future Liberal candidates will have to toe the party’s pro-choice line on abortion, the NDP is seizing the House with a motion to force MPs to pronounce on abortion rights.

Since Trudeau is actually shoring up the pro-choice line in Parliament and not threatening to drive a tank through it, the only rationale for the NDP move is to sow embarrassment and division in the Liberal caucus.

A handful of its existing members are anything but pro-choice.

Not since Gilles Duceppe ended up having to take yes for an answer to his challenge to the House of Commons to recognize Quebec as a nation has an opposition party come up with as bad of a good idea.

The NDP has argued for years that the debate over abortion rights was closed, maintaining with admirable consistency that Parliament should not interfere in the reproductive choices of Canadian women.

On that basis, the party has mercilessly attacked the prime minister for not preventing his backbenchers from putting forward motions dealing directly or indirectly with abortion.

Its critics have repeatedly accused Stephen Harper of having the hidden agenda to restrict the reproductive choice of women.

But it is hard to square the notion that Conservative MPs should not be allowed to put their long-held convictions on abortion to the test in the House while New Democrats would be free to do so to score points on the issue.

The fate of the NDP motion — the text of which includes language pertaining to the government’s existing policy on maternal health in developing countries that could make it hard for pro-choice government MPs to support — is uncertain.

The vote might yet deliver anti-abortion advocates a rare victory on Harper’s watch in the House of Commons.

But whatever the result, it speaks volume about the current mindset of the NDP.

Dealing first with substance, the party’s eagerness to score easy points in an empty goal stands in sharp contrast with its gingerly-approach to more current social policy debates such as the one involving assisted suicide and euthanasia.

And here's her conclusion.

At this juncture, all is apparently fair in the NDP/Liberal war — including turning the issue of women’s reproductive choices into ammunition in the House of Commons.

This might be as good a time as any to remind both parties — but in particular the NDP — that if supremacy in the Caviar Left strongholds of downtown Toronto won elections, Harper would not be prime minister.

And here's where I bitch again about the fucking uselessness of the Fucking Useless Opposition®. They're arguing over the keys to Stornaway while the country goes up in flames.

Sowing embarrassment, scoring points, potting empty-netters. This is NOT why I -- and, I submit, millions of others -- voted NDP.

We voted for your principles, NOT your ambition.

And for this former NDP-voter, both federally and provincially, the party's rank and rancid ambition now outweighs any sentimental attachment I might have to principled social-justice warriors (ahem) like Dan Heap.

I'm done with the NDP.

Hey, Boko Haram Is Just Acting on "Conscience Issues" Too

Justin Trudeau's decree that all future (not, note, sitting shoo-in MPs) Liberal candidates must be prochoice has twisted up some Conservative knickers.

Specifically over the matter of sacrosanct "conscience issues."

Here's the At Issue Panel. The abortion discussion starts around the 7:30 mark. Coyne does his thing. Then Chantal rips him a new one, starting around 8:40. Coyne is left blubbering "but not all anti-choicers" bububububub. Mansbridge does his patented mincy mouth. Watch.



Coyne followed this up in the National Post, as did Jen Gerson and today the august NatPo editorial board weighed in. Apart from fetus fetishists, the National Post and these two of its columnists seem to be the only entities in Canada who want to reopen the abortion debate.

Most Canadians are bored to tears by it, but others are mortally offended by the notion that women's rights are mere "conscience issues" for a bunch of boyos to recreate their middle-school debating club over.

This tweet sums it up brilliantly.

Why is your religious belief sacred and inviolable, whereas my bodily autonomy is up for debate all the time? http://t.co/Y1WlFGqtEa — Lauren DH (@roseneath_rd) May 10, 2014

I await the defenders of "conscience issues" and religious beliefs backing of Boko Haram's kidnapping of 300 Nigerian girls. After all, they're just acting out of sincere religious beliefs, right?


UPDATE: Andrew Coyne who thinks its edgy or something to follow me just offered a correction on Twitter. The editorial board of the Toronto Star also takes issue with Trudeau, but does not advocate for the reopening of the abortion debate.

March4Lies Part 1: Tits 'n Tots

As fern hill reported, this year's March For Lies had a theme: RU4LIFE.

When I arrived on Parliament Hill, where antiChoice and proChoice converge momentarily before we separate into our camps - their parade, our protest - a young woman was urging the crowd to call a number on their cell phones to enter a contest. Technology assists fundraising!

I missed the ruckus that occurred when two Femen interrupted the usual blathering by priests at the microphone.  QMI photographer Tony Caldwell took a series of photos, here's the gallery.  In this one, appalled antiChoice parents cover their children's eyes because NEKKID BREASTS!  Never mind there's a truck driving around town plastered with 3 x 10 metre photos of medical detritus claimed to be the results of abortion.

So I found my proChoice posse and down Elgin Street we went, to a location between the provincial court house and the ugliest human rights monument in the world.

The Radical Handmaids contingent arrived shortly thereafter and our group positioned itself to meet the onslaught of Marching Catholic Schoolchildren. (photo from @ArielTroster)

Thousands of adolescents are bussed in from Catholic schools in Ontario and Quebec, though not as many as claimed every year by the March4Lies organizers.  They make up roughly 90% of the parade. The rest are, in descending numbers: Knights of Columbus bedecked in cloaks and plumes, priests, elderly people, couples with their progeny.  Total? About 500 of them.



And the signs they carry! Next year I will bring a proper camera to document every stoopid, illogical and ignorant utterance that is displayed on those signs.

This year's winner was a reversible sign.  One side said: "I regret my abortion"; the other read: "I regret lost fatherhood".  The irony that most of these folks marching were the product of PREGNANCIES that their mothers and fathers regretted (shotgun weddings!) and punished them for (child abuse!) - was clearly not within the realm of their comprehension.

The newest member of the Radical Handmaids is a wanted and cherished child:

Part 2 will cover the tactics of one StunTV performance-artist-wannabe-Ann-Coulter as she ambushed some of the prochoice women in our group.

2014 March for Lies: Anti-Choice Inflation

Yesterday, I suggested that the fetus fetishists have set their sights lower (targetting a particular method of abortion rather than the whole caboodle) for the annual March of the Feti because they know they are losing.

Let's have a look at attendance numbers for the past few years. This is a dodgy business, as anybody can and does claim any old number they pull out of their asses. And it's even dodgier dealing with the lying liars of the forced pregnancy industry who practice an art I call "anti-choice inflation," in which every year has to outdo the year before.

Going back to 2011, organizers claimed 15,000 attendees. Our pal Buckets (where the heck is Buckets anyway?) used some mathy-sciencey stuff to come up with 8,000. A very respectable number, everyone agrees.

In 2012, organizers counted 19,500 (note anti-choice inflation), while the RCMP put the number at 10,000.

Last year was notable for a wider than usual range. Organizers weaselled with "up to 25,000," RCMP said 12,000, and in a cruel knock to the nads from an erstwhile ally, QMI Agency via Sun News sniffed and cited 5,000.

This year, RCMP estimated the crowd at between 6,000 and 8,000. CBC Radio pegged it at 6,000. (I was scuppered in trying to do any guesstimation myself. The bloody Hill Cam seemed to be stuck on March 22.)

On Twitter, seasoned observers tossed figures around, but all agreed that the gang was diminished.

@josh_wingrove Anyway, even just using my eyeballs, it was clearly noticeably smaller. @pdmcleod @cmaconthehill

— kady o'malley (@kady) May 8, 2014

Lifeshite, citing whathisname who personally clicks his clicker for each body he sees, claimed 23,000.

Note the small climb-down from the "up to 25,000" of the year before.

What I find interesting: not only is the crowd shrinking year by year, but anti-choice inflation remains relentless. From fantasy numbers that doubled supposedly neutral observations back in 2011, they are now claiming a total that is nearly FOUR times what people's eyeballs tell them.

@josh_wingrove Yes, which is really not a good strategy, because... reality. @pdmcleod @cmaconthehill

— kady o'malley (@kady) May 8, 2014

Not only do bunfest promoters go with the bigger and bigger meme, they always trumpet The Youth.

Well, that's not difficult when one of your main supporters, the Vatican Taliban and its Ontario-taxpayer funded schools, can load bunches of kids onto busses for a day-trip to the capital.

It has long been rumoured that tax-payers are actually covering bussing costs. There was one report last year that $3,000 of our bucks were spent on the holy hootenanny, and this year Canada.com went after the goods.

Thousands of people gathered on Parliament Hill, Thursday, for the annual March For Life anti-abortion rally, many of them Catholic high school students whose transportation costs were covered by publicly-funded school boards.

Canada.com contacted all 29 English Catholic school boards in Ontario to ask whether students were attending and who was footing the bill. In at least three cases, school boards fully or partly funded the cost of buses transporting students to the rally. In other cases, students attended the rally with funding coming from either fundraising or local religious organizations.

You gotta wonder how the numbers could be contracting when Da Bosses can literally command the presence of a wodge of young bodies.

We look forward to next year with even more diminished attendance and even more inflated claims.

Because. . . reality.

Why They March: Because We're Winning

Fetus fetishists are marching again today on Parliament Hill.

This year's theme is #RU4Life, a play on the abortion drug RU486's name, which is now up for approval by Health Canada.

I find this choice perplexing.

Last year's theme was gendercide. It was in the news at the time, largely thanks to Warawa's Wank, a private member's motion condemning gender-selective abortion (as if anything could be done about it). And the issue was garnering some media attention as many "conditional pro-choicers" needed to express their ambivalence -- "I'm pro-choice but. . . "

Warawa's motion blew up real good, providing the necessary victim-fuel for last year's efforts.

But why RU486 this year?

It is but one method of abortion and not well known. It is used very early -- up to 9 weeks' gestation only -- avoiding the fetishists' beloved gore of late abortion.

While the zygote zealots try to characterize it as particularly nasty, calling it "human pesticide", and dangerous, it is safe, effective, and has been widely used around the world for nearly 30 years.

Of course antis really really hate all medical abortion. It's quick and relatively cheap. Any physician can prescribe it, making it especially useful for rural and remote access.

But what they really hate is that it's private. Women don't need to run the gauntlet of clinic harassers to get and use it.

No invigorating slut-shaming opportunities for them.

Perhaps they expected RU486 to be in the news as gendercide was last year. Last fall there were reports that Health Canada was, then wasn't, then was too considering its approval. (Now we hear that there will be no decision until 2015.)

So a miscalculation on their part?

Even so, it's hardly the barn-burner that gendercide can be in a skilful spinmeister's hands.

This is what I think. Consciously or unconsciously, the fetus fetishists recognize that they've lost the war.

Canada is a staunchly pro-choice country with 90% of us supporting abortion in all or some cases.

There is no way that abortion will be recriminalized and they know it.

So they've fallen back on fighting rear-guard skirmishes like this one on RU486 -- "this far, no further."

As more and more Canadians support abortion rights and a new generation rises up to take on the battle for equal access, the choice of this year's theme is an outright admission of defeat.

We'll continue to oppose their every effort of course, but we may be closer to total victory than we realize.



Public Service Announcement Section
First, links to counter claims that RU486 is dangerous. Some fact sheets on its safety: here, here (pdf), and my favourite, pointing out that it's safer than Tylenol.

Here's Campaign Lie's fact sheet. Note that there are five sub-heads, one given over to its "macabre lineage" to Nazi Germany -- yep, they went there -- and that one is placed higher than safety concerns. That's how little they've got in the way of actual "facts."

I like this comparison on safety. In its first year of use, Viagra was linked to 522 deaths, while fetus fetishists themselves can link RU486 to 15 deaths over nearly 30 years of use. There are risks associated with anything of course, but it's telling, isn't it, that antis show such cavalier disregard for owners of wayward willies compared to their solicitous protection for owners of vagrant vaginas.

They're planning a Tweet-fest today using the hashtag #WhyWeMarch. I'm planning on doing a little geurrilla co-option with offerings like: "Because it's mandatory at my Catholic school" and "Because my Ontario tax-payer funded Catholic school pays for a day-trip to the Hill. Day off! Yay!"

I will also be reporting, as usual, on their inflated attendance claims.

So, whether you're going to the Hill, participating in a local event (there's a rally in PEI today), snarking from your keyboard, or just watching the fun, take heart.

The good gals and guys are winning.

deBeauxOs chirping in: I'm investigating if the obnoxious gotcha that the StunTV moppet tried to spring upon the Radical Handmaids at the March4Lies made it onto their network. Will blog that tomorrow.

Q: Why Is Gosnell in the News? A: Guilt

So many lies, where to begin?

We at DJ! predicted it the day after the story broke in January 2011. Kermit Gosnell would become the Fetus Fetishist Anti-Hero.

And the myth just keeps growing.

First, some facts. It is a gruesome story of greed, exploitation, desperation, poverty, drug abuse, gross regulatory incompetence, and not a little insanity.

You can read the grisly details at the Wiki link but here's the upshot.

In 2011, Gosnell, alongside various co-defendant employees, was charged with eight counts of murder resulting in part from gross medical malpractice in treatment of patients at his clinic, as well as 24 felony counts of illegal abortions beyond the 24 week limit, and charged with 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. The murder charges related to a patient who died while under his care and seven newborns said to have been killed after being born alive during attempted abortions. In May 2013, he was convicted on three of the murder charges, 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right of appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

That was last year and one would like to think that the state of Pennsylvania cleaned up its act so as to prevent any recurrence. Sadly but unsurprisingly no.

Will Pennsylvania learn anything from this experience? No, says Brenda Green. As I write, the state legislature has fast-tracked a bill that will ban any insurance plan that covers abortion from insurance exchanges set up under healthcare reform. That means more women forced to pay for abortion out of pocket—and more customers for unscrupulous providers. “That Gosnell was able to get away with his horrific practice does not prove new regulations are needed,” says Susan Schewel, executive director of the Women’s Medical Fund, which helps low-income women pay for their abortions. “It shows we need to enforce the laws we have.”

So why is the case in the news again?

Here's Ezra LeRant, claiming that Gosnell is the WORST EVER serial murderer (he's not and not by a very long chalk) that no one has ever heard of. And no one has heard of him because of media censorship! [Insert obligatory pearl-clutching Ezra-SHRIEK here.]

And here are two more Canadian bandwagon jumpers: ProWomanProLie and the frog on Brian Lilley's pad.

The occasion is that a couple of Irish "conservative" documentary-makers are trying to raise the dough for a made-for-TV movie about Gosnell. Note that these grifters' work includes attacking climate-change science and most recently the effects of fracking so an even-handed treatment of this subject seems unlikely.

After claiming censorship at KickStarter, they wound up at IndieGogo where they have raised $1.877 million with 8 days left on a $2.1 million goal.

And hey, now they have Sarah Palin on board too.

On Twitter there's a frantic effort among supporters to get to the goal before the deadline or all is lost. As far as I can tell, all these frantic supporters are fetus fetishists. (Check out #Gosnell and #GosnellMovie.)

I asked, because I'm truly curious, why do they think this movie needs to be made, what good would be served?

The answers aren't very clear. They continue to assert that there was a media black-out of the case. (This is a lie.) And that consequently "no one" knows about it.

At the Lilley link, there's a clip showing the filmmakers asking Any Old Assholes, or AOAs, (I have it on good authority that that is proper journalistic parlance) whether they can recognize a photo of Gosnell. Of course they can't, though one trooper ventures "Nelson Mandela?"

On Twitter one person said indignantly that a friend of his (?) had never heard of Gosnell until s/he told him/her. And now s/he is outraged. Why not send friend links to stories? I wondered. "Because print is dead," I was told. Um, OK.

They claim that there are hundreds, thousands, zillions of Gosnells out there and that pro-aborts are protecting them.

That would be another "no". Here is an account of responsible people, many of them abortion providers, trying to alert authorities to Gosnell's horror house. And here's an excerpt from a book detailing the National Association of Abortion Providers' dealings with Gosnell. (He wanted to join. They said: No Fucking Way.)

So what's the motivation here? Are they simply being revved by the likes of LifeShite and Big Nurse Stanek? Well, yes, of course.

Are these just RWNJ slacktivists thinking they're accomplishing something from their couches? No doubt.

But I think there's more to it. I think somewhere deep down there's a dim understanding that they themselves enabled Gosnell and by means of further idiotic regulations and laws, both onerous and picayune, are creating more of his kind.

They themselves are the authors of suffering, exploitation, and needless death.

It's simple guilt.