oh, Jesus!

As longtime and faithful (ahem) readers of DAMMIT JANET! know, I have a strange fascination with Mary, allegedly the mother of Jesus whilst still a Virgin. I've blogged The virgin, the angel and choice as well as The Incarnating Game in this regard.

My co-blogger has bestowed a most delightfully seasonal gift upon me: this.

The large poster outside St Matthew's in the City, a prominent Anglican church in Auckland, was designed by an advertising agency and depicts Mary in the style of a classical Renaissance painting.

A caption competition on the church's website has already drawn some questionable responses.

Suggestions include "Yay! I hope it's a girl," "Now, which way to the abortion clinic?" and "If I say I'm a virgin, mum and dad won't kill me."

A densely written comment that reads as though it was written by a kiwi John "Vatican Taliban & TubeSox Holocaust" Pacheco captures in a nutshell why fundamentalist right-wing religious zealots reject rationality and science.

UPDATE (fh): You knew this was going to happen. Nutbar attacks poster with scissors. Montreal Simon has the story.

Zygote Zealots in New Zealand.

New Zealand Women’s National Abortion Action Campaign researcher Alison McCulloch wants the abortion-criminalizing organization that is currently attempting to secure a court ruling to award full human rights to fertilized eggs to disclose who is funding its legal battle.

“It’s not just about abortion. It never is,” Ms. McCulloch said. “It’s about a minority morals agenda that opposes sex education, contraception, civil unions and gay marriage. Embryos have human rights, gays and women don’t.”

Meanwhile, the Abortion Law Reform Association is lobbying members of its Parliament to publicly support the Abortion Supervisory Committee.

"The Crown lawyers defending the ASC, and in turn the reproductive rights of New Zealand women, need to be given the full backing of legislators in the face of a
case that is aimed at ending access to safe abortions," Alranz president Margaret Sparrow says in a statement.

In New Zealand, most abortions are allowed by physicians on mental health ground. Women and their health care practitioners are bound by laws regulating the termination of pregnancy. Dr Sparrow suggests New Zealand could do what the Australian state of Victoria did - decriminalize abortion. However, until that happens, legislators should defend the status quo.

Social deprivation, not genetics, accounts for children's deaths.

An international, groundbreaking new study led by Dr Janet Smylie of the Centre for Research on Inner City Health based at the Keenan Research Centre, St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto has released its findings. The infant mortality rate for native babies in Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand is higher, as much as four times that of non-native newborns. It also identified spikes in occurences of SIDs, injury, suicide and accidental death among aboriginal kids in all four countries.

"Every infant who dies … I believe is a tragedy we should follow up on," Smylie said. She also spoke of stereotypical and at times racist treatment received by native people.

"I saw a lot of challenges when I was delivering babies here in Ottawa. Young aboriginal moms who had perfectly good networks of family support — sometimes they were being referred to have the social worker see them even though their family was strong. I remember [another] … patient who had called into the hospital in a little bit of a panic. She had some anxiety and a strong accent. The triage nurse called me and said: 'There's something wrong with your patient. I think she's retarded.'"

"Those are stories that are just a little too frequent."

The organizations and researchers who instigated, implemented, charted and compiled the results of the study hope that the information produced by this report will become the basis for stronger policies and programs to improve children's health in the aboriginal and indigenous communities.