BIG BLUE WAVE

If I can't trust you with a child, how can I trust you with a choice to kill it?

2012-02-08T23:11:00.001-05:00

The feminist slogan goes: if you don't trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?

Of course, nobody ever bothers to ask: if I can't trust you with a child, how can I trust you with a choice?

If I can't trust you NOT to kill (or abuse) a child, then I can't trust you with a choice.
I saw this in light of an article I read about Sherri Shepherd, a host on The View who admitted to having many abortions. Quote:

“We stop at the picket signs and we don’t help you past that!” an emotional Shepherd said.. “I’m speaking as a girl who had a lot of abortions and I swear to God, if they had shown me a picture of the fetus… I would have put my child in a lot of situations that wouldn’t have been good because I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with having a child.”

So what exactly would have happened if she had received the information about what the fetus looks like, and effectively, what the fetus is?

Facts would have changed her decision. Imagine that.

But don't give them the facts, their minds are already made up!

That seems to the be feminist angle on this.

If she was so messed up that she would have put her child in bad situations, was she really competent to make a decision to kill her own unborn child?

If you're not adult enough to take care of a kid properly, are you really an adult?

Nobody seems to ever ask that question.

And it never occurs to the woman that maybe if she had given birth, she could have offered the child up for adoption.

Alas, no. That would have been too emotionally wrenching. Easier just to kill the child.

VIDEO: Stuff Catholic Girls Say

2012-02-08T01:02:00.001-05:00

I didn't have time to blog today (er now yesterday). This perked me up!

H/T: XT3.com

Kudos to Stephen Woodworth

2012-02-06T15:24:00.001-05:00

This is exactly what we need to push the debate further!

And I love this headline from the Toronto Star:

Tory MP wants human rights for unborn children

Harper has promised to rally the votes to defeat initiatives designed to repeal abortion rights.

Pro-lifers, if your MP does not carry the ball on this initiative, even if he says he is pro-life DO NOT VOTE FOR HIM.

If you vote for a Conservative at this stage of the game, fearing the Liberals and the NDP will do worse, the Conservatives WILL ALWAYS treat you like they have you in your back pocket.

We have got to stop selling ourselves cheap for fear that worse will happen. Good things will only start to happen once we threaten not to vote for Tories. And if it means the Conservatives losing their majority in the next election, well too damned bad.

Dutch celebrate a decade of euthanasia with a film festival

2012-02-06T12:34:00.000-05:00

Only pro-deathers could think of such a thing. I love this quip at the end of the article:

Oddly enough, the program does not include one of the first and most famous euthanasia films, the tear-jerker Ich Klage An – perhaps because it was made by Nazis during World War II to promote voluntary euthanasia as a cover-up for the involuntary sort.

But there is no relationship what-so-ever between legalizing voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia. No siree.

Is this for real? Scan your fetus with your smartphone

2012-02-05T20:29:00.002-05:00

I happened upon this Youtube with an accompanying article.

Source: fynsstiftidende.dk

If you are pregnant and have a smartphone, you can now scan your fetus. The technique is free and developed by Fyens Stiftstidende

The 32-year-old IT expert Camilla Jensen from Odense was three months pregnant when she got a brilliant idea.

- My girlfriend had just got a smart phone and downloaded the app, where you can scan barcodes and view information about the item. He was like a little child who had a new toy, and so I said to him: If it's so good to scan, you can not also just scan me, says Camilla Jensen.

- At first we laughed at it, but then I remembered that the mobile emits a magnetic field. Completely similar to the one you use in an MRI scanner at the hospital. What if you combined it with the barcode scanner continues Camilla Jensen.

After a few hours to program the two functions together, the IT expert, ready to test it on himself.

- My boyfriend turned on the scanner and gently stroked the phone over my stomach. Suddenly there was a razor-sharp image of the fetus, and by moving the phone around a bit, we could distinguish details.

It was there I found out that I was expecting a little boy. It was just so amazing that I started to cry. Both to see my baby and to have saved 3000 kroner for a scan, says Camilla Jensen.

When she returned from maternity to his work at Digital Media, she told her boss about the invention.

- He was a little skeptical, but then I hand scanned his stomach with an iPhone and found that he had removed the appendix. So he was convinced, clay Camilla Jensen.

What will the baby be called?

A program for a smart phone called an app, and then scan provides the first glimpse of the child, gave the name itself: FirstApp.

Scanning the image may course uploaded instantly to Facebook, just like phone gps feature allows you to go to Google Maps and see where the scan is performed.

FirstApp installs itself on your iPhone or Android phone and can be downloaded from Fyens.dk absolutely free.

I googled it but the material is all in Danish.

It sounds like it could be true, but I couldn't find any sources that confirmed it for me.

If this is true, this could potentially revolutionize pregnancy counseling. Pro-lifers can show women in crisis pregnancies what their fetus looks like without an ultrasound.

UPDATE at 12:39 pm on February 6th.

A pro-life Tweep of mine gives this opinion:

My engineer husband says it's malarky - mri's have huge magnets smartphones can't match.

Ad from Orlando Abortion Clinic Website

2012-02-05T13:27:00.001-05:00

Maybe it's because I'm from Canada, but I found this ad on an Orlando abortion clinic website to be ridiculous:

A three minute pain-free abortion, and you can drive yourself home.

Plus a free pap smear!

Is that a way to perform and market abortion?

At the Morgentaler clinic, the staff will turn you away if you are driven and don't have your driver with you.

Even if your sedation wears off in thirty minutes, is it such a good idea to be alone during your abortion? What if you hemorrhage?

And here's another salient point about Morgentaler's clinic:

Electronic devices i.e. computers, PDA’s, cell phones, mp3 or audio players, etc. These devices will not be allowed into the clinic for your privacy and safety.

But this Orlando clinic is offering free wi-fi. Hm.....

I can just imagine one patient photographing another with her laptop while she's not looking and posting it on her facebook. Weirder things have happened.

Lawyers ask to inspect specimens of fetus

2012-02-03T14:50:00.001-05:00

As a Canadian, what do I find intriguing about this investigation?

They named the fetus: Male Fetus Brewer. (As opposed to "Baby Brewer").

You don't name bodily appendages.

And no one would have thought to do that in Canada, no matter how late the fetus.

"Fertility has become a significant industry in Hyderabad"

2012-02-03T12:54:00.000-05:00

Congratulations, Feminists!

Women now have the CHOICE of treating themselves as incubators and make money at it, too!

Reproductive Choice=Women's Liberation.

Remember thirty years ago feminists were all against prostitution.

Now they advocate for sex workers.

Watch them start an Incubator's Union. You can see it coming from a mile away.

Ontario deficit here to stay ’til 2022, new report says

2012-02-02T10:55:00.002-05:00

Don't blame me, I didn't vote for The Taxman.

Poor-choicers are their own worst enemies

2012-02-02T01:12:00.000-05:00

When abortioneers started blogging about their experiences, I knew it would be a goldmine.

George Orwell said it best: there are some ideas so stupid, only liberals could believe them. And they provide tons of proof.

Take this blogpost from The Abortion Gang. Steph is unhappy at how poor-choicers stigmatize abortion themselves.

Now, how could that possibly happen?

Well, for instance, by making late-term abortions sound bad!

Making later abortions sound like gruesome tragedies stigmatizes the women who need them and the clinicians who perform them.

I mean, late-term abortions are not gruesome or anything. And they're not tragedies. They're something to celebrate!

It sounds like this blogger just doesn't like abortioneers coming out with the truth about abortion.

I understand why we emphasize that the majority of abortions are first trimester abortions from a PR standpoint–most people are grossed out by the idea of later abortions, I get it. And the reality is that most abortions happen in the first trimester. But does emphasizing this over and over do anything besides stigmatize later abortions?

Yeah because abortion doesn't stigmatize itself!

We do our movement, and the women we serve, a disservice when we say that an early abortion is ideal and a later abortion is tragic or bad.

Oh PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start saying that late-term abortions are not tragic. That would be the gift that keeps on giving. Stab a baby in the head and suck its brains out? Why that's not tragic or bad at all. What are you so freaked out about? (Yes, I know PBA is banned in the States, but the feminists are all for it, theoretically)

In doing so, we lose the nuance of why women have abortions, of their personal stories, and instead focus on what makes us comfortable or uncomfortable. It’s not about us. It’s about the women who have abortions.

Yeah, and shift attention away from what abortions actually are. You know, because those details don't like, actually matter. Fetuses are not that important, and all that.

(The lack of self-awareness is hilarious).

There were some gems in the comments as well.

Consciously or unconsciously feeding the ‘abortion is icky’ meme does great disservice to reproductive rights. (...) Changing the ‘abortion is icky’ meme will take some doing, and that effort will probably require the production of movies and TV shows where a sympathetic character has an abortion and is fine with it and life goes on. That doesn’t sound very dramatic, but if the writer was very talented they could make it work.

Again, shift the focus away from what abortion does. What, abortion is icky? Are you crazy?

Look, logically speaking, to stop make abortion seem icky, you'd have to get millions of women to look at aborted fetal parts and say "Nah, that's not icky. That's just fine."

Only feminists think that that could happen.

They are so blind to human nature and the way people really react that they think that abortion could ever stop being icky.

Another commenter writes:

We spend a lot of time minimizing how often abortion happens, how much money is spent on abortion at places like Planned Parenthood, and trying to shift the discussion. Once it’s pointed out it’s hard to miss. After hearing Merle Hoffman speak to this a few weeks ago it struck me how much is put on minimizing and hiding it, and just how much the stigma has remained. I think this is the case with many other areas well though. Contraception and menstruation seem to be taboo to talk about to loudly. They’re topics for quiet discussion with certain friends.

Yeah, what could possibly be icky about blood oozing onto your maxi pad and stinking up your crotch?

Feminists genuinely think that we can ever convince the world to not be grossed out by one's bodily fluids. They really think that.

Steph, this is so right on. How many times have I heard myself say “abortion can be really hard for some women” without also saying “and really wonderful and easy for others” (even though my own was wonderful and easy!)?

Yes, please eliminate the meme that because abortion is a hard decision, it's therefore morally valid. That would do the pro-life cause a great service.

Ugliest.Church.Ever

2012-02-01T19:53:00.000-05:00

At Bad Vestments.

But abortionists don't kill babies....

2012-02-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

John told me that about 100-150 abortions occur at this clinic each week. My gag reflex set in while he was telling me about how busy “Late Term Wednesdays” could be. On Wednesdays, women carrying a child as late as 28 weeks come for an abortion. The doctor induces their labor via drugs and then has them trot around like “cattle” in the back of the parking lot together to help start the process of labor. Each woman then stands over a glass bowl and births the infant into the bowl of water and the doctor then takes care of killing the infant at that point.

What? Nothing to be outraged about. It's just a parasite that she doesn't want anymore. If she doesn't want to be pregnant and carry this fetus, that's her choice.

And oh yeah. Morgentaler thinks it's a baby at 24 weeks.

ATTENTION OTTAWA AREA RESIDENTS: Please help CFRA!

2012-02-01T18:45:00.000-05:00

From CFRA:

Bell Media is filing an official request with the CRTC to permit us to continue serving our listeners all day and all night long. We are seeking permission to stop the nightly decrease in power and coverage area, because we think our listeners deserve the choice to hear us any time they want.

...

If you live in the outskirts of Ottawa or in the Ottawa Valley and have poor CFRA reception at night -- or no reception at all -- you can help make a big difference!

Fill out the form below to the CRTC. The formal parts of the letter are already written for you. You need to add your name, address, phone number, and we hope you'll add a brief paragraph explaining why you'd like to hear CFRA 24 hours a day.

Please pass this on to other people who may be interested in helping.

Contraceptives will always be mostly a woman's burden

2012-02-01T09:41:00.001-05:00

Male contraception has been in the news lately. Researchers are working on using ultrasound to eliminate male fertility.

I tell you what I see.

I see lots of men (well, boys really) lying to their partners saying that they are using ultrasound when they're not. Just to get sex.

I see women getting pregnant because the effects of ultrasound wear off.

I see a trend of women suing their male partners for lying about contraceptive use. It might even be considered a form of sexual assault.

But Suzanne, women have been lying about contraception for decades. Men don't sue them.

Men don't get pregnant. And that's the bottom line. Men do not have the same vested interest in preventing pregnancy that women do. That's why men are way more promiscuous than women. And that's why women are looked down for promiscuity. Men? Not so much. Women need contraception for promiscuity's sake. Men push their partners to have an abortion.

You can't change nature. Even trans people need people who are biologically of the opposite sex to have kids.

Lesbian actress claims her orientation is a choice

2012-01-31T23:53:00.000-05:00

Homophobe!

Here's the truth: feelings can change.

And you can often choose your feelings.

And you can choose the way you react towards your feelings.

Why "positive" abortion stories don't work as well as negative ones

2012-01-31T23:13:00.000-05:00

Feminists think that telling abortion stories will help de-stigmatize abortion.

They believe that if enough women come out of the closet and announce they have had an abortion, it will influence people not to judge abortion and the women who've had them. After all, you wouldn't judge your mother, your sister, or your neighbour would you?

It hasn't worked in several decades, and it will not work.

However I-regret-my-abortion stories work extremely well. It has mainstreamed the belief that abortion causes psychological harm and hurts women.

Why is that?

First off, when a woman announces that she has had an abortion, she is announcing the she has killed her unborn child.

Feminists always seem to neglect that salient fact.

So any woman who announces that she has had an abortion in order to say what a good thing it is, is off to a bad start.

The second reason is that every abortion story is open to damaging criticism.

In the case of the Tweep featured on the Abortion Gang, she said that she was heavily into drugs and did not want to give birth to an unadoptable baby.

The obvious response is: why didn't you just kick the drugs, go into rehab and give birth to the baby? If abortion made you decide to kick the drugs, then pregnancy should have done the same thing.

You could go on ad infinitum:

If you were too poor to have a baby, why were you sleeping around?

If your boyfriend didn't want to support you, why didn't you just give the baby up for adoption?

What? You had an abortion because you don't like kids? How selfish. You could have given up that baby for adoption.

If you're too young to be a mother, you're too young to have sex.

In order for feminists to de-stigmatize abortion, they have to convince people that no killing is involved.

But of course there's killing. That much is evident.

That's why they can't de-stigmatize abortion. If abortion is the solution to a problem, the question becomes: why did you get yourself into that situation in the first place, or why didn't you choose another solution that didn't involve killing your unborn child.

Feminists don't think that way though. They operate in a type of Orwellian mental paradigm in which they either do not admit abortion kills a human being, or they treat it like it doesn't matter, and they expect others to think the same way.

The problem with promoters of abortion is that every negative abortion story detracts from what they're trying to do.

Whereas positive abortion stories do not detract from the negative story.

When you are trying to say that something is good, every fault blemishes it. The more blemishes there are, the more people do not trust the narrative that it's good for you.

Whereas with negative stories, it only takes a dissatisfied minority to cast serious aspersions. So for instance, if only ten per cent of users of product X says it's a really sucky product, even if the other 90 per cent say it's fine, you're going to think twice about buying product X because it provokes such a bad backlash. Your sense of trust towards that product is diminished.

If abortion is supposed to be so good, and such a wonderful solution for women, then practically no one would state what an awful experience it is. They wouldn't attend Rachel Vineyard's retreats or similar events.

Now the women who talk about being negatively affected by abortion did things that were open to criticism. However, the difference is that these women are probably inclined to agree with their critics. So it's hard for someone to object you should have kept your legs closed, you should have put it up for adoption, you should have quit drugs, because the narratives tend to confirm that worldview.

So it makes their narratives somewhat irreproachable.

The only serious objection that I have seen some feminists lob at women who regret their abortions is that if they were really sincere in their regret, they would give up everything that they were able to do because of their abortion. So, for instance, if you earned a college degree due to having an abortion, you should renounce your college degree. This suggestion is meant to cast a suspicion of hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is one of the easiest accusations to make, because it's based on reading people's intentions and motives and no one can genuinely disprove hypocrisy. That's why it's such a self-serving accusation. You can make yourself believe one is not genuine even though they were. Or vice-versa.

While casting aspersions of hypocrisy on one woman might work, it's difficult to accuse dozens, hundreds, thousands or even millions of women of that same fault. It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination to think that ALL these women who admit to killing their unborn children are insincere.

It's also obviously politically motivated.

I don't expect feminists to understand this. I only write about the flaws in their strategy when I am certain they won't take my advice. They're so sure of themselves, they will continue to do so.

Komen stops grants to Planned Parenthood

2012-01-31T16:35:00.001-05:00

FoxNews:

The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, is halting its partnerships with Planned Parenthood affiliates — creating a bitter rift, linked to the abortion debate, between two iconic organizations that have assisted millions of women.

The change will mean a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.

Planned Parenthood says the move results from Komen bowing to pressure from anti-abortion activists. Komen says the key reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation in Congress — a probe launched by a conservative Republican who was urged to act by anti-abortion groups.

H/T: Jivin' J

Irish bishop faces 'hate speech' complaint for homily

2012-01-31T12:50:00.001-05:00

The funny part is the complaint by this atheist CONFIRMS what the bishop is saying.

Sometimes people's "prejudices" are true.

If you don't want people to be hostile to you, don't give them a reason to. And if you don't then suck it up.

Sharia Court in India Orders Expulsion of Christians

2012-01-31T12:00:00.000-05:00

This makes me wonder if it could ever happen in the West:

Apart from ordering the expulsion of the Christians, the court also directed the government of Jammu and Kashmir to take over the management of the Christian missionary schools besides monitoring their activities.

...

Church leaders, Christians groups and Kashmiri Christians all have expressed alarm over the sharia court pronouncement and the subsequent Christian bashing in the local media, despite the Kashmir Valley having fewer than 400 Christians among 4 million Muslims.

...

In the entire Kashmir Valley, there are only about half a dozen churches, half a dozen Christian schools and a couple of Christian hospitals.

...

In a white paper on the Kashmir situation, the Catholic Secular Forum pointed out that between 1989 and 1992, the majority of Hindus and Christians of Hindu origin in Kashmir had been “forced out of their homes by the Islamist terrorists. Men were murdered, women were raped, property was destroyed, and threats were issued.”

So there are a very small number of Christians in this region. Nevertheless, they have managed to build hospitals and schools.

And the Muslims want to take them over.

But hey, don't overreact! The Sharia Court isn't binding.

As if the Muslims who issued that decision think that.

Why should the state license drivers?

2012-01-30T23:46:00.000-05:00

Jeff Jacoby:

It's one thing to require would-be motorists to enroll in driver's-education classes and to be tested on their knowledge of safe driving practices and highway signs and signals. And of course anyone getting behind the wheel of a car should be liable for damage caused through negligence or irresponsibility. But to condition driving itself on governmental permission? To extort a chunk of money every few years to keep that permission current? By what right?

Paul Tuns writes:

This is a losing cause for libertarians and conservatives, but it says a lot about modern society that it isn't even worth engaging in a discussion with the general public about whether the state should be granting permission to people to drive cars.

I suspect that there isn't a great burning desire out there to change this.

But I think it would be useful to have this discussion in any case.

People with drivers' licenses driver recklessly in any case.

And there are plenty of people out there who continue to drive in spite of having lost their license.

Joyce Arthur doesn't understand rights and neither do most people

2012-01-30T22:18:00.000-05:00

Why do Joyce Arthur's seem plausible?

Because people think that rights are something the State accords to individuals.

That's not true.

When you are a human being, you have rights.

Full stop.

If there appears a conflict of rights between two individuals, then you deal with the conflict.

You do not deprive a whole class of people their rights because the consequences are undesirable.

She writes:

Giving rights to fetuses or banning abortion does nothing to “protect the unborn” or women. Every country in the world where abortion is illegal has a well-developed abortion underground, and abortion is generally more common in countries where it’s illegal than where it’s legal.

That begs the question: how well are these abortion laws enforced?

If abortion laws are a dead letter, then they're no basis of comparison, are they?

And we know that the data used to make such statistics are faulty. Faulty generalizations are made from small samples.

The truth is, we do not know the extent of abortion in countries where it is illegal. The pro-aborts have a vested interest in making it seem more prevalent and more acceptable than it really is. Just ask Bernard Nathanson, founder of NARAL, who invented statistics out of thin air to make his case when he was lobbying for legalized abortion.

To come back to Woodworth’s challenge about whether the fetus is human, he completely misses the point because he’s confusing the medical/biological aspects of “what is a human being” with the legal/social aspects of personhood.

So some human beings are not persons in her opinion. Where have we heard that before?

The biological status of the fetus is irrelevant since women need and have abortions anyway.

Only if you define "need" as "want".

However, given Woodworth’s fixation on the lack of legal rights for 9-month fetuses about to be born, it bears repeating that abortions after 20 weeks are rare in Canada and done only under exceptional circumstances, largely in cases of fetal abnormality where the fetus cannot survive after birth.

Rare in comparison to first trimester abortions.

They are not rare at all. There are hundreds of late-term abortions in Canada.

And there are dozens of late-term abortions done on Canadians in the States that are paid for by the Canadian taxpayer.

Women now have established constitutional rights in Canada under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to life, liberty, bodily security, conscience, and equality, all of which are directly implicated in women’s decisions around pregnancy.

Women also have responsibilities to other human beings. There is no such thing as a right without a responsibility. Respecting the life of one's unborn child is a reproductive responsibility.

. In contrast, fetuses do not have legal rights and cannot be given any, since two beings occupying the same body would result in a serious clash of rights.

A clash of rights does not extinguish rights. We have clashes of rights all the time. Do we deny whole classes of people rights just because theirs have to clash with those of another group?

Note how rights are defined by who has them. In reality, rights are defined by who bears them. Equal rights means that all rights are the same. All human beings have the right to life. All human beings have the right to free speech, to property, etc. There's no such thing as "women's rights" or "Black rights" etc. Rights don't have an identity.

There's a population explosion in Quebec!

2012-01-30T13:57:00.001-05:00

So the line goes.

You know it's bad when a birth rate of 1.6 is considered a population explosion.

Somebody get over there and explain the basics of demography.

Check out the birth rates in the various areas of Quebec.

Just imagine. There are large numbers of cities that don't even have a birth rate of ONE per 100.

But everything is just peachy, folks! Carry on!

1. Vaudreuil-Dorion 16,47
2. Saint-Lin, Laurentides 15,9
3. Candiac 15,36
4. Chambly 14,71
5. Mirabel 14,64
6. L’Assomption 14,42
7. Saint-Basile-le-Grand 14,13
8. Boisbriand 13,57
9. Mascouche 13,29
10. Terrebonne 13,06
11. Montréal 12,53
12. La Prairie 12,43
13. Deux-Montagnes 12,3
14. Lévis 12,02
15. Sept-Îles 11,76
16. Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu 11,72
17. Saint-Georges 11,64
18. Rouyn-Noranda 11,52
19. Sherbrooke 11,43
20. Belœil 11,39
21. Laval 11,16
22. Brossard 11,11
23. Mont-Saint-Hilaire 11,03
24. Varennes 10,94
25. Blainville 10,84
26. Granby 10,75
27. Longueuil 10,67
28. Sainte-Julie 10,66
29. Victoriaville 10,62
30. Val-d'Or 10,6
31. Drummondville 10,59
32. Québec 10,26
33. Saint-Eustache 10,26
34. Châteauguay 10,24
35. Saint-Hyacinthe 10,2
36. Côte-Saint-Luc 10,18
37. Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures 9,94
38. Saint-Constant 9,91
39. Joliette 9,9
40. Saint-Jérôme 9,81
41. Alma 9,67
42. Sainte-Catherine 9,67
43. Mont-Royal 9,64
44. Saguenay 9,61
45. Magog 9,59
46. Rivière-du-Loup 9,55
47. Salaberry-de-Valleyfield 9,48
48. Saint-Lazare 9,41
49. Trois-Rivières 9,33
50. Dollard-Des Ormeaux 9,3
51. Repentigny 9,28
52. Rimouski 9,19
53. Thetford Mines 8,68
54. Baie-Comeau 8,51
55. Sainte-Thérèse 8,48
56. L'Ancienne-Lorette 8,390
57. Saint-Lambert 8,07
58. Boucherville 8,06
59. Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville 7,89
60. Dorval 7,88
61. Shawinigan 7,83
62. Beaconsfield 7,6
63. Westmount 7,57
64. Pointe-Claire 7,1
65. Sorel-Tracy 6,65
66. Kirkland 6,2

Feminism at its core

2012-01-28T19:56:00.001-05:00

Pay attention, because this point is fundamental.

Oz Conservative on Feminism:

Feminism is liberalism applied to the lives of women. And the key principle of liberalism is autonomy - the aim of a self-determining, independent life.

Equality is a secondary principle. If you think that you, or the group you belong to, is disadvantaged in achieving an independent, autonomous life, then you will call for equality (or for an end to discrimination, or for social justice etc). In other words, when feminists demand equality what they are really asking for is a greater degree of autonomy/independence/self-determination, which they believe has been denied them by privileged men.

...

What really needs to happen is for that liberal first principle - that autonomy is always the highest, overriding good - to be challenged openly. That's what would open up moral and political debate in the West.

Feminists think that every woman's primary aim in life should be autonomy.

Here's the problem: who's autonomous, exactly? I'm a stay-at-home mom. Am I autonomous? I'm a Catholic. Am I autonomous? I am profoundly anti-feminist. Am I autonomous? And if I am autonomous, notwithstanding my position in life, then who isn't?

Updated Comments Policy

2012-01-27T23:53:00.001-05:00

Hello Dear Readers

I have just updated my comments policy. It's not anything radically new. It just tells new posters how I operate. The big change is that I will not edit comments that contain violations of the rules, but are otherwise acceptable.

It feels like our health ministry is run by the Keystone cops

2012-01-27T22:28:00.001-05:00

Deb Matthews backs down on reducing C-sections to save money

Backing off any plan to curb caesarean sections to save money, Health Minister Deb Matthews says new birthing centres outside hospitals may be a better way to accomplish the same goal.

...

Matthews hinted the government is open to funding birthing centres where women could have their babies through vaginal births assisted by midwives, dramatically cutting costs.

Why do women have c-sections?

Is is because women request them?

Not really, says one research group.

Women have c-sections because they either have a medical reason, or they have had a previous c-section, which is often an indication to have another one, because, as my OBGYN explained, there is a 50-50 chance of ending up in the operating room once again.

I suspect that OBGYN's like C-sections because they are relatively predictable. You don't always make it to your scheduled date, but you know how you will end up giving birth.

Now the suggestion is to encourage women to give birth in "birthing centres".

These birthing centres have to be built. That's going to cost money.

And the number of midwives has to be sufficient.

And are women willing to give birth in a birthing centre?

There's a reason birth has been medicalized. And it's not some big conspiracy on the part of men. Labour hurts. Complications can be life-threatening. You're safer in a hospital than a birthing centre.

If you want to save money, just de-list. Get insurance plans to cover it. Allow for more private health care. I would have loved to have had more options on how my c-section took place. If there had been a "deluxe" option in a private centre, with a guaranteed private room and immediate attention from nurses, and other perks, I definitely would have considered it.

However, it just seems like a cheap shot to suggest de-listing c-sections, but not abortions. Or sex change operations. Or a host of other elective operations. I think many people understand that choices have to be made, and something will have to be cut. It just seems that interventions dealing with the conditions that are the least life-threatening should be the ones that are on the chopping block. C-sections save lives. Abortions kill.