Birth Pangs

F*ck the Debate

fern hill — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:18:38 +0000

Out of all the brouhaha over the long-overdue recognition of Dr Henry Morgentaler’s service and commitment to the women of Canada, there has been much hand-wringing (not to say pearl-clutching) over the abortion so-called debate. Headlines shrieeeeking that the debate isn’t over, we need to reopen the debate, we’re afraid to have the debate, etfuckingcetera.

(Here is Andrew Coyne’s confused blethering, more than ably taken apart by Dr Dawg and here is a more recent, but drearily similar, call for debate.)

The main reason we don’t need a debate on this is that it concerns women’s rights and in a democratic society, human rights are not up for debate.

But this week we’ve been treated to another display of why we will not debate with the fetus fetishists on abortion rights.

Because they lie and cheat.

They gleefully freep polls as we reported here.

They are ‘economical’ with the truthiness when fundraising as we ~~crowed~~ reported here.

Then, when caught in said economy in truthiness, they sue the truth-tellers.

And this week’s ‘Massive Poll Scam’ is yet another example of blatant attempted deck-stacking.

JJ and her band of Intertoobz Irregulars sleuthed out the mysteries of a ‘massive’ poll undertaken by a company that even a professional in the same biz in the same province had never heard of. This poll purports to demonstrate that a majority of Canadians do not support the award to Dr Morgentaler. (We at Birth Pangs continue to maintain that if nothing else the poll proves that 90 per cent of Canadians don’t give a shit one way or the other.)

The usually dunderheaded MSM in Canada were not taken in. (You think the word ‘abortionist’ in the question may have been the tip-off that the poll was not conducted by objective truth-seekers?) Not one media outlet picked up on its massiveness.

So we won’t ‘debate’ with liars and cheaters. Not only is there no point, to engage them emboldens them.

Canadian fetus fetishists get revved by the successes of their Merkin counterparts. At every level, in every state, Merkin fetus fetishists are waging relentless war on women’s reproductive rights. There are literally thousands of fronts in this war: legislative and regulatory gambits to redefine pregnancy as beginning at conception (just like the Canadian private member’s bill C-537), mandatory waiting times, mandatory ultrasounds, parental consent rules, informed consent rules, fetal homicide laws (just like Ken Epp’s private member’s bill C-484).

Perhaps the most egregious and, to Canadian sensibilities, shocking campaign is the decades-long persecution — and no, that’s not hyperbole — of Kansas abortion provider Dr George Tiller.

As deBeauxOs writes here, Operation Rescue has posted online a list — complete with photos and snarky captions — of Dr Tiller’s staff. Including the cleaning lady.

So, while we can giggle at the antics of our fetus fetishists, THIS is where things are heading here too.

They lie. They cheat. They manipulate. They harass. They persecute.

They publish hit-lists.

To all the hand-wringers and pearl-clutchers, we at Birth Pangs say: FUCK THE DEBATE.

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What the F**** F* …

deBeauxOs — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 17:15:22 +0000

are the furious fundamentalists, fetus fetishists and/or far-right fanatics doing nowadays in the Excited States of America?

The latest tactic in Operation Rescue’s never-ending and ever-escalating campaign of legalistic and illegal harassment is to target individual people staffing Dr Tiller’s clinic for ~~violence~~ prayer by publishing their photos and personal information. From ChristianNewsWire:

Operation Rescue has released the most up-to-date list of abortion clinic workers employed by George R. Tiller at his late-term abortion mill, Women’s Health Care Services, in Wichita, Kansas. The list includes twenty-two people, including three out-of-state abortionists who travel to Kansas to do abortions, including late-term procedures that are illegal in their home states. “We are releasing this list of abortion workers in order to expose them to the community, and to elicit prayers for their repentance,” said Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger.

“As Christians, we are concerned about them as people, and understand that sometimes it takes ‘tough love’ to help someone see the destructive path they are taking, so that they can make the changes necessary to have a better life,” Sullenger said. “Most people who quit the abortion industry tell us that they are relieved to be out of that business, and say that leaving improved their lives.” …

Today’s abortion worker list is in the form of a photo gallery with captions telling the public a little about each worker.

It appears Operation Rescue is ~~expanding its murderous stranglehold~~ urging its followers to pray for the staff of Dr Tiller’s clinic. Birth Pangs has blogged about Dr Tiller here, here, here and here. Here’s one well-informed perspective on his medical practice.

Just in case you spent the last 15 years or so in a deep coma, let us refresh your memory about the possible consequences of being on Operation Rescue’s ~~Hit~~ List. In 1996, a website called the ‘Nuremberg Files’ was set up by anti-abortion activists. It displayed images of abortion providers, their names and addresses. It offered rewards of $500 for each doctor who was “persuaded” to stop performing abortions. Though ‘Nuremberg’ claimed that it did not advocate killing anyone, whenever someone on its list was murdered, a strike through their name appeared. In spite of its disclaimer,

the “wanted” program was pretty effective at dissuading abortion doctors. After his name appeared on a poster in 1993, Dr. David Gunn was shot and killed entering a Florida abortion clinic. Five months later and after his name appeared on a wanted poster, Dr. George Patterson was shot and killed. In 1994, after his name appeared on a poster, Dr. John Britton was killed by Paul Hill.

From here.

For decades, pro-choice activists in Canada have felt secure in feeling that we are not like the US, and could never be. Dr Morgentaler has faced legal prosecution and been physically threatened, but nothing quite as extreme as the persecution and danger Dr Tiller has experienced.

Unfortunately, the hijacking of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada by the Reform/Alliance Party has produced a political party that has been cultivated and fertilized by right-wing religious fundamentalist ideologues. And some of their tactics are leeching into our political culture. Operation Rescue is one tentacle of a large, evangelical supremacist movement in the US.

Consider Bills C-484 and C-537. They are Trojan Horses, with back ends that will disgorge the incrementalist manure that fetus fetishists need to start re-criminalizing abortion.

91% of Canadians support access to abortion, of which 49% support it unconditionally. Furthermore, 66% of Canadians approved the decision to award the Order of Canada to Dr Morgentaler.

It would seem that every time pro-choice activists and supporters excise one slimy religious fundamentalist tentacle, another one takes its place.

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Massive Poll: 90% Don’t Give a Shit

fern hill — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:06:33 +0000

Well, looky here:

Massive New Poll: 56% of Canadians Oppose Morgentaler Order of Canada

Poll called 157,115 Canadian households, yielding over 13,000 respondents

Commissioned by the fetus fetishists, the poll asked this question: ‘Do you believe abortionist Henry Morgentaler deserves the Order of Canada? Press 1 for Yes Press 2 for No’

That’s nice and neutral, innit?

It’s all nice and sciency, too.

This KLRVU poll was conducted by touchtone technology which polls households across Canada. Using this technology with the voice of a professional announcer all respondents heard the questions asked identically. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with 95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin of sampling error, in one direction or the other. There are other possible sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed, question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a likely participant). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result from these factors.

So, in other words, more than 90% of households either didn’t care one way or the other or were offended by the question. Or had some other reason for NOT PRESSING either either one or two.

Massive. Yeah, massively not interested.

UPPITY-DATE: Hop over to Unrepentant Old Hippie to follow JJ’s detective work on the polling company, which seems not to exist, not to have a phone number, or something.

MORE UPPITY-DATE: JJ is still on the case. And it’s getting even weirder.

LATER: And weirder.

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Catholics for Sense

fern hill — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:13:48 +0000

We at Birth Pangs don’t often have nice things to say about the Catlick Church. But here’s a group that has its collective head screwed on right.

Catholics for Choice is calling on Catholics to speak up on contraception.

It is a little-known fact that before Humanae Vitae was released the hand-picked Vatican Birth Control Commission voted overwhelmingly to recommend that the church rescind its ban on artificial contraception. However, the pope rejected that recommendation and today, the rupture that Humanae Vitae caused between the Vatican and lay Catholics remains.

Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, called on Catholics to contact their bishop and tell them that the ban must end. In their calls and e-mails, Catholics should press their bishops to contact the Vatican, explain the will of Catholics worldwide and call for an end to the ban on contraception. He said, “It is well known that Catholics, particularly those in the global north, have ignored this ban. It is time for them to speak out and say enough is enough. We need Catholics to pick up the telephone or send an e-mail to their local bishop saying that it is time to change church policy. Less-privileged people—who often only have access to health care through Catholic-run facilities or live in countries where the Catholic hierarchy has considerable influence over public policy—are dying as a result of the ban.”

The danger was significant when unintended pregnancy and maternal mortality were the predominant risks, but with the advent of HIV and AIDS, it is essential that individual Catholics speak out. Catholics for Choice will be campaigning around the anniversary and for the rest of the year.

“The hierarchy is now forced to defend a teaching that was judged indefensible 40 years ago and has only become more so with the arrival of new issues, such as preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS,” said O’Brien. “It’s downright irresponsible and dangerous, particularly because of HIV and AIDS, for the Catholic hierarchy to insist that Catholics and non-Catholics, who are also affected by the ban, must not use contraception.”

Excellent idea. Catholics in developed countries should speak up for people in less developed priest-ridden countries like The Philippines and Nicaragua. And for the putative more developed countries like Malta and Poland.

By the way, Canada has sensible Catholics too — Catholics for a Free Choice - Canada opposes the sneaky backdoor attempt at recriminalizing abortion, Ken Epp’s C-484, aka The Kicking Abortion’s Ass Bill.

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Lies, Damn Lies, and the Philippino Catlick Church

fern hill — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:15:06 +0000

There’s a hellluva fight going on in The Philippines.

There is proposed legislation intended to ~~drag the poor country out from under the misogynist heel of the Catlick Church~~ modernize its approach to family planning.

As April Reign reported a few days ago, in a place with virtually zero access to any kind of contraception but the Vatican Roulette, illegal and dangerous abortion abounds.

Not surprisingly, the birth rate in The Philippines is also very high, one result of which is that Philipinos constitute the largest modern diaspora, with 8 per cent of its population, or 11 million people, working in other countries.

Now, this new legislation does not decriminalize abortion.

But the Catlick Church is screeching that it does. Or will. Or something.

At least one lawmaker — they are called solons — is calling the Church out on its lies.

A pro-choice senior member of the House of Representatives on Saturday accused the Catholic church of deliberately spreading “falsehoods” about the government’s consolidated bills on reproductive health and family planning.

In a statement, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the author-proponent of reproductive heath bills, said he and his colleagues “do not intend to gatecrash” the July 25 prayer rally on the Filipino family, as they don’t want to be a party to “this vaudeville of misinformation.”

“It is, however, disheartening that those who claim to be purveyors of truth, are in fact peddling misinformation,” Lagman said referring to the “Manifesto of Filipino Families.”

According to Lagman, the manifesto contains a bunch of bald-faced whoppers:

Laws on reproductive health inevitably lead to ~~a Culture of Death~~ abortion.

If contraception is allowed, demographic winter is a certainty.

The side effects of contraception are life-threatening.

And our fave:

We should pay homage to OFWs for their dollar remittances as “a payoff of high fertility in the past.” This is a cockeyed view on fertility. Must we continue exporting our people as a “blessing” of a runaway population? High fertility has resulted to the absence of local employment to millions of Filipino workers who are forced to seek jobs abroad despite the hardships and loneliness of working in foreign shores, not to mention the social costs of migration, which tend to destroy the solidarity of the Filipino family.

Typical fetus fetishist ‘logic’. Somehow allowing modern family planning ‘dishonours’ millions of people forced to leave their families to work elsewhere.

Or is it about the dollar remittances?

Today, an editorial writer in The Manila Times puts it bluntly, calling the Church’s campaign ‘vicious, hateful, and deceitful’.

Well, that’s the Catlick Church for ya.

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The Haters’ Agenda, Part II

deBeauxOs — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:51:37 +0000

Last year, Birth Pangs drew up what we thought was an amusing little poke at right-wing religious fundamentalist fanatics, The Haters’ Agenda. As it turns out, our spoof gets closer to reality every day Bush continues to rule in the US.

At Bring It On, Daniel DiRito writes about the new Bush government’s initiative to impose religious fundamentalist ideology upon those organizations that are funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

As if it isn’t bad enough that we’ve had to endure nearly eight years of George W. Bush, he has chosen his final months to enact one of his most intrusive policy initiatives. It seems that the president has decided to redefine abortion to include contraception.

The plan would be enacted by the Department of Health and Human Services and cloaked as an attempt to prevent discrimination in government funded endeavors. The explanation being offered by the president’s operatives suggests that the goal is to insure that those individuals who have religious objections to abortion or the distribution of contraceptive products cannot be terminated from employment.

Nor can the organizations refuse to hire individuals because they hold those beliefs.

This is the same administration that has long argued that hate crimes legislation, intended to specifically deter violence against the LGBT community, is unnecessary. So when it comes to measures to bolster the safety of gays, existing laws are sufficient because they already provide penalties and punishment for these crimes. However, when a handful of Christians want to refuse to provide contraception to a rape victim, the Bush administration thinks special rules are warranted.

So, the Bush administration refuses to pass anti-hate laws to protect those who are the target of the haters, but … lookee here, a law to protect the haters’ rights to be fully employed in areas where they can do harm to those they hate.

The Haters’ Agenda: one more task, soon to be accomplished.

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Support from the post-dead

deBeauxOs — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:27:04 +0000

It all makes sense, in some religious fundamentalist universe where no-choicers can lay claim to represent the interests of the pre-born and the post-dead. First, some folks claimed to channel the will of deceased holders of the Order of Canada by returning the snowflake medal in their name.

Now, JJ at Unrepentant Old Hippie blogs about the petition that Lifeshite has set up to gather comments and signatures from the world at large. And just look at the famous supporter they have attracted:

“As the man who created Decree 770 in Romania, I would like to add my name to your wonderful petition. We can learn from my country’s history how beneficial it is to completely control women’s fertility and reproduction. I hope your country is preparing uterine forensic examiners for all miscarriages, as well as fertility police to force women to have a urinalysis each month to monitor for blessed pregnancy.” - Nicolae Ceaucescu

Now there’s the spirit!

Who knew that Hell facilitated and upheld all Internet traditions?

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
And a grand merci to the eagle-eyed Dr Prole.

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Moving the goal posts on contraception

deBeauxOs — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:04:19 +0000

Yet more evidence the US federal government policy is being shaped by officials sympathetic with religious fundamentalist beliefs, appointed by Republicans.

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign “written certifications” as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services. …

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

From the NYTimes.

Remember “The Pill Kills” campaign? It would seem that there are policy makers working within the US Department of Health and Human Services who support the unscientific basis of that premise and they are attempting to coerce physicians, hospital administrators and other health care professionals to enforce it.

Many US-based organizations have responded to the USDHHS proposal; Reproductive Health Reality Check, Planned Parenthood, and more from the Reuters Health and Science reporter. And of course Dr Prole in her rant ON mode regarding this news item, here.

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No-choice Vulture Culture: let women die or go to prison

deBeauxOs — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 18:10:48 +0000

The vituperative backlash of no-choicers, following the announcement that Dr Henry Morgentaler would be awarded the Order of Canada, was informative. Like maggots suddenly exposed to the light, the no-choicers scurried about, firing off letters to the editor, freeping online opinion polls, shoving the usual suspects - Margaret Somerville et al - into public view to spout the fetus fetishizing party line. CanWest obliged them, in great numbers.

It was thus no surprise that middle-of-the road Canadians, that ’silent majority’ that abortion criminalizers claim as supporters, recoiled from the hateful propaganda and deliberate lies and declared themselves to favour the decision to honour Morgentaler.

There is history behind all of this brouhaha, and a Montreal Gazette reporter writes about it:

When Sharon Hager finally got a abortion in 1964, she feared it would kill her. “It was hell, terrible. I thought I was going to die,” recalled Hager, then 20 and living in Vancouver.
“It was illegal to have an abortion and it almost impossible to find someone to do it. A man who called himself a doctor - and you didn’t know for sure he was - came to my home and on the kitchen table put gauze in my womb and broke my water. … That’s what it was like before Dr. Morgentaler,” said Hager, later a member of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. “People forget how terrible it was for women.”

Many of us remember. The Royal Victoria Hospital, mentioned in the Gazette article, is where my friend O trained.

There is also a compelling background to the booklet that was produced by a group of students at McGill University in the 1960’s. In her 2006 essay, Christabelle Sethna traces the evolution and the context of the Birth Control Handbook. This list (quoted in The Gazette article) from the 1971 BCH - as it was known - details the fatal dangers of illegal abortion techniques, self-induced or assisted.

… These methods involve extreme pain and can lead to permanent disability, infection or death:
Oral means: Nothing that is swallowed can cause abortion without also causing death or severe disability to the mother.
• Ergot compounds - overdose is poison.
• Quinine sulphate - can cause deformities in fetus or death to mother.

Solids inserted into uterus: Common danger of perforation of womb and bladder - death from infection or hemorrhage.
• Knitting needles
• Coat hangers
• Slippery Elm bark
• Ballpoint pen
• Pastes
• Catheters
• Gauze (packing)
• Curtain rods
• Telephone wire

Fluids inserted into the uterus: Severe burning of tissues, hemorrhage, shock and possible death.
• Soap suds
• Alcohol
• Potassium permanganate
• Lye
• Lysol
• Pine oil

Air pumped into uterus: gas emboli in the blood stream. Immediately fatal.

Injections into uterine wall: Overdose is toxic.
• Ergot
• Pytocin
• Sodium pentothal

Vacuum cleaner: Connected to uterus - not to be confused with vacuum aspiration - is fatal almost immediately. Rips uterus from pelvic area.

Even though they claim to be ‘the culture of life’, no-choicers have declared their intent to criminalize abortion and, in effect, to return to the days of illegal abortions. As Antonia Zerbasias notes and quotes in this article, no-choicers propose that women who attempt to terminate an abortion be charged and prosecuted.

Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer, Campaign Life Coalition: Our society has denied justice for unborn children who are killed daily in their mothers’ wombs at the request of the mother. We need to correct this and return that protection to the unborn. It then follows that jail time for those who commit the crime of abortion is not only just, but absolutely necessary.

This is the future that women dealing with unintended pregnancies will face, if the no-choice Vulture Culture re-criminalizes abortion.

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Rogue Crisis Pregnancy Centres in Ireland

fern hill — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 20:19:26 +0000

Well, of course there are Crisis Pregnancy Centres in Ireland.

But looky here: Choice Ireland is calling for weekly protests at one such ‘rogue agency’, as they call them, throughout July.

Choice Ireland believes that vulnerable women in crisis pregnancies deserve help and support in coming to terms with the difficult choices they face in their situation – not the lies, bullying, and manipulation of the WRC.

This WRC has quite a dodgy history.

From 1995 to 1999, the agency was known as the “Aadams” agency. According to their own estimation they saw 2000 women during this period. They were shut down due to a High Court ruling that they were running an illegal adoption agency.

Coercing women into continuing pregnancies then arranging illegally to have the baby adopted? How conveeeeenient.

Here’s an account of Choice Ireland’s protest at WRC last year complete with dandy photo. And there’s further background
here.

Choice Ireland has also called on the government to regulate these Rogue Centres and force them to stop lying to women. There’s a pdf called Rogue Agency Factsheet available at the Irish Family Planning Association.

Interestingly, the Irish government supports a Crisis Pregnancy Agency that does give women full and correct information.

So, if you happen to be in Dublin on a Saturday this July, mosey over and show your support.

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