Planned Parenthood had an increase of 25 000 abortions over 2006-2007 numbers, this increase in operations obviously led to an increase of profit - in fact they brought in over 1 billion dollars (according to this article, anyway… I haven’t checked anywhere else, they could be highly skewing the numbers to make their point stronger.)

Again, I didn’t look into this - so I dont know if there is an increase in abortions in general because more people are getting pregnant, or if birth rates are slightly declining because more people are using the option. The only reason I really wanted to link to the article was for this:

“We must stop the flow of government money into the hands of this baby-killing business,” Sedlak added, according to lifenews.com.

Mwa ha ha! Baby killers unite!

Katie = Livid. A U.S funded health search engine blocked the word “abortion” because they’re crazy christians who think that 4 cells has a soul. It is the largest database on reproductive health and by blocking abortion they have hidden over 250 000 results. They do, however, suggest dancing around the issue and trying to find information on abortion by using terms such as “coat hanger” and “evil baby eating atheists”.

“The main function of their site is keyword search, and if you use a phrase that contains the word ‘abortion,’ it ignores it,” notes Melissa Just, the library director at the cancer research institute and hospital named City of Hope in Duarte, California. Just followed the conversation on a listserv and said she was outraged when she found out about the censorship incident.

“Even if you were trying to make an argument to someone that abortion is a bad idea for them — whether it’s a health risk, or you’re concerned about their mental well being, you wouldn’t be able to find articles about your claim,” she notes. “It’s shutting off both the pro and the con access.”

Here is the e-mail exchange with the librarian who discovered the loss of the term.

Downtown Guelph

I came across an article that really shocked me about Guelph. There are a few things you should understand about Guelph… It’s a “city” of about 115 000 people. It is extremely environmental, is home to a very liberal university, has a population that protested against the building of a Walmart because of all the negative connotations that follow it… etc. It’s a liberal place. The people are fantastically nice and it’s got a very open minded thing going on. The university is one of the most out and proud universities I have ever heard of - I find myself often playing the “man or woman” game because everyone is free to be who they need to be - and usually who they need to be is extremely dyke-ish. …ANYWAY… My point of all this - is that I live in a liberal city.

So…

you can imagine my surprise when I came across this article.

If a pregnant woman in Guelph wants to have an abortion in the city, she’ll be hard-pressed to find a doctor who’ll perform such a service.

According to one obstetrician who works out of Guelph General Hospital, there aren’t any city doctors who will currently abort a fetus. Dr. Nabil Namis, who’s been practising in the Royal City for 19 years, said he was one of three or four doctors performing this procedure a few years ago.

Thats right. In this fair, liberal, environmental and loving city you can’t get an abortion.

The researcher, Jessica Shaw, who called all 718 facilities across the country posing as a pregnant woman, found it difficult to access abortion services.

She was hung up on, laughed at, given misleading information or greeted by a long silence on the other end of the line, Shaw said in June at a University of Guelph sexuality conference.

My own university! Maybe this is why they support gays so much. If you’re fucking a girl you’re not going to need an abortion. What I think is the absolute worst about all of this is their reasoning…..

“It’s just a sensitive issue,” he said. “We feel the most responsible thing is to be silent about it.”

When asked where someone could go for assistance, if they want an abortion, Ernst said, “We prefer not to talk about it.”

Oh… wait. Please! We prefer not to talk about? Well, I prefer not to think about the fact that hundreds of innocent people die everyday because of selfishness but that doesn’t make me a more noble person, and most definitely doesn’t make the killing stop. The city is a university city, and it’s growing. How much longer can an entire city ignore the fact that women need access to choice, and the services that come along with these choices?

Sure - Toronto and Kitchener are close and accessible, but it’s inconvenient to go to both locations. It’s difficult to find rides, or people that will travel with you. It’s difficult to put all the time aside. It would just be better if there was a place in Guelph to do it. After the procedure a woman doesn’t want to have to travel and hour back to her house to get some rest and curl up into a ball for either physical or mental pain.

Seriously, I was super baffled by this article, and plan on bringing it up with the women’s center on campus. Hopefully there can be a little bit of noise made around it. If the hospitals are worried about protesters getting pissed about them giving abortions, then I want them to be worried about protesters getting pissed about them NOT giving abortions.

oooof assholes.

Im off to bed…I have to get up early early to go to Toronto to help Andy Pandy move from his mouse filled basement apartment to his new 12 story non-mice filled apartment. yay! but first… check this:

An explosive device was found in the parking lot of a woman’s center.

According to the Feminist Majority Foundation’s National Clinic Violence Survey, 18.4 percent of clinics across the country are targets of severe violence, including arsons, bombings, chemical attacks, gunfire, and invasion. The most recent incident comes in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal abortion procedure ban. “The extremists in the anti-abortion movement have been emboldened by the latest Supreme Court decision,” said Katherine Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “These domestic terrorists will continue to attack women’s health clinics across the country until their financial and support networks are closed down.”

Yeah you know what the exact rational response is to an act that you don’t like because it kills an unborn child? Killing people! WOO! Seriously though, this sort of thing makes me want to throw up it makes me so ill. It’s just so sad. I think tomorrow I’ll go to an abortion clinic and hug everyone that is there..

I had a nap at 8 pm and rolled out of bed at around 11:30, that was probably a bad call because now it’s 4:30 am and I’m still not a bit tired. I have written a 3000 word essay on women and Islam for a class that I had last semester. :S oh dear.  Long story. And I called my friend from camp who I used to be completely and utterly attached too. Her and I lived together for 2 or 3 summers in a row and did everything together. Then we drifted apart a bit - but it turns out she works midnights at some random hotel in London so I called her and we chatted. I miss her. Other than that, I’ve decided pm napping is a pretty bad idea! So here’s the random 10 for this week… followed by a lot of links.

1. Eisley - Beautiful
2. Tanacious D - Keilbasa
3. Bouncing Souls - Kids and Heroes
4. Spearhead - Stay Human
5. The Roots - Rolling With Heat
6. Dirty Pretty Things - Deadwood
7. Pink Floyd - Speak to Me
8. Oscar Peterson - Blues for JR
9. Gin Blossoms - Till I Hear It From You
10. Yeah yeah yeahs - While My Guitar Genty Weeps (yeeea!)

I love ellen. I watched her all last summer, every single day. I would wake up JUST to watch Ellen. I never worked until usully 2 pm… but I would wake up at 10 to watch Ellen. And this clip at Pandagon had me roaring, I was worried I was going to wake up Dan, but man… it is SO funny. I LOVE ellen. Lesbians are the best. And on a more serious note I like the post that preceeded that video - I realize that most people probably read pandagon, so my linking without any personal analysis is pretty pointless… but this is my not caring face — … Here is my personal analysis - listen to the album "Impeach My Bush" by Peaches.

So last week there was the big "blog for choice day" that I didnt blog for until the following day and it wasn’t really a big post on it. Anyway, Jessica points out that they’ve been "outted".. by this site. Honestly, I wish I would have posted on pro-choice day just so that I’d have had a better shot of being listed on the baby killers list. …

Honestly, this whole … using graphic pictures, and telling us that we’re killing babies is seriously getting old. We’re not killing babies. It’s not a baby, its a bunch of cells. Abortions save lives. How about instead you attack the government that actually is killing hundereds of innocent people every day because of the wars they’re starting. Or how about concentrating some energy on aids, or combating epidemics in the world instead of wasting your time preaching your slanderous nonsense to people who have scientific evidence that they’re doing nothing but preventing the growth of cells to better accomodate for a life already in progress.

Gordo’s Thursday links are my absolute favorite post that shows up on his blog every week. Seriously. My favorite. Followed by his video post… because it wastes my time and I like my time being wasted. Anyway… this week he linked to the most adorable videos I have seen in a long time. It makes me miss my invisible friend so much. Lily was the best friend a girl could have had. I wish I had been a little more creative and given her more of a personality and look, but we still had a lot of fun together.

Anthony sent me a post of his on religion  that is WELL worth the time to read. He had me hooked on the first sentence.

For someone who doesn’t believe in God, I think about God a lot.

I just love atheists who are willing to talk about god, and religion without being arrogant and jerkish and intolerante. And in the comments Brent reminds me of why I loved reading his posts so much (so I need to start doing that again, I will blog roll him. he was on there, but when the new one got put up i forgot to make him a button.)

That is NOT a bad thing. Our material universe is unfathomably huge and
indescribably fascinating all on it’s own - without adding magical
fantasy-land fairy tales to it.

And speaking of Brent he has up a video much like Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans (heart!) it’s not QUITE as funny, but it’s still pretty darn funny. My favorite part is "how many sides does a triangle have…?" "There’s no sides,… one?" Its like that quote from I <3 Huckabees "Have you ever transcended space and time?" "Yes. No. Uh, time, not space… No, I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Also from Gordo, but at Liberal Avanger (just to toss up the links a little bit, he posted it at Appletree too) he did what looks like a good post on Cheney, I didn’t actually read it, I just looked at the pictures. And ps - the bedrocktruth fellar in the comments is a douche and a half.

SO MANY LINKS!

At republic numero uno Adorable Girlfriend has a post up about parenting that is absolutely silly. I’m going to have to go ahead and agree wtih AG that people who make kissing seem like a horrible thing to do … are idiots. And telling boys that girls have cooties? Come on now. Why not teach them about sex? And about gender differences? About what they should and shouldn’t ignore? …But just meanly telling them "no!" … That doesn’t explain anything.

And at the next republic there is a fantastically written post about Africa and homophobia. The best is the "the devil made him do it" part. You know, I always figured my gay friends had been taken over by the devil.

And finally, because I can, I am going to steal this mini meme from Kathy.

This Moment: roaring
Your Shoes: Cons!!
Craving: oranges
The State of Your Home: shit-hole (is that one or two?) … dirty
Annoyed By: chewing
Noise In the Background: soundtrack (for requiem for a dream)
Really Want To: travel
Thinking About: *blushes*
Smelling: moisturizer
Favorite Product In Office Supply Aisle: staplers
Don’t Ever Want To: drown
Your Eye Color: blue
The Weather: …overcast
Have Never Tried: decluttering
Think Everyone Should Try: singing
Last Vacation Destination: Ontario!
The Last Thing You Had to Drink: Water
Your Bad Habit: stumbling
What You’re Going To Do Now: blog

That was suprisingly hard for me to do. I’m one of those people that writes like… a paragraph for questions like that because I think one word answers are so boring.