Comments (9)

By Katie Kish, March 5, 2009 11:41 am

And by sometimes, I mean quite often.

A 9 year old girl had to have an abortion because she was raped by her stepfather. You think this would be an open and shut case. She’s 9. She was raped. She’s too tiny to carry a fetus. (actually 2, as she had twins). But nooo.

But Marcio Miranda, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife in north-eastern Brazil, said the girl should have carried the twins to term and had a caesarean section.

“It’s the law of God: do not kill. We consider this murder,” Ms Miranda said in comments reported by O Globo.

Yet another reason I’m against religion. And why I’m pro-empowerment for women so they can take back control over their own bodies.

Oh wait, I have another one. An ad that promotes whitening skin with a sexist twist.

We can never be happy with what we have. Too fat, not white enough, too skinny, too white, hair is too curly, too straight, big hips, small boobs……women want to be white (apparently) – but if you have pale legs you don’t want to be seen at the swimming pool. Not to mention that “I swallow” line is just horribly inappropriate and gross. After she’s done swallowing she should probably go get Asian Blepharoplasty and blue contacts… and color her hair to be blonde. Then she’ll be perfect.

Comments (2)

By J. Kirkintilloch, January 27, 2009 1:07 pm

(See more from J. Kirkintilloch at Sorepoints.com)
 
In Canada there has been a cold war on abortion ever since the 1988 Morgentaler verdict, where Canadian Supreme Court struck down law limiting a woman’s access to abortion. Prior to that, there was limited medically-approved access. Since then, there has been no limitations put on women seeking abortions. And in 1989, the ruling in the Chantal Daigle case further supported this, by denying that right of a father to have any say in whether a woman has an abortion. Successive governments with no political interest in reopening the debate has left Canada with no abortion regulation to this day.

Recently however, with the election of minority (socially) Conservative governments, the threat of this cold war warming up has increased.

Rod Bruinooge, a federal Conservative MP, recently entered the fray, claiming he was now chair of multi-party Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus stating:“Canada has far greater protections for human kidneys than we do for human fetuses.”

The logic here was that in Canada, while you can’t sell organs, you can terminate a growing fetus at any time before it is actually born. He complains about a low birth rate resulting from a devaluing of children due to abortion, and references his part aboriginal ancestry as a source for his moral stance on this issue.

In response to this, I would like to say first that this comparison is fraught with ethical complications. Its true we don’t allow people to remove their “kidney and sell it on eBay to the highest bidder” but this has more to do with protecting poor people from exploitation. (You can’t sell blood in Canada, ‘paid’ surrogacy was banned in 2004, and you can’t sell sex either.) This also means that wealthy people can’t jump the queue in organ transplants dooming poor people who need the transplant more urgently.

As to population issues, most things I have read point to affluence and access to birth control, as the leading cause of low birth rate, not abortion legislation. And really, unless you have a problem with immigrants filling the gap, low birth rate is not a real problem.

Abortion rights are also more complicated, as they arguably involve two biological entities, mother and fetus. I won’t argue the ethics of abortion here, suffice it to say, I don’t think government should force a woman to carry a baby she doesn’t want to term.

Bruinooge also states “Most Canadians would also agree that an unborn child in the ninth month of gestation, moments away from delivery, should not be eligible for an elective abortion. However…it is in fact legal.”

Legally, its true, there is no limit on abortion. This medical procedure could be done, even at the very last minute of pregnancy. Now, fact is, this simply doesn’t happen. There are cases of later term abortions due to non-viable fetuses (those that are confirmed will die shortly after birth) and direct threats to the mothers life, but the vast majority of abortions are done very early on.

So do we need a law? One could make the argument that however uncommon irresponsible late term abortions are, we should still, as a society, clearly define where we stand on this important issue. The problem is, there is a very good reason that government after government since 1988 has avoided dealing with this issue. It a political hot potato, that is both controversial and involves radical factions that have no interest in compromises. Some Pro-choice advocates will argue ANY law that recognizes the fetus as anything more than a cancerous tumor damages a woman’s right to choice. On the other side the Pro-life advocates are indeed looking for a wedge issue with which to push for as many legal restrictions as possible, effectively making abortion inaccessible and/or illegal, for as many Canadian women as possible.

In the end any politician who advocates reasonable and moderate bioethics is going to be attacked from both sides. Birth is the standard, birth is the physical event that we all agree results in two human beings. Even if, you believe as I do, that the ethics of late term abortions are something we should rationally debate, the reality is, very few people have any interest in being rational on this issue.

Comments (2)

By Katie Kish, April 8, 2008 11:04 am

 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!

Comments (4)

By Katie Kish, April 4, 2008 6:57 am

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.

Comments (2)

By Katie Kish, August 27, 2007 11:59 pm

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.