Well, that happened (Part Duh)

Motion 312 (aka Woodworth’s Wank, aka The Men Who Stare At Zygotes Motion) finally got its much-anticipated 2nd (and thankfully, last) hour of debate yesterday.

I had hoped to be all over it in Real Time, but as luck would have it I was waylaid by Real Life and away from my computer most of the day — in retrospect probably fortunate from a blood pressure point of view.  Through the miracle of modern cell phone technology I was able to keep track of the frenzied online response to the debate, but my participation was limited because I was preoccupied and I really hate typing on my phone, and frankly, after weeks of following this thing, I needed a break.  There’s a limit to how much idiocy one can endure, and the tsunami of stupid from Motion 312 supporters far exceeds it.

The debate itself started about 10:30am (Pacific), but the Twitterstorm raged all day and well into the wee hours of last night.  “#M312” quickly became the 2nd-highest-ranking trending topic on Twitter in Canada, so furiously were people on both sides of the issue tweeting. I mostly just observed, other than a mocking tweet to USian fetus fetishist Lila Rose.  Her cataclysmic dumbness was irresistible: she seems to think that a deluge of letters from Americans is just the leverage our Parliament needs to pass Motion 312.  If anything, more foreign letters compromise the fetus fetishists’ already-compromised letter campaign, but hey: it works for me.

The actual debate went about as expected, from what I saw. The motion’s sleazy sponsor, Stephen Woodworth, made his last stand, referring to non-sentient, non-autonomous zygotes as “people” while not granting women the same courtesy.  Maybe thoughtless, badly-written prose is to blame; or maybe women really don’t count as more than receptacles for the Almighty Fetus in Woodworth’s antiquated view.  (I’m pretty sure anti-choice women, quislings all, are by now immune to such contempt since their churches have been laying it on them for thousands of years).  Woodworth and his small cadre of supporters performed as expected, obfuscation, wordplay, sophistry and dishonest rhetoric about fetuses as a “class of people” being the order of the day.  Nothing new to see here.

Then the opposition rebuttals: I was impressed with the NDP’s Irene Mathyssen, who hauled Woodworth out to the woodshed for a well-deserved spanking…:

“This is quite literally a slap in the face to women who have fought long and hard for the right to control their own bodies and their ability to determine for themselves when they wish to have children,” NDP MP Irene Mathyssen said Friday during the final hour of debate.

“The member for Kitchener Centre’s desire to open up this debate has an end goal of changing the legislation to enable the fetus to be declared a human being,” Mathyssen said. “We are all very aware that such a change in the definition will directly place Canada on the regressive path to banning abortions.”

…then kicked his flabby fetus fetishizing ass around the block:

She slammed Woodworth for suggesting a “fertilized egg” is a “class of people” and cited case law that says otherwise.

Criminalizing abortion, she added, is only going to drive it underground, the consequences of which can be deadly.

Hear hear. I’m definitely non-partisan, but as fern hill tweeted earlier this week, I know who’s got my back when it comes to reproductive rights.

That Motion 312 is doomed by virtue of being a dimwitted and dishonest scrap of pious reproductive tyranny with little support among Canadians is a foregone conclusion, and yesterday’s debate did nothing to change that.  But I have to say: after all these years, seeing womens’ liberty re-litigated in Parliament (and so disingenuously at that) is somehow a little nauseating — even from the winning side.  I look forward to Wednesday’s vote, a short celebration, and then back to the barricades.

From the Horse’s Ass’s Mouth

Did we call it or did we call it?

Less than 2 weeks before the final vote on the sleazy, suspect Motion 312, a pleading dispatch from MP Stephen Woodworth to those voting on it confirms its true intentions:

September 14, 2012 

Dear Colleague: 

Re: Motion 312 

1. I am enclosing a copy of Subsection 223(1), the law which is the sole focus of Motion 312. You will see that Subsection 223(1) is a 400 year old law which decrees the dehumanization and exclusion of an entire class of people we know to be human beings, namely, children before the moment of complete birth. 

 

This is a direct assault upon the principle of universal human rights, which insists that every human being has an inherent worth and dignity which the state must recognize rather than merely a value assigned by others based on the utility or inconvenience of that human being. 

2. I am also enclosing an extract from the judgment of Supreme Court of Canada Justice Bertha Wilson in her 1988 Morgentaler decision throwing out Canada’s abortion law. Justice Wilson was a woman of impeccable feminist credentials. 

 

You will see from this extract that Justice Wilson left open the question of protecting the rights of children before birth for resolution by Parliament. Subsequent Supreme Court of Canada decisions have also left open this question for Parliament to resolve. Far from “re-opening” this issue, Motion 312 proposes the consensus-building dialogue which is the only path to finally closing it. This is in fact what Justice Wilson suggested. 

You will also see that Justice Wilson concluded, like me, that the existing recognition only at complete birth is wrong, suggesting that it ought to be at some point in the second trimester of the child’s development. She did not regard this to be inconsistent with her decision on abortion. 

 

3. Finally, I am enclosing a copy of Motion 312 itself. Please note that Motion 312 proposes no legislation (on abortion or anything else) and insists that the Committee also refrain from doing so. The Committee will merely study the evidence and report all available options. 

Please also note that Motion 312 directs the Committee to respect all Supreme Court of Canada decisions. All existing women‟s rights are protected by this provision! 

Laws like Subsection 223(1), which decree the dehumanization and exclusion of an entire class of people, deny the principle of universal human rights. That principle, which asserts that every human being possesses equal and inherent worth and dignity is the bedrock upon which all of other our laws rest. 

No 400 year old law should be frozen in time, forever immune from democratic review and forever immune from advances in understanding. 

Please support the mere study proposed by Motion 312. 

Sincerely, 

Stephen Woodworth 

Member of Parliament 

Kitchener Centre 

It’s ironic that even at this point, Woodworth still twists in the wind between truth and lies meant to comfort those who support the right to reproductive autonomy.  “All existing womens’ rights are protected”: well, of course.  There is no existing, codified-in-law right to the specific medical procedure abortion, only the right to privacy and security of person which in 1988 was deemed to include this doctor-patient decision.

Of course, much is made of the fact that Justice Bertha Wilson was a woman of impeccable feminist cred: she was.  But her decision in 1988 assumed there would always be a law in some form or other, because there always had been.  In 1988 not even a woman of Justice Wilson’s brilliance could have imagined that Canada would embark on an incredibly successful 24-year experiment in leaving this medical decision to doctors and patients, and the state’s interference proven to be utterly useless.

Being proven right in a contentious dispute is usually occasion for gladness, but this is one time that it would be a far better thing to be proven wrong.  I take no pleasure in the fact that prochoice suspicions about Motion 312 are now unequivocally proven right: that the motion is indeed the first legislative step towards regressive and unnecessary abortion restrictions and the establishment of pregnant women as an underclass with less rights than non-pregnant women.

If only Justice Wilson were still around to give us her current opinion on the matter.  Right now she must surely be rolling in her grave.

Steve-o, you broke my heart

Boo.  Hoo.

In the past few days I’m 6 for 6 on fetus fetishist Twitter blockage.  My brutal religious insensitivity in particular seems to have struck a discordant note:

WTF?  Practically every time I look at the News there’s a story about a child-molesting priest — even just in the past 24 hours, for god’s sake (although to their credit, child-molesting priests have been low-profile for the last hour).  As vapid a means of communication as it might be, even Twitter isn’t Denialsville.

Guess what: as long as ultraconservative religious nuts of any persuasion insist on jamming their noses into the private affairs of women by trying to use the coercive power of the state to impose their ancient superstitions on us, they can expect to encounter significant headwinds.  Certainly the pushback will be far more profound than random insults on Twitter.

Let’s rewind a little so we can fully understand what we’re dealing with.  When Woodworth first started inanely tweeting about a so-called “respectful discussion about when live begins”, he initiated an instant pro-choice pile-on accusing him of seeking to compromise womens’ reproductive rights.  At the time he insisted it had nothing, oh no, nothing at all, to do with abortion.

And now he openly admits, “Haha, fooled ya”:

Woodworth favours reopening the abortion debate, he told reporters Monday, as he acknowledged that a motion he tabled Monday morning was a first step toward doing so.

So frankly, I see no compelling reason to be “polite” and “respectful” to these lying fucks.

Game fucking on, fetushists.  Better toughen up.