Our little Pedgehog hits big time

Pedgehog, a Morgentaler clinic volunteer and author of the blog “Anti-Choice is Anti-Awesome“, was one of those interviewed for an article in the April issue of Chatelaine called “The New Face of the Abortion Debate“:

That same evening, a half-dozen women, all in their twenties, gather at a table a little removed from the other diners on a restaurant’s backyard patio. They are feminists, pro-choice activists in this predominantly conservative city. Many volunteer as patient escorts at the clinic; one of them, 25-year-old Peggy Cooke, is its volunteer coordinator. She is also the author of a spunky blog,
Anti-Choice Is Anti-Awesome, about life at the clinic and the antics of protesters she’s dubbed Glarey Mary, Crazy Legs and Mad Thad. “Intimidate women. That’s all they’re there to do,” she says.

There’s more about Pedge and others like her who toil tirelessly on the front lines, plus a whole bunch more about nationwide activism, abortion access, and even our old nemesis, Bill C-484. (The anti-choice side was also deemed worthy of a few column inches, proportionate to their influence in the real world.) Good article: go read, then go give the Pedge a virtual high-five.

R v Morgentaler, 21 and counting

It’s been 21 years since women’s freedom in Canada took a giant leap forward with the Supreme Court of Canada decision R. v. Morgentaler, which took reproductive issues out of the hands of the state and put them back where they belong, with women, their families, and their doctors.

Since then, Canada has blazed a trail of reproductive freedom and led the world in being the only country where the government is not allowed to intrude into the wombs of its citizens:

Abortion laws vary widely by country, ranging from Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Malta, and Vatican City, which ban the procedure entirely, to Canada, which places no restrictions on the provision of abortion whatsoever.

“No restrictions on the provision of abortion whatsoever” — should be followed with “by the government”. Rather, restrictions are self-imposed by women and doctors; there’s been no need for the state’s “helpful” intervention, and our 21-year experiment in “lawless” abortion has proven that beyond any shadow of doubt.

They said abortion rates would go up: the abortion rate has been continuously declining… and without regressive legislation.

They said women would go batshit crazy and abort viable late-term fetuses with wreckless abandon right up to the moment before birth: 99.6% of abortions are performed early-term, and the late-term only for medical or health reasons. Not only are women NOT batshit crazy (but thanks for the vote of confidence, fetus fetishists — misogyny much?), but doctors, guided by ethics, won’t perform such procedures… and without regressive legislation.

They said, and continue to say, a lot of rotten gibberish that ultimately has little impact in the real world. Because the evidence is in that the status quo works — 21 years of it.

Here’s to another 21! And thanks again, Dr. M!

FTD – Update

That last post, as well as CC’s post today on the topic of “The Debate”, reminded me of something I wanted to check back on.

As I pointed out in a previous post, one need only scan the comments with last week’s Cosh article about Rod Bruinooge to see why an “abortion debate” will never happen — because it can’t.   Just look at that combox — it’s like a snakepit of insanity.

Let’s tally it up here.  We’ve got abortion referred to as “infanticide”, “murder”, “babykilling” and “baby-murder”, that tired old canard about abortions “moments before birth”, and the ever-popular “fetuses as collateral damage in The Feminists’ war for equal rights”.  One half-bright nitwit calls pro-choicers “abortion salespeople”. (Where’s my commission?) The hysterical hyberbole goes on and on at mindblowing velocity. But most tellingly, when an infamous anti-abortion terrorist shows up to drop this turd of a comment,

not one “pro-lifer” denounces him.  And this is what I wanted to check on, because they’re always telling us that these violent extremists aren’t welcome in the “pro-life” movement, so surely they’d welcome the opportunity to denounce one of them.  But four days and fifty-odd comments later, not one of these rotten douchebags has told this scum:  “That’s out of line. That violent language doesn’t represent the pro-life movement.”

Why not?

I rest my case.

Spin to win (or not)

Good grief. I’ve seen some feeble attempts at spin, but this takes the cake.

The ladies at ProWomanProLife are still gnawing away on that disagreeable article by Colby Cosh that ran last week in the NatPo, “Rod Bruinooge and the Pro-Life Absurdity” (of kidneys, fetuses and mouthy MPs). Always a big hit with the fetus fetishist crowd, Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition has them foaming at the mouth (yet again) with some of her contributions to the comment thread with the article, particularly this one:

Yes Matt W, let’s err on the side of life – WOMEN’S lives. Because the right to abortion is not about a woman’s right to choose, it’s about her right to LIFE – which means far more than just mere physical survival.

Behind your view is the assumption that women are obligated to have babies just because they are capable of it. Not so. Women can never enjoy full human rights or equality unless they can control their fertility. That includes the right to have sex for pleasure, which carries a risk of pregnancy regardless of use of birth control. So abortion must be available as a backup.

Got that? Now check out how PWPL spins Joyce’s statement:

Who is honestly going to stand up for our “right” to casual sex (and hey, while we’re at it, can we enshrine that it be really good sex too?) over someone else’s life? Guess Joyce Arthur just did.

“Guess Joyce Arthur just did” — guess again, dumbass.

The writer, Andrea, either (a) has reading comprehension issues or (b) is deliberately misrepresenting Joyce Arthur’s comment in a sleazy attempt to discredit her. Because Joyce didn’t say anything about “casual” sex — she said “sex for pleasure”. Which, astonishingly, can be had in committed, long-term, anything-but-casual relationships… hell yeah, even marriage! Take my word for it.

Of course, there might also be a (c) — that Andrea genuinely conflates “sex for pleasure” with “casual sex”, and her statement above wasn’t spin at all but some kind of weird Freudian slip. Which would say a lot more about Andrea than it says about Joyce, but it’s none of our business, so we won’t go there.

UPDATE : Joyce responds at PWPL, or tries to (but keeps getting rejected as spam… Hmm.). Here’s her comment, fortuitously saved:

It’s always impossible to predict what ridiculous misinterpretations anti-choicers will come up with in response to pro-choice arguments, and this time is no exception. It didn’t occur to me that anti-choicers are so opposed to sex for pleasure that they would actually ridicule the concept in public! You’d think they’d be embarrassed to expose their bizarre view of “proper” sexuality – i.e., only for procreation, with pleasure secondary or irrelevant. Of course, hardly any humans have that kind of sex, probably because it violates our nature!

I also couldn’t have predicted the glaring logical errors. Obviously, “casual sex” is clearly not the same thing as “sex for pleasure.” Casual sex can be unpleasant, and “meaningful” sex (or “procreative” sex? – whatever is allegedly the “right” kind of sex!) can be pleasant – with pleasure its main or only goal in fact. Second, whether a woman chooses abortion has nothing to with whether the sex itself was casual, meaningful, pleasant, or unpleasant, or even whether she was trying to get pregnant (since she may change her mind).

Sexual pleasure is pretty much taken for granted as a sexual right by human-rights NGOs (except conservative right-wing groups), and even by the UN and WHO. The concept has been around since at least the 1970’s, I didn’t invent it, LOL. Just Google “sexual rights” to find many declarations and documents that define pleasure as a sexual right – one among many other sexual rights. So my anti-choice detractors have blown things out of proportion and created a straw man by implying that I think sexual pleasure is the be-all-and-end-all of sexual rights.

Well said, Joyce!

Fuck the debate, and here’s why

If anyone still wonders why pro-choicers are so reluctant to “engage” in any kind of “debate” about abortion, look no further than the combox at yesterday’s NatPo piece by Colby Cosh.

It started heating up as soon as the word “abortion” rippled its way through the Canadian internets, causing spastic twitching and jerking in the collective anti-choice lizard brain.  The first commenter screeched in, spraying virtual gravel and firing off the opening shots in the “debate” — “infanticide” and “murder”:

Child, embryo, fetus — the word is CHILD, motherfuckers!  Say it! (And while you’re at it, say “MERRY CHRISTMAS“!!)

Along those same semantic lines, the clearly off-his-meds “rightiscorrect” chimes in:

“Tiller the Killer”!  Now that’s what I call thoughtful, reasoned debate.

This guy makes an early prediction:

And “Claymore” is quick to live up to it, thoughtfully copy-pasting a huge rambling article full of half-truths, lies and other gibberish about death, breast cancer and insanity from some anti-abortion website.

He then follows up with responses to other commenters:

Stop killing BABIES!!!  Way to contribute to the “debate” there, “Claymore”.

Then, right on schedule, “Saint Nobody” (aka SUZANNE) weighs in and, enraged by a comment from Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition, goes full-metal batshit:

Ouch, Joyce! Feminist empowerment!  Teh Feminists = >than others! It’s  notable that Cosh’s article made no mention of feminism or anything even remotely resembling it, yet in SUZANNE’s rat’s nest of a mind that’s where all abortion-related discussions begin and end.  Just add it to the mounting pile of evidence that SUZANNE’s real reason for hating feminists is their part in achieving abortion rights.

Lastly, the good reverend Spitz shows up to spit this out this hunk of phlegm:

Ahh… yeah.  It’s exactly like that, you fucking douchebag.  Now let’s see how quickly the “pro-lifers” jump in to disown this scumsucking piece of shit.

There were a few commenters who didn’t sound as if they were posting to pass the time while they waited for Nurse Ratched to show up with their Thorazine, but sadly, hardly any of them were anti-choice.  As in, maybe one.

And people wonder why we don’t want a “debate” with these idiots?