Sex-Selective Abortion: 1 More for the Road

It’s always amusing to watch someone writhing in the throes of a bogus Indignance High over something they’re widely known not to give a rat’s ass about.  For the Authoritarian Right, sex-selective abortion — the rare and weird practice of aborting female fetuses because daughters are seen as undesirable — is one such issue. While the more extreme Right routinely spirals into psychotic episodes over any kind of abortion, their claim to be concerned about this particular kind because it discriminates against females somehow doesn’t ring true.  After all, this is the same crowd that would force a now-20-year-old ex-fetus to carry a fetus of her own to term.

As I said in my “Bonus Track” back here, I find the “sex selective abortion” meme a little dubious at best.  Certainly it goes on, and where it does go on, no doubt it’s a foul practice. But I question whether it’s rampant enough in Canada to warrant the pandemic of pearl clutching it’s provoked in recent years.

It’s an issue that comes and goes.  But now, in the wake of Motion 312 and its companion Motion 408 — to “condemn sex selective abortion” — it’s back in all its hyperventilating, gasping glory.  And like clockwork, the relentless Blame Game has kicked off:

Fascist feminists!  And predictably, the persistent question:

Not that any feminist has ever claimed to support sex selective abortion, and one could only see it that way by wearing “With Us Or Against Us” blinders.  As for “not a single feminist” ever addressing the issue?  Puh-leeeeease! But when did these people ever let reality get in the way of a good outragegasm?

What’s dumbly perceived as “support” is simply consistency for those who agree with the current laissez-faire status of abortion in Canada.  I don’t actively “support” sex selection as a reason for an abortion; actually I think it’s a hideous reason.  But that’s my opinion and it’s irrelevant in the context of anyone else.  For good or ill, the reasons for an abortion are the business of the woman having it and nobody else: the decision is hers and hers alone to make.  I will always support whatever decision a woman makes: whether I “approve of” her reasons for making it is a non-issue.

And if those “fascist feminists” aren’t keeping up with the speed, volume and spittle-flecked fury of right-wing commentary on sex selective abortion, maybe it’s because they’re busy working to create the conditions that would render it non-existent: a world where women and girls are valued as much as anyone else.  And we could sure use some help!

Reproductive Tyranny FAIL

As everyone knows by now, that sleazy piece of legislative feculence known as “Motion 312” is gone, gone, like the snows of yesteryear.  Or in the contemporary vernacular,

M312 FAIL!

Indeed.

When the deal finally went down on Wednesday afternoon, my final estimate on votes for and agin was just about right.

I predicted about 1/2 the CPC would vote “Yes”, simply because any more would make Harpie, who voted “No”, look bad: the actual vote was 52%. All in all, the slimy monster was defeated by more than 2 -1: a decisive defeat, if not the humiliating, crushing blow of my sadistic, seed-stealing, baby-killing, pants-dropping, man-hating feminazi dreams.  But still, gone.

Gone but not *quite* forgotten, if Twitter’s “#M312” timeline is any indication.

But so what?  The Men Who Stare At Zygotes motion built a lot of momentum, thanks to Woodworth’s moving the vote forward from the original date in June.  Rare is the anti-abortion motion that generates this kind of buzz, and it’s understandable that the fetus fetishists would be desperate to keep it going.

They even had a Companion Motion waiting in the hopper should M312 fail, and predictably and pathetically, tabled it immediately:

MPs may have voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to shut down discussion on Canada’s abortion laws, but another Conservative backbench MP has found a new way to keep the debate alive.

Langley, B.C. MP Mark Warawa introduced a motion Thursday calling on the House of Commons to condemn discrimination against females via sex-selective pregnancy termination.

(“Shut down discussion” — who writes this rotten sludge?)

Anyway, the newest piece of antichoice offal being flogged, Motion 408, is a total non-starter and barely worthy of attention.  It calls for the House to do no more than “condemn” a specific and rare practice, not make changes to Criminal Code definitions that would result in criminalizing abortion.  I almost feel embarrassed for its proponents, so screamingly obvious is the real purpose of Motion 408: keep the M312 momentum going.

My uterus and I say “Thanks for stopping by, but we’re not buying what you’re selling”.

Some people are concerned, as they should be about any state initiative that has anything to do with reproductive rights, but a watchful eye is all that’s needed here.  If Motion 408 is ignored, it will come and go without any affect on womens’ rights, and the Motion 312 hype, already fading, will disintegrate.  Continuing to engage antichoicers over this new motion is exactly what they want.  Until Motion 408 evolves into an existential threat, I say ignore it.  I’d rather watch the fetus fetishists melt down into frustrated dung-puddles as all the M312 buzz melts away with them.

(The Avenging Uterus! from here)

BONUS TRACK:  A Word About “Sex-Selective Abortion”

It’s the Outrage-du-Jour, or maybe just another way to try and slip one past the prochoice goalie; either way, I’m not convinced the practice is widespread enough in Canada to warrant the shrieking that goes on over it.  The notion that it could result in a Canada top-heavy with males is absurd, but the idea of social engineering by the government as a legitimate means of avoiding this unlikely situation is loathesome in the extreme.

I will say that sex selection wouldn’t be my reason for having an abortion, but that’s my personal opinion and irrelevant in the context of anyone’s abortion but my own.  For good or ill, the decision to terminate a pregnancy is the woman’s to make, and hers alone: not mine, yours or the state’s.

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.

MASS(ive) Uprising! Or not!

It’s common knowledge that extremist antichoicers — the kind that favour egg-person laws — are cataclysmiscally clueless and brutally slow on the uptake.  This grim reality is more than conventional wisdom: it’s almost a peer-reviewed science, re-proven week in and week out.  This week’s been no different from any other, so once more for the road!

Ultimate Goal of Motion M312

This was The Week That The Worm Turned like never before, as fetus fetishists who’ve been relentlessly flogging the doomed Motion 312 (aka “Woodworth’s Wank”, aka the “Men Who Stare At Zygotes” Motion) got whacked upside the head with a king-size cluebat, and finally realized something the rest of us have known for months: Motion 312 is DOA.

What’s long been screamingly obvious to the rest of us clearly shocked fetus fetishists who were slobbering giddily over the vague possibility that, with a good deal of sophistry, Motion 312 would clear the way to fetal “personhood”.  And never mind that there are much easier ways to resolve this semantic issue without involving *The Fetus©®™ or threatening womens’ autonomy. Antichoicers have proven time and again that their most profound skill is the art of ignoring solutions that don’t give us all a One-Way Ticket to the Republic of Gilead.

But they blew it, like they always do.  While “personhood” for fertilized eggs is a popular item in delusional Christofascist circles, to most Canadians — 94% of us, to be exact — the notion is so repugnant that any legal manoeuvreing in that direction has to be done in secrecy and pulled over on the General Public while they’re busy having non-procreative sex or getting illegitimately raped.  And just try getting a fetus fetishist gripped in the throes of a twitching, trembling, eye-popping, Jesus-driven fetus fetishizing frenzy to keep quiet about something like Motion 312. Right from the start they were jabbering like gerbils on crack, contradicting Woodworth, each other and even themselves. The Motion’s true intention might as well have been broadcast in a flashy 30-second spot during the Superbowl:  PERSONHOOD! PERSONHOOD! PERSONHOOD! 

Most motions come and go without notice, but when the General Public inevitably got wind of Motion 312 it was properly appalled; if you doubt it, scan the comments at any online article on the topic.  The coup de grâce was served up last month when the CMA declared their opposition to the Motion.  This came as no surprise to Prochoicers who are well aware of the CMA’s long and proud support for Freedom of Choice, but the unconditional lab-coated bitch slap was a rude shock to the fetus fetishists.  Suddenly it looked like their dreams of installing a tiny little police officer in every womb were about to be dashed upon the rocks of reason and privacy rights.

 It was time to go DefCon1, so this week the motion’s supporters announced “Motion 312’s Last Stand”, and a top secret strategy — TBA September 7th — that would incite a “MASS uprising” of support for Motion 312 (no really, that’s the wording they used).  Yesterday came and went and the Big Reveal was predictably anticlimactic: doubling down in a frenzy of pious feeblemindedness, prayer, unintelligible muttering and shrieking phone calls to Stephen Harper and incoherent messages scrawled in chalk like the ransom notes of deranged kidnappers.   In other words, “M.A.S.S.” = More of the Approximately Same Shit?

That said, the LYING is escalating to previously unimaginable levels.  The “abortion 3 days before the due date” meme is getting a strenuous workout: anyone who ever wondered how antichoicers regard women and the medical profession need look no further than remarks of that contemptuous ilk.

I can just imagine the sighs of relief from politicians of all stripes when Motion 312 is finally aborted.  I can also imagine the sly, stupid smirks on antichoice faces dissolving into shock and horror when they realize that the absolutist position promoted by Motion 312 was the worst possible route to take, and that in their “last stand” they’re staring down the barrel of a “CRUSHING BLOW” to their cause.  Not that this means we let up on defending our rights even an inch …

 *With thanks to deBeauxOs 😉

Canada’s Docs Rock

The doctors are IN:

Canada’s doctors have sternly rejected what they see as a stealth attempt to recriminalize abortion.

At the general council meeting of the Canadian Medical Association on Wednesday, delegates called on the federal government to reject attempts by a Conservative backbench MP to amend the Criminal Code so that a fetus is defined as a human being.

“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que. […]

The CMA, which represents the country’s 76,000 physicians, interns, residents and medical students, has a policy saying that abortion is an ethically acceptable medical practice as long as the fetus is not viable.

In other words, regulation of the abortion procedure is their job, and they don’t need some government bureaucrat, driven by brainless religious fanatics, telling them how to do it.

Now that everyone seems to be picking their side, at some point I’d love to do a graphic chart showing who’s for and against Motion 312.  It would be very telling to see the line-up of lab-coated scientists on one side and the gaggle of jabbering bible school haircuts on the other.

(h/t Sharkdancing on Twitter)

Poll Smoking & Profiles In Cluelessness

There must be some reason that the Fascist religious crackpots at FetusFetishOnline are flogging this collection of abortion polls as a “Prolife Polling Resource”, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.  Painstakingly assembled by the Evangelical Fellowship and datamined from years of polls, it’s generally good news for prochoicers.  Good old news, since it only confirms what we already know: that Canada is a vehemently prochoice country.  It can’t be a relief to fetus fetishists to know that in this great country of ours the wearing of animal fur is considered more morally unacceptable than abortion.

Not that there isn’t the occasional ripe-sounding data to be cherrypicked, like the one indicating that about half the country would favour gestational limits on abortion.  Far be it from me to rain on their parade — oh, shit on that, who am I kidding?  I take great pleasure in noting that while this gestational limit thing might sound good for antichoicers at first blush, unpack it a little and what it really shows is support for abortion rights, just not as framed in the question.  Any respondent who answered “No” to “Should women be able to have abortions any time during pregnancy?” would go in the “favours gestational limits” column.  And — oh no, somebody stop me, I’m about to take the Mighty Pinprick of Truth to a few more of their party balloons — with so many fetus fetishists preferring the brain-damaged “All Or Nothing, Egg Personhood, Stop Embryo Oppression” approach, the idea that half of Canadians would accept gestational limits under 9 months must be cold comfort.

Then there’s the data we’ve already seen in poll after poll, but which I’m only too happy to see again: like the clear plurality of Canadians that think abortion is “morally acceptable” and do NOT want the so-called “abortion debate” re-opened, or don’t give a shit either way.  Can you say “MASSIVE ProChoice Majority”?

Why Lifesite would choose to publish this less-than-encouraging data at the height of the battle of words & wits over Motion 312 is a mystery.  But then again, why not: it’s in line with the haphazard and utterly clueless way the rest of the M312 campaign has been run, a confused and riotous crusade of Twitterspam, fetusmobiles, inconsistencies, transparent lies and general dumbness.  For an initiative thought by some to be the last kick at the anti-abortion can for a long, long time, the ineptitude of its handling has been breathtaking to behold.

And fun to watch.  Did I mention fun to watch?

(h/t fern hill on Twitter)

“Let’s stop the pretense”

“Let’s Stop The Pretense” indeed:

Yes, let’s stop the pretense that Motion 312 aka Woodworth’s Wank (aka the “Men Who Stare At Zygotes” Motion) is anything other than a sleazy, stupid and screamingly obvious attempt to pave the way for ludicrous “fetal rights” legislation that would ultimately curtail reproductive freedom in Canada.

The Motion’s intent couldn’t be any clearer than the way its own supporters interpret it: as a “personhood motion” meant to change a legal definition of personhood that’s “one of the reasons Canada has no abortion regulations”.  (It’s not, but that’s another post.)

I’ve never seen a campaign of lies conducted so ham-fistedly.  What do they think, we don’t know how to Google?

Shouting “Abortion!” in a crowded blogosphere

No, human rights — including womens’ rights — are not like free speech rights which some (though not I) believe can and should be legally curtailed in the interest of the so-called “greater good”.

In fact, the state’s prerogative to impose its will ends where my uterus begins.

Human Rights — including women’s rights — are non-negotiables: the benighted who walk among us may privately agonize over the rights of others all they want.  But in the interest of maintaining those rights, they’d be well-advised to keep their inner conflicts to themselves, particularly in the face of an imminent threat to said rights.  There is no valid “nuanced” position when it comes to human rights, and anyone who disagrees has never had theirs “up for debate”.

It is mindblowing in the extreme that some people can’t understand how completely and utterly, dumptruck-full-of-dirty-assholes offensive this whole “Debate My Rights” thing really is.

This one’s for you (you know who you are)