Uber-git Liberal Paul Steckle has introduced Private Members Bill C-338 to recriminalize abortions performed after 20 weeks.
And not a moment too soon.
Because all over Canada women in their 5th month of pregnancy are looking down at their swollen bellies and saying oh man I just have to get rid of this right now or I'll look like shit in my bikini this summer. Some of them of course wanted an abortion back in spring when their tank tops started riding up a bit, but then they thought - nah, what's the rush? - I'll just wait a couple more months and get one later.
Bill C-338 makes very clear that it's high time this frivolous fashion of aborting five month old fetuses came to an end. All .4% of them. Unless it's :
"(a) to save the life of a woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself; or
(b) to prevent severe pathological physical morbidity of the woman."
(Editor : "severe pathological physical morbidity"? Who the fuck is writing this shit? Oh...the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus. Never mind, carry on.)
Yes, the wording is a little odd, evidently making some high falutin legal distinction between the mother becoming (a)"dead" and becoming (b) "really really dead".
No mention at all of the health of the fetus though. Or of the fact that 18 weeks is the earliest that certain congenital tests can be performed to see if the fetus has a functioning brain of any discernible kind. Or even if it will survive the birth.
No, even if you are gestating a footstool, the most important thing is to carry that footstool to full-term or suffer the legal consequences.
Kind of gives the term 'motherfucker' a whole new meaning, doesn't it?
Galloping Beaver had a great post on this a couple of days ago. But especially read the comments below it.
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7 comments:
This is not the issue. It is not up to us to judge who has the right to life.
I really didn't want to have to do this.
Yes. Sadly it is up to us.
Now go and read those comments at Galloping Beaver.
fyi:
Morbidity=non-fatal injury or illness. ie. obesity is considered a morbidity.
Mortality=death
You are right anonymous, it is not up to us who has the right to life and our bodies, it is up to old white christian men who think they know better.
I must take issue with your comment, procrastinatrix. Maurice Vellacott is a middle-aged white Christian man. Get your facts straight!
As an adoptee who has also experienced an abortion, I vividly recall those picketing outside the clinic I attended. I remember being shuffled, sheltered into the clinic by my partner and thinking how very, very lucky those people with the placards across the street were: they had the luxury of never having been in a position requiring such a difficult decision.
A woman beside me in the waiting room talked on her cell and seemed totally together. I was not so together, even if I was supported by my partner in person, rather than via phone. In the after-waiting room, however, this woman weeped and sobbed such that I'll never forget her. I wanted to reach out and touch her and console her by saying it was alright, but her pain was so deeply personal that I hesitated. Nothing I could have said would have changed the grief she had to go through. In retrospect i think I went through that grief in the weeks before the procedure. I've come to think of the experience of witnessing this woman's pain, and my own longing to comfort her, as a gift in itself. In effect, I have since thought, it was an opportunity to realize that I understood and forgave myself, just as I understood and forgave her. She was a gift to me. She was me...
Abortion was my only solution at that time. I have never discussed it since until this moment. It is only a solution when no others exist. I'm thankful for having had the option, and for having been givan a chance to experience a side of life that pushed me to evolve beyond judging others when I really have no idea what it is like to be them, then and there.
Sadly, I must post as Anonymous. Yes, I have read The Handmaid's Tale...
Wow, that's a moving story anon #2. Thanks for sharing.
Havril, you are right. I humbly apologise for my hasty generalisation. I did not mean to insult old-white men.
i posted this at the galloping beaver:
suzanne said > "I would like for those who support legalized abortion past 20 weeks to answer if the methods used to terminate fetuses are humane and morally acceptable. Is dilation and evacuation okay? Is partial birth abortion aka dilation and extraction? What about saline injection?" <
a couple of points to address in the above.
what is morally acceptable? WHO's morals? every individual, religion, non-religion, cult, group, family, has their own set of 'morals'. are we all supposed to follow christian morals? if so, then i question that because the founder of christianity, the roman emporer constantine, and the numero uno guy behind the new testament, thomas aquinas, created this religion for political reasons. christ was just christ....he had a following, he did not create a religion.
if the morals that come out of christianity had political drive (and this is not to knock all christianity, there are some good teachings) then where is the purity of christ in it? the gnostic scriptures are considered truest to christ's teachings, have you read them and what do they say, what can you conclude from them?
i will go along with your questioning the methods we use for abortion, they are invasive. perhaps saline solution or the herbs of old are a better route. it's no secret western medicine is still geared for males (just look at birth control). perhaps we need the humane , non-invasive, supportive birth temination methods of old....midwifery in different light.
of course we could make abortion illegal all together and deal with all the women who bleed to death via underground facilities, or the back alley coat hanger method, or the 'carry to term then toss baby in a dumpster'.
abortions, like prostitution, always has been and always will be. let's accpet it and make it a more humane, healthier, less invasive, choice.
why does christianity consider abortion morally wrong, yet war as morally right? why is value placed on an unborn fetus ...this leaves the lives of the young women and men our country sends to afghanistan as undervalued. here we have the question of morals, state and church again. back to the politically driven issue of morality.
if the sentence for aborting at five months is five years, why do rapists serve less time? why is the 'hollyburn machete murderer' out on bail? money, of course.
if the government were to concentrate on augmenting democracy and decreasing the gap between the rich ad poor, enstating more social programs, pouring more into health care (including the alterntatives), education, gender and wage equity, and not enforcing morals, we may have a better world.
if the government were to stop encouraging the megolamanical system, we may have more sanity. if the government were to focus on banning genetically modified crops, chemical sprays, toxic waste, nuclear power, encourage organics, and to work more towards a sustainble nation instead of virtualy rignoring the kyoto accord we may have less birth defects.
yes, i'm certainly for a more humane world.
if a rape victim were to wait until five months to terminate her pregnancy because she was too ashamed and demoralized and didn't have the where-with-all because of shock, should she be denied this?
there's the irony....morality can be demoralizing.
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