Speak your mind even if your voice shakes
A May/Dion romance:
An interesting way to do politics. Deprive people of the right to vote for all parties. Work out backroom deals in the front room thereby pretending it is something other than what it is. Pretend it is visionary and slur all detractors with the indefensible partisan label. While the thing itself smacks of all that is wrong with politics, the spin is genius. [Read more…] about Scattered Scribblings
Interesting case in Britain.
A couple have embryos created via IVF, they subsequently split up, she has had surgery for cancer and is unable to conceive any other way, he however refuses consent for her to carry any of the eggs to term.
the law states
“However, the European Court of Human Rights has considered that both partners have equal rights over the embryos once created. This ruling supports the HFEA Act which requires both parties to consent or in this instance, withdraw that consent.”
If he had fertilized the eggs the natural way he would have no choice, yet in this case he is in effect choosing abortion.
It will be interesting to see if he receives the same types of attacks that women who choose abortion do.
Rules of etiquette commonly call for the avoidance of certain topics. Chief among those are politics and religion.
It is worth noting that these are treated as two separate items, and rightly so.
When religion is factored into politics neither can work appropriately.
Religion deals with spirituality, with ones belief in being part of a specific god’s community and the leaders therein are charged with representing a specific community of belief.
Politics deals with issues specific to secular communities. An elected representative is charged with representing everyone, not just those who subscribe to a certain belief system. Though some governments tend to forget this. [Read more…] about Politics and Religion
I had this aggregator set up before but the software sucked so I had to take it down.
Found better software and have revived it.
If you are a Canadian and a feminist and would like your blog to be included in this aggregator please contact me either here through comments or through the contact form on the site.
Rose’s Place
In recent years, support for legal abortion has waned, which Lord attributes to the growing power of Christian fundamentalists: “We, like the good citizens of Iran, live in what amounts to a theocracy.”
A great article from Womens’ Enews showing how the media on abortion has been skewed to promote the anti choice agenda.
“Not one op-ed discussing abortion on the op-ed page of the most powerful liberal paper in the nation was written by a reproductive-rights advocate, a pro-choice service-provider or a representative of a women’s group,” reported the Prospect. “Instead, the officially pro-choice New York Times has hosted a conversation about abortion on its op-ed page that consisted almost entirely of the views of pro-life or abortion-ambivalent men, male scholars of the right and men with strong, usually Catholic, religious affiliations. In fact, a stunning 83 percent of the pieces appearing on the page that discussed abortion were written by men.”
Well isn’t that special! Nothing like equal time. [Read more…] about The Optics of abortion
Today is Back Up Your Birth Control Day in America. This action is to draw attention to these facts among others;
– Most teenagers in the U.S. don’t have access to EC over-the-counter (but they do in areas of Alaska, California, Vermont, Hawaii, Washington, Maine, New Hampshire and New Mexico)
– Despite the over-the-counter status, low-income and immigrant women still have issues of access to emergency contraception
– More than 60% of voters say they do not know about EC or any product that has been proven effective in preventing pregnancy when used within days after unprotected sex
You can read Biting Beavers’ story of trying to get EC here
or this story
The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn’t want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.
I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we’re starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.
The next morning, after getting my kids off to school, I called my ob/gyn to get a prescription for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill that can prevent a pregnancy — but only if taken within 72 hours of intercourse. As we’re both in our forties, my husband and I had considered our family complete, and we weren’t planning to have another child, which is why, as a rule, we use contraception. I wanted to make sure that our momentary lapse didn’t result in a pregnancy.
The receptionist, however, informed me that my doctor did not prescribe Plan B. No reason given. Neither did my internist. The midwifery practice I had used could prescribe it, but not over the phone, and there were no more open appointments for the day. The weekend — and the end of the 72-hour window — was approaching.
Or read the empathy and understanding for a rape victim
To add insult to injury, here’s what Dr. Joe Kearns, former medical director of Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, had to say:
“People drive to Reading to buy jeans. Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something.”
I am struggling to understand how a woman–who has just been raped!–would find a trip to Reading to get a prescription for emergency contraception (EC) similar to a road trip she might take with her girlfriends to buy a new pair of jeans.
Although legally women in Canada are allowed to buy EC OTC there are many instances of pharmacies not carrying it or pharmacists exercising “freedom of conscience”.
And our current fundamentalist friendly government who have already shown themselves ready to turn back the clock with cuts to SWC and removal of equality from the mandate, would be only too happy to partner with these same groups to deny women reproductive choice.
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