abortion rights

Sheriff Joseph Arpaio Humanitarian

08/08/2008 by Debra

Good old Joe don’t hold with no abortion rights, ‘specially if it means giving prisoners access to health care. Nope them there prisoners is gonna have thar babez.

“I don’t run a taxi service from jail to an abortion clinic and back,” Arpaio,

Ok well what about prenatal care, good prenatal nutrition, keeping an eye out for the umpteen conditions that can arise with pregnancy including depression?

Well considering that he instituted the first female chain gang, makes prisoners pay for their own food and serves green baloney chances seem pretty good he figures they should deal with pregnancy on their own then squat, drop and return to work.

Does it in any way ever occur to these fetus freaks that the fetus is directly affected by the mothers conditions? A poor prenatal environment for the mother is a poor prenatal environment for the fetus.

And hey all you fertilized eggs are people too types, don’t you want to argue that keeping fetii in prison ill cared for with no prenatal treatment is a violation of it’s human/constitutional rights?

A lawyer argues, “Louisiana law recognizes that prisoners should be given medically necessary treatment,” said Dorinda Bordlee, a pro-life attorney. “However, pregnancy is not a disease and elective abortion is not medically necessary.”

So that is where their logic lies. If you call pregnancy a non-medical condition you can rest easy with denying access to health care. And what better life for a babe to be born into than a prison, probable whisking away by authorities and placed in state care. But then once they’re born who gives a shit, eh?

http://www.lifenews.com/state3433.html

My Canada doesn’t include Republican Politics!

03/01/2008 by Debra

It is time to take back our country from the religious and idealogical extremists.

Say no to the dissolution of the Wheat Board.

Say no to extremist groups controlling women’s bodies.

Say no to religious control of Canadian arts.

Say no to bribery and vote buying.

Opposition parties must STAND UP! Stand up for Canada, cause Harper won’t. Stand up for women, cause Harper won’t. Stand up use your voice… use your vote …end the Republicanization of Canada!

Image credit:thefilter.ca

Inspiration

Blogging for Choice

01/22/2008 by Debra

Today Americians who believe in freedom and democracy celebrate the day that women were given a right to reproductive liberty.

At a time when so much talk centres around bringing democracy, freedom, women’s rights, to other countries, it is ironic that those things are being scaled back in America itself.

{The death of habeas corpus
Wire Tapping
limiting abortion rights
Indifference to equal pay just a small sampling}

The vocal minorities and special interest groups have organized while decent people just assumed that what was obviously right would continue. Unfortunately the courts and various places of political representation are now stacked with those who would have America become a theocracy. Whose idea of reproductive choice is whether to do it with the lights off or on. And who would happily revert to days when scores of women were on drugs in order to cope with the drudgery and danger which was their lives.

The slanderous sexist and misogynist comments around Hilary Clintons’ campaign is a glaring example of low esteem in which these right-wing, anti-choice, anti-democratic types hold women. It may be amusing for those women in the anti-choice to see their political foes treated thusly, however, they need to bear in mind that these men think pretty much the same way about them.

It is time to fight back. It is time to remember the women who died because they had no choice, because a piece of flesh within her was considered more important than her life. A time when constant pregnancy made women weak and many succumbed to death from hemorrhage.
The step family is not a new invention, men remarried, families blended, this is not an invention of feminism as the misinformed would like to believe.

Birth control is also under attack. There will be no peace until women have lost all the rights so long fought for. It may start with glurgy soft focus pictures of pregnancy and newborns, but it will end only when the jackboot of patriarchy is once again firmly lodged on the throats of women everywhere.

It is your body, your choice, your life, your future. Defend it!

Please Try to Remember the First of Octember

10/16/2007 by Debra

If you are, or were, a Dr. Suess fan you may remember this book. Written about the glorious things you could do on the First of Octember such as stay up all night to drink “66 six packs of Doodle Delight.”

October is Women’s History month. A current look at the SWC site shows this statement from our Prime Minister;

“forthcoming”

Mid way through October Canada’s New Government™ has yet to issue a statement. Perhaps the script from Gwen was delayed….indefinitely?

One imagines that Harper et al would far rather Women’s History month, and indeed all matters pertaining to women’s equality, be relegated to the First of Octember.

Think of the glorious things he could do like ignore the child care issue, roll back programs that most especially help women, place tax cuts above health care, child poverty, employment issues….mmm seems he is already doing that.

Perhaps our ignoble PM lives in the land of Octember.

October 18th is Person’s Day. This is a day to commemorate the Person’s Case.

On October 18, 1929, the five Lords of the Judicial Committee came to the unanimous conclusion that “the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 includes both the male and female sex.…” According to them, the exclusion of women from public office was “a relic of days more barbarous than ours.

It is a sad and sobering thought that there are those who would joyously lead us back to those “barbaric” times. Those who see women not as persons in their own right but simply as wombs from which issue the cannon fodder needed to perpetuate war. War against other countries and war against the marginalized.

As we reflect upon Women’s History let us not forget the struggles that we are free not to face. The struggle for education, for our own name, for our own property, to not be included as property, the right to be paid a decent wage, to fight against sexual impropriety in the workplace, the right to control our reproduction, the right to say no in marriage and so much more.

Our fight to keep our rights, to move forward in our struggle, to ensure our daughters’ never have to fight to be recognized as persons in their own right, is one that must not be relegated to the First of Octember.

( cross posted @ Rose’s Place )

“Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone else’s garden.”

07/14/2007 by Debra

cross posted at Bread and Roses: Front Page

India is proposing to register all women who are pregnant. This ostensibly is being done in order to curb the number of female fetuses being aborted and to help stop the number of female child infanticides.

Currently up to 500,000 female fetuses are being aborted yearly. The preference for boys has “[…]reduced the number of girls per 1,000 boys from 945 in 1991 to 927 in 2001.” ((http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/14/ap3914376.html))

Boys tend to be preferred because they carry on the family name. But families here also fear the financial burden of girls – when it comes time to pay huge traditional dowries to their daughters’ future husbands upon marriage. ((http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-03/2007-03-05-voa17.cfm))

Until there is a change in the way females are viewed societally, the attempt to limit abortions will only result in more female children suffering. As they are more likely to be killed at birth and less likely to receive the same care in feeding and medical attention and less likely to receive education.

There are many mitigating circumstances in the law that permit a woman to have an abortion. Rape is one, the inability of an unmarried woman to care for a child is another. Any pregnancy that causes mental anguish to a woman can be legally terminated even against medical advice. The minister ought to be looking at the root cause of female foeticide, not try to enter a personal domain. ((http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=db8deabe-930d-40d9-8f91-c02f151bc8ff&&Headline=Getting+up+close+and+far+too+personal))

Happy Canada Day

07/01/2007 by Debra

One hundred and forty years of growth. A country that had risen to be known among the world as one of tolerance, peace and respect for human rights.

Canada still had issues to work out but was on it’s way to being a progressive society.

The rise of radical right wingers in the states started affecting Canada for the worst. Social programs were deemed too costly, yet any savings were not realized as tax cuts for corporations further eroded government income.

As the tax income became more stretched, more was expected from the average citizen and yet tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy continued.

Quite conveniently bringing to fruition the prophesy that social programs including health care were costly and unsustainable. Calls for “smaller government” resulted in the loss of hundreds (thousands? ) of government jobs. Resulting in frustration for those trying to access government services and contributing to the shrinking of the middle class. [Read more…] about Happy Canada Day