April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

abortion

Blog for Choice 2009

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Fear often causes people who can only see black and white to further insulate themselves against those things they cannot fathom.

The fearful wrap themselves in cloaks of rules and theologies which offer no variation, brook no deviation and punish those who see beyond the blinders of a forced faith.

So it is with those who wish to enforce pregnancy at any cost. The concept of people, women in particular, living a life of personal autonomy and freedom is foreign to them and therefore scary. There are those who feel that their religion speaks this to them, and indeed many pulpits preach this. And there are those who see power as their god given right and therefore use those blinded by faith to further their power grab.

This scenario has played out politically across America for some years now with many in the political sphere echoing the sentiments of the extremists for political gain. After all they will do as they are told and if told from the pulpit to go vote for a certain person because they will support and enact their religious tenets they will show up and vote. A boon to any politicos career.

The incrementalist approach to enacting fundamentalist religious ideals as laws by which all must live started with the issue of abortion. As any good advertiser knows it is easier to sell something that resonates on an emotional level, can be reduced down to misleading sound bites and visuals and/or that can be framed as a moral absolute. Abortion fit the bill perfectly.

Women’s rights are a battle not yet won in America and in the grand scheme of things abortion rights are relatively new and certainly not affirmed in any constitutional way. As long as there are people willing to see human rights as a subject for debate there will be those ready and willing to take them away.

The fight to remove women’s rights started with abortion. Debating limits, reasons, whether or not a woman has actually thought about hence the waiting periods and forced ultrasounds and the move to declare eggs persons.

When two persons inhabit the same body whose rights prevail? If a foetus is a person endowed with the rights and responsibilities of a person and the state judges that a woman cannot have an abortion to save her life and subsequently dies and somehow the foetus is saved is the foetus guilty of manslaughter? Is the state an accessory to the fact? Or is the taking of women’s lives somehow ok? Apparently in the view of the extremists women are empty vessels for men to fill with seed and if that vessel breaks is easily replaced with another. The reality is that abortion is but the first right they want to revoke. Contraception is already on the hit list. And no they do not support programs to help support the children resulting nor even to pay for the maternity bills.

Forced Pregnancy or Forced Abortion is There a Difference?

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Anti-choice groups are taking the recent story of officials trying to force a woman in China to have an abortion, to reiterate their hatred of UNFPA whom they claim is implicit in this action.
UNFPA’s mission statement reads;

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNFPA because everyone counts.

It is hard to see how anyone could take issue with that, but then we know that choice of any kind is anathema to the forced pregnancy types. Because they are willing to force people to adhere to their rules and beliefs they cannot fathom that those of us who believe in choice believe in actual choice Meaning that we do not support forcing issue into or out of a woman’s womb. UNFPA in fact supports the choice to be mother through their campaign to make motherhood safer;

Every minute, a woman in the developing world dies from treatable complications of pregnancy or childbirth. Every minute, a family is devastated. The lives of surviving children are put at risk. Communities suffer. And for every woman who dies, as many as 20 others are seriously harmed by fistula or other injuries of childbearing.

UNFPA’s strategy for preventing maternal mortality includes:

* Family planning to reduce unintended pregnancies
* Skilled care at all births
* Timely emergency obstetric care for all women who develop complications.

UNFPA also advocates at many levels for the right of mothers to give birth safely. It spearheads the global Campaign to End Fistula, a collaborative initiative to prevent this devastating injury of childbirth and to restore the health and dignity of those who have been living with its consequences. And it is working to address the shortage of skilled midwives in much of the developing world.

However, based on the most recent statistics, maternal deaths are declining far too slowly to meet the MDG and ICPD target for a 75 per cent reduction by 2015.

UNFPA also helps in providing contraceptives and of course preventing pregnancy is the best way to prevent abortion.

Yet the shrieking continues unabated

LifeNews.com

Egged on by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, Obama has promised to restore funding to the UNFPA, the UN agency that has worked hand-in-hand with Chinese family planning officials.

Not only do Obama and his pro-abortion friends ignore the plight of women like Tursun, they’re willing to send our money to the UN group that gives the people who imprisoned her in a hospital for a forced-late term abortion a pat on the back.

“Obama to fund forced abortions” screams another.

Strangely we are to believe that their desire to force pregnancy is somehow less coercive or less a denial of human rights than forced abortion.

For a more realistic assessment we turn to RH Reality Check

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, does not support coercion or abortion. It follows the mandate of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) which clearly states that reproductive health-care programmes should provide the widest range of services without any form of coercion. All couples and individuals have the basic right to decide freely and responsibly the number and spacing of their children and to have the information, education and means to do so. In addition, the global community has decides that abortion should never be promoted as a method of family planning.

[emphasis mine]

Congratulations to Arzigul Tursun on her continuing pregnancy. May all women around the world have the opportunity to control their reproductive choices.

Anti-Choice – Anti-Truth

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Members of the anti-abortion group VoteYesForLife.com are filing a complaint with the FCC over ads they claim are false and misleading. False and misleading. Where have we heard that before? Oh yes Crisis Pregnancy Centres;

* The centers provided false and misleading information about a link between abortion and breast cancer. There is a medical consensus that induced abortion does not cause an increased risk of breast cancer. Despite this consensus, eight centers told the caller that having an abortion would in fact increase her risk. One center said that “all abortion causes an increased risk of breast cancer in later years,” while another told the caller that an abortion would “affect the milk developing in her breasts” and that the risk of breast cancer increased by as much as 80% following an abortion.
* The centers provided false and misleading information about the effect of abortion on future fertility. Abortions in the first trimester, using the most common abortion procedure, do not pose an increased risk of infertility. However, seven centers told the caller that having an abortion could hurt her chances of having children in the future. One center said that damage from abortion could lead to “many miscarriages” or to “permanent damage” so “you wouldn’t be able to carry,” telling the caller that this is “common” and happens “a lot.”
* The centers provided false and misleading information about the mental health effects of abortion. Research shows that significant psychological stress after an abortion is no more common than after birth. However, thirteen centers told the caller that the psychological effects of abortion are severe, long-lasting, and common. One center said that the suicide rate in the year after an abortion “goes up by seven times.” Another center said that post-abortion stress suffered by women having abortions is “much like” that seen in soldiers returning from Vietnam and “is something that anyone who’s had an abortion is sure to suffer from.”

PDF false-and-misleading-health-information

So we know they are coming from a place of truth then.

Here is what Proposition 11 entails

For the second time since 2006, South Dakota voters are being asked to outlaw almost all abortions. A ballot initiative called Initiated Measure 11 would ban the procedure except in cases of rape, incest and a narrow interpretation of the health and life of the woman.

Voters rejected a more restrictive measure in 2006, but polls suggested that South Dakotans would have voted yes if it had included exceptions. A group called Vote Yes for Life soon pushed the new version, which they hope will prevent more than 700 abortions a year and produce the case that will overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion nationwide.

The ads to which the anti-choice group objects states that;

“These claims are being made, almost unbelievably, that the government will decide when a woman needs an abortion, and not her physician,” said Aberdeen lawyer Rory King, who helped to draft the initiated measure. “We object strenuously to and oppose this deceitful advertising.”

AL

and here is a doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancy care;

Marvin Buehner, a pro-choice Rapid City doctor who specializes in high-risk pregnancies, said the law “would amount to a total ban.”

“If there’s a risk of a Class 4 felony if I don’t meet the ambiguous standard of ‘serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily organ or system,’ there’s no way I would consider doing an abortion for health reasons,” Buehner said. “This represents incredible government interference in the practice of medicine.”

WP

One can’t help but feel that their real objection is to people knowing the truth.

More on Prop. 11 here: http://www.sdhealthyfamilies.org/

The Bad Girl Report

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Abortion News & Views from across Cyberspace.

Todays report starts with this post by Amanda Marcotte explaining why pandering to the mushy middle is not the way to defend rights;

Every time a pro-choicer tries to appeal to the “mushy middle” with these tactics, they reaffirm the idea that there are Good Girls who have lots of children and not lots of sex, and Bad Girls who are just Good Girls who’ve lost their way. It might win votes–no one could accuse Barack Obama at this point of having a poor political compass–but it ultimately comes at the cost of undercutting abortion rights. Because if abortion is always wrong, always the bad choice, always a regretful action–that is, if there are so many broken Bad Girls out there–then it becomes impossible to really defend women’s rights. .

Source

Definitely a column some of our politicians could do with reading.

Next we move on to the CMA who came out in opposition to Bill C-484 yesterday and it’s potential to make criminals out of doctors.

By a wide margin, the Canadian Medical Association voted yesterday to oppose Bill C-484, “and any legislation that would result in compromising access for women to the medical services required to terminate a pregnancy.”

Source

in his ever so special way of using non-judgmental or inflammatory language, Ken Epps responded;

“Bill C-484, if it were to become law, would in fact not affect the law on abortion nor would it criminalize pregnant women for any harm they may cause to their own fetuses/unborn children.“

Hey Ken now I’m totally convinced it isn’t about abortion. (Not)

And we end the report with this Knicker Knotted (K)gnashing of teeth from our friends at ALL

MEDIA BLACKOUT OF PRO-LIFE MASS ARREST, FIRST AMENDMENT VIOLATIONS

Washington, DC (20 August 2008) On Aug. 1, 18 pro-lifers were falsely, brutally arrested on bogus charges by Maryland state police officers. Most were scared, crying teenage kids. They weren’t told the charges for which they were being arrested and they weren’t read their Miranda Rights. The girls were humiliatingly searched, and all were locked up. Most weren’t allowed to see their lawyers and were denied their phone calls.

This is one of the largest mass arrests of pro-lifers since the days of the clinic rescue movement which ended in the early 1990s. It’s a clear violation of First and Fourth Amendment rights.

It’s being ignored in a massive media blackout.

“This type of harassment has been used against peaceful protestors in the past and never have these tyrannical methods been acceptable,” said Jen Catelli, director of media relations at American Life League. “The pro-life community needs to stand up and demand media attention for these heinous abuses.”

Defend Life’s Maryland Face the Truth Tour had one final stop to make in Hagerstown, Maryland. They peacefully set up their signs along a stretch of highway and began to pray. State police officers soon showed up and demanded they take down their signs. The pro-lifers complied and moved to a different area.

State police followed and began making arrests.

“They violated all our rights,” said Jack Ames, president and founder of Defend Life. Ames spent the night locked in a cell with the other pro-lifers. Ames and his fellow pro-lifers spent the night praying and singing the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria and Tantum Ergo. The next morning officials released the pro-lifers. Charges have since been dropped.

“American Life League is committed to making sure these people get the attention they deserve,” Catelli said. “This kind of blatant disregard for pro-lifers’ rights on the part of Governor Martin O’Malley’s state police won’t be tolerated. If these pro-lifers were pro-abortion activists or PETA protesters, this would have been on the front page of every newspaper on the East Coast.”

“As more information surfaces about this mass arrest, ALL will ensure that everyone in the pro-life movement hears about these heroes,” Catelli continued.

American Life League was cofounded in 1979 by Judie Brown. It is the largest grassroots Catholic pro-life organization in the United States and is committed to the protection of all innocent human beings from the moment of creation to natural death. For more information or media inquiries, please contact Katie Walker at 540.659.4942.

Guess the Baltimore Sun doesn’t count as media

The no rights for women crowd has apparently settled for second best

Honesty may be the best policy, but it’s important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
George Carlin

A Phone(y) Poll

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EPIC FAIL
EPIC FAIL
Not content with the results of two polls which showed that the majority of Canadians not only are not upset about Morgentaler being awarded the Order of Canada they also support abortion, the fetus fetishers have set up their own phone(y) poll. Read more about the poll and the people behind it at Unrepentant Old Hippie.

CLC and KLR Vu’s formal press release;

NEW NATIONAL POLL: Among 13,000+ Respondents 56% Oppose Morgentaler Order of Canada

TORONTO, July 22 /CNW/ – A random telephone poll of Canadian households
with 13,324 respondents conducted between July 17-21, 2008 has revealed that
55.8% of Canadians oppose the awarding of the Order of Canada to abortionist
Henry Morgentaler.
The national poll commissioned by Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) and just
completed, by KLRVU polling has a 95% confidence level and a margin of error
of 1.5%. The data is accurate 19 times out of 20. A breakdown of votes by
province is provided.
Beginning with a wave on the east coast of Newfoundland, ebbing slightly
in Quebec and then continuing with a surge in Ontario right to the west
coast-the tide of opinion against awarding abortionist Henry Morgentaler has
risen, dramatically.
“Whatever side of the abortion debate you are on, many Canadians from all
walks of life felt this appointment went way too far and offended too many,”
said Jim Hughes National President of CLC. “The mass media coverage of the
Morgentaler award has given us the largest abortion debate this country has
seen in twenty years, and Canadians when they are forced to think about
abortion realize it is horrible.”
In every region of the country opinion has soured considerably. Ontario
is now 58 percent against honoring the infamous abortionist, with the prairies
and the Atlantic provinces having two thirds of its citizens against. Even in
Quebec support for Morgentaler has dropped to 53 percent.
“Clearly the waves of offended Canadians speaking out have had an
impact,” says Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC National Organizer. “When a former
Lieutenant Governor speaks out and returns his ‘Snowflake’, disavowing himself
from the Order, undoubtedly that is going to have an effect.”
Opinion has become the most negative in the Atlantic with Nova Scotia
leading the way at 68 percent against. The substantial size of the sample
gives some unique insights into the regions. For instance over 400 people were
surveyed in Newfoundland alone, even the territories were sampled. With over
13,000+ participants, this survey speaks definitively on the opinion within
the country.

<< Provincial % of No's------------------------------------------------------------------------- Province BC AB SK MB ON QC NB NS PEI NL NWT/NT YK ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Percent 55% 64% 65% 66% 58% 47% 62% 68% 67% 64% 57% 57% -------------------------------------------------------------------------The Question "Do you believe abortionist Henry Morgentaler deserves the Order of Canada Press 1 for Yes Press 2 for No"A French script was used for the province of Quebec. >>

The extensive scientific poll called 157,115 Canadian households,
yielding over 13,000 respondents and the results were weighted in regional
proportions. Results have a margin of error of +/- 1.5%, 19 times out of 20.
The subgroups may have larger margins of error based on concentration of
population. The Targeted Population was Canadian households, respondents were
a result of households that were selected at random, using a random algorithm
provided by INFOLIST Canada, of Toronto, ON. Responses were weighted according
to geographical area, so that the sample would reflect the actual demographic
proportions in the population, using most recent Statistics Canada estimates.
How this poll was conducted: This KLRVU poll was conducted by touchtone
technology which polls households across Canada. Using this technology with
the voice of a professional announcer all respondents heard the questions
asked identically. In theory, with the stated sample size, one can say with
95% certainty that the results would not vary by more than the stated margin
of sampling error, in one direction or the other. There are other possible
sources of error in all surveys that may be more serious than theoretical
calculations of sampling error. These include refusals to be interviewed,
question wording and question order, weighting by demographic control data and
the manner in which respondents are filtered (such as, determining who is a
likely participant). It is difficult to quantify the errors that may result
from these factors.
Fieldwork for this survey was done by KLRVU Research of Winnipeg, MB.

About KLRVU Research

Based in Winnipeg, KLRVU Research is a privately owned polling company
working with private firms since 2006 providing research services. Core
services include research, data collection and macro polling services.

Campaign Life Coalition, together with many other organizations, will
continue to urge Canadians to call the Governor General’s office and insist
that the award be revoked.

For further information: on the results of this survey, call: Media
Contact: Mary Ellen Douglas, CLC National Organizer, (613) 389-4472;
Marie-Christine Houle, CLC Toronto, (cell) (519) 569-0369; KLRVU Research,
Winnipeg, (204) 999-7446

Sorry FFers once again EPIC FAIL!

While all this is for the most part amusing, albeit showing a disgusting lack of ethics, to see the true nature of the people behind the push to deny reproductive rights read this story [points to a google cache page as the page is currently down]
This is true terrorism.

h/t to Alison@Creekside for the link

“Totoo po iyon. Iyon po ang ginagawa ng mga babae sa amin kapag ayaw na nilang magkaanak”

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When one middle-upper-class lay Catholic woman official vehemently disputed the national abortion statistics and denied the frequency of the practice, one by one the grassroots women stood up and countered her assertions, replying respectfully but firmly that abortion was indeed occurring in their parishes. “Totoo po iyon. Iyon po ang ginagawa ng mga babae sa amin kapag ayaw na nilang magkaanak” [It’s true. That’s what women do in our place when they don’t want to have any more babies”], she said.

SOURCE

Poor women in the Filipines struggling to raise many children on little money, and without access to birth control are using abortion as birth control. In the year 2000 an estimated 473,400 women had abortions (including natural and induced.) of those 105,000 had complications and 12,600 died. These stats may be on the low side however as the subject is clouded in silence. As one women opined, “Sino ba namang babae, Ma’am, ang magpapalista na nagpa-aborsyon siya?” [“Ma’am, what woman in her right mind would report that she had an abortion?”]

Filipinos over the age of 15 are required to take an eight-week course on Catholic sexual teachings, after which they can buy a card showing they have completed the course and are eligible to receive the sacraments. Those without such a card have been denied communion and burial. Some priests obtained lists of women who had had IUDs inserted and instructed them to remove the devices

SOURCE

Church indifference to women, to women’s emotional and physical health, and reproductive issues can be seen clearly and starkly in this quote;

The Catholic campaign against emergency contraception has made it unavailable in most Catholic hospitals, even when such a hospital is the only one available in its area and the person requesting EC is not a Catholic. The most brutal example of Catholic clerical insensitivity to women is the church’s opposition to the distribution of EC to refugee women from Kosovo who had fled to camps after having been raped in the war. This view of the woman made pregnant by rape in war is also illustrated by the appeal in 1993 by Pope John Paul II to Bosnian Muslim women who had been raped to turn their rapes into acts of love by “accepting the enemy into them” and carrying their pregnancies to term.

This is what life is like for women in El Salvador

Abortion was thus defined in El Salvador as murder from the first moment of conception. The abortion provider faces a prison term of 6-12 years, those who help her face 2-5 years, and the woman herself faces 2-8 years for abortion in the first trimester and 30-50 years if the abortion occurs after the first trimester. Under these laws numerous women who had abortions have been imprisoned. One was imprisoned for 30 years for abortion of an 18-week fetus, even though she has three small children who are dependent on her as their sole parent. Most of those who are prosecuted are poor women. The rich continue to have options to fly to Miami or visit a well-paid private doctor. But the poor resort to back-alley abortionists, who often leave them with severe injuries. If they go to a hospital with such injuries, they are taken into custody and examined for evidence of abortion. Women in El Salvador have fallen under a reign of terror in which they and their doctors and friends are at risk of prosecution if there is any indication that they have sought abortion

Some may say these are third world countries with third world policies. While that may be true, they do not differ in having poor people who are subject to different treatment. i.e. Anti-choice groups in the states trying to have contraception and reproductive treatments taken off insurance and out of medicare programs. Thus forcing poor women to have no choice but self induced abortion. Calls for abstinence are ridiculous not only because you have no right to police someone else’s genitals but because the vast majority of these women are in long term relationships or marriages.

Religious groups who feel everyone is entitled to their opinion are trying to have contraception classified as abortion. Not only scientifically ridiculous but a flat out lie. How long will it be before the church or groups affiliated will want your medical records? Hold the phone…they have already asked.

The Wichita grand jury convened after anti-choice organizations dusted off an 1887 law which allows citizens to launch grand jury investigations. The groups allege that Dr. Tiller violated a Kansas law prohibiting post-viability abortions unless a woman’s life or health is in danger. The grand jury first met on January 8, 2008, and soon thereafter, subpoenaed the records of every patient who was twenty-two weeks pregnant or more and visited Dr. Tiller’s clinic Women’s Health Care Services from July 1, 2003 on

We need to ask our questions now, vote for our rights now, so that this does not become our dialogue
Finally, one parish worker appealed to the six bishops present, “Ano pong masasabi namin sa kanila kapag naghahanap sila ng payo sa amin, kung talagang hindi na puwede sa kanila na mabuntis?” [“What do we tell women seeking our advice if they really don’t want to go through another pregnancy?”] She did not get an answer.

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