April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

freedom

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.

Blogging for Choice

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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!

Happy Anniversary

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CharterWho’s afraid of the big bad charter?

The rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter include:

fundamental freedoms (section 2), namely freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and of other media of communication, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom of association.
democratic rights: generally, the right to participate in political activities and the right to a democratic form of government:

Section 3: the right to vote and to be eligible to serve as member of a legislature.
Section 4: a maximum duration of legislatures is set at five years.
Section 5: an annual sitting of legislatures is required as a minimum.

mobility rights: (section 6): the right to enter and leave Canada, and to move to and take up residence in any province, or to reside outside Canada.
legal rights: rights of people in dealing with the justice system and law enforcement, namely:

Section 7: right to life, liberty, and security of the person.
Section 8: right from unreasonable search and seizure (only if the authorities believe someone is a threat to another, to society or to themselves, is such a search justified).
Section 9: freedom from arbitrary detainment or imprisonment.
Section 10: right to be informed of reasons for arrest including the right to retain counsel upon arrest.
Section 11: rights in criminal and penal matters such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Section 12: Right not to be subject to cruel and unusual punishment.
Section 13: rights against self-incrimination (this is most seen during plea bargains between the accused and the crown)
Section 14: rights to an interpreter in a court proceeding.

equality rights: (section 15): equal treatment before and under the law, and equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination.
language rights: generally, the right to use either the English or French language in communications with Canada’s federal government and certain provincial governments. Specifically, the language laws enshrined in the Charter include:

Section 16: English and French are the official languages of Canada and New Brunswick.
Section 16.1: the English and French-speaking communities of New Brunswick have equal rights to educational and cultural institutions.
Section 17: the right to use either official language in Parliament or the New Brunswick legislature.
Section 18: the statutes and proceedings of Parliament and the New Brunswick legislature are to be printed in both official languages.
Section 19: both official languages may be used in federal and New Brunswick courts.
Section 20: the right to communicate with and be served by the federal and New Brunswick governments in either official language.
Section 21: other constitutional language rights outside the Charter regarding English and French are sustained.
Section 22: existing rights to use languages besides English and French are not affected by the fact that only English and French have language rights in the Charter. (Hence, if there are any rights to use Aboriginal languages anywhere they would continue to exist, though they would have no direct protection under the Charter.)

minority language education rights: (Section 23): rights for certain citizens belonging to French or English-speaking minority communities to be educated in their own language.

Harper it would seem.

However, the Charter has often been the subject of intense debate. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has indicated in the past his concern about the power of the Charter. Soon after he became prime minister, he suggested that judges should “apply the law, not make it.”

The current Conservative government has no plans to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Charter.

Regardless of the fact that our New Canadian Government™ does not support rights and freedoms for all of Canada’s citizens, A Very Happy Charter Day to you all!

Rights for the Rich only

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The Star has an article on the Charter today,

A quarter-century later, the Charter is at a crossroads. While there may be much to celebrate, the process of using it to establish rights is time-consuming and expensive, almost entirely dependent on government subsidies and the benevolence of lawyers to bankroll cases, sometimes costing millions of dollars.

Restrictions on legal aid and a decision last fall by the Conservative government to kill the Court Challenges Program, which helped fund individuals and citizen groups fighting for constitutional protections, have made the Charter more inaccessible than ever.

Today, many experts are pessimistic about its future as a tool in battling for equality and fending off unwarranted government intrusions into people’s lives. Like fine champagne, the Charter is in danger of becoming a luxury many never taste.

Interesting quotes from a conservative on rights for the average Canadian.

Rainer Knopff, a political scientist at the University of Calgary, said the program was “a biased boondoggle that had gone well past its `best before’ date.”

The program only funded groups on “one side” of the political spectrum while “socially conservative groups never got any money. Not a penny, as far as I know,” said Knopff.
He also echoed then-Treasury Board president John Baird’s suggestion, made in defending the decision to kill the program, that it made no sense for Ottawa to spend public money helping groups challenge its own legislation.
“I don’t want to pay for surrogate litigants,” said Knopff, arguing public interest groups should raise their own money for Charter cases. “If they can’t raise the money – tough.”

Apparently conservatives feel rights are for those that can afford them. Not that this is surprising, however, it is nice to have it so neatly laid out.

One can only hope that during an election campaign these words along with those of Harper saying that ordinary Canadians aren’t protesting complete with scenes of farmers and seniors and youth out protesting, find major play in party ads.

Politics and Religion

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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