Pro-lifers, not women's shelters, love Bill C-484
Listening to: seagulls and distant conversation with a distinct brogue
Reposted from an email via http://www.thestar.com/living/article/438117
By Antonia Zerbisias -- Jun 06, 2008 04:30 AM
Abstinence kills babies.
Every time an egg leaves the ovary, travels down the fallopian highway and is not fertilized, a potential baby goes down the toilet.
Of course, I am kidding - yet technically correct.
But, following the latest campaign from those that would restrict women's freedoms, I have to wonder how they fail to miss these critical facts.
"The Pill Kills Babies!" is the more radical members of the anti-choice crowd's newest slogan.
This from the American Life League (ALL), which plans to mark tomorrow, the 43rd anniversary of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling establishing the women's privacy in sexual matters, as "Protest the Pill Day."
They claim that the Pill promotes "the culture of death."
You know the one. It's perpetrated by those who believe that a woman should have the freedom not to be pregnant from puberty to menopause.
And that, of course, includes the right to terminate a pregnancy.
According to ALL'S "statistical estimates of the number of chemical, medical and surgical abortions combined" since 1973, "a total of 196,325,000 to 324,325,000 chemical abortions wiped out the equivalent of the entire United States population!"
It's hard not to laugh.
Except that these people are dead serious - and dead wrong.
That's because the Pill prevents women from ovulating. No egg hits the tube. No egg gets fertilized. No baby gets flushed.
ALL would be easy to dismiss except for two things. One, its campaign comes at a time when American women's rights to abortion and access to contraception are increasingly under attack and, two, its propaganda is creeping north of the border.
Meanwhile, here in the Great Pink North, Conservative MP Ken Epp's Bill C-484 is still in play, three months after it comfortably passed second reading in the House of Commons. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion missed the vote, as did nine members of his caucus. But yesterday he told reporters that he would never reopen the abortion debate.
The bill is properly called "An Act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence)" but Epp and its supporters always refer to it as "The Unborn Victims of Crime Act."
They say it's all about meting out punishment to those who attack a pregnant woman. Feticide then becomes murder, punishable by a separate sentence.
Now few people fuss as much as I do about violence against women. It is a terrible, tragic problem, and pregnant women are frequent victims. But guess what? Bill C-484 does not even acknowledge the death toll.
What's more, no anti-violence group or women's shelter supports the bill. But pro-lifers love it.
Epp swears that the bill's language "inoculates" it from eroding abortion rights.
But women's groups, legal and medical associations, unions and even Quebec's National Assembly have all come out against it, maintaining that it takes the first step toward conferring "personhood" on the fetus.
And get this: (italics mine)
"Even if people do start questioning abortion, it does not necessarily follow that they will change their minds about whether a woman should have the freedom to choose that option," Epp wrote in The Ottawa Citizen last month. "What it means is that pro-choice advocates will be in a position of having to justify abortion without relying on the illusion that the fetus is absolutely worthless.
"They will need to defend the view that, in spite of the unborn child being recognized as something of value, the woman's interests are paramount."
Which means that, in Epp's view, the woman's interests are not paramount at all.
So say goodbye to safe, legal abortion and hello to coat hangers and knitting needles.
No, the Pill doesn't kill.
The bill does.
Antonia Zerbisias is a Living section columnist. azerbisias@thestar.ca.
Reposted from an email via http://www.thestar.com/living/article/438117
By Antonia Zerbisias -- Jun 06, 2008 04:30 AM
Abstinence kills babies.
Every time an egg leaves the ovary, travels down the fallopian highway and is not fertilized, a potential baby goes down the toilet.
Of course, I am kidding - yet technically correct.
But, following the latest campaign from those that would restrict women's freedoms, I have to wonder how they fail to miss these critical facts.
"The Pill Kills Babies!" is the more radical members of the anti-choice crowd's newest slogan.
This from the American Life League (ALL), which plans to mark tomorrow, the 43rd anniversary of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling establishing the women's privacy in sexual matters, as "Protest the Pill Day."
They claim that the Pill promotes "the culture of death."
You know the one. It's perpetrated by those who believe that a woman should have the freedom not to be pregnant from puberty to menopause.
And that, of course, includes the right to terminate a pregnancy.
According to ALL'S "statistical estimates of the number of chemical, medical and surgical abortions combined" since 1973, "a total of 196,325,000 to 324,325,000 chemical abortions wiped out the equivalent of the entire United States population!"
It's hard not to laugh.
Except that these people are dead serious - and dead wrong.
That's because the Pill prevents women from ovulating. No egg hits the tube. No egg gets fertilized. No baby gets flushed.
ALL would be easy to dismiss except for two things. One, its campaign comes at a time when American women's rights to abortion and access to contraception are increasingly under attack and, two, its propaganda is creeping north of the border.
Meanwhile, here in the Great Pink North, Conservative MP Ken Epp's Bill C-484 is still in play, three months after it comfortably passed second reading in the House of Commons. Liberal leader Stéphane Dion missed the vote, as did nine members of his caucus. But yesterday he told reporters that he would never reopen the abortion debate.
The bill is properly called "An Act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence)" but Epp and its supporters always refer to it as "The Unborn Victims of Crime Act."
They say it's all about meting out punishment to those who attack a pregnant woman. Feticide then becomes murder, punishable by a separate sentence.
Now few people fuss as much as I do about violence against women. It is a terrible, tragic problem, and pregnant women are frequent victims. But guess what? Bill C-484 does not even acknowledge the death toll.
What's more, no anti-violence group or women's shelter supports the bill. But pro-lifers love it.
Epp swears that the bill's language "inoculates" it from eroding abortion rights.
But women's groups, legal and medical associations, unions and even Quebec's National Assembly have all come out against it, maintaining that it takes the first step toward conferring "personhood" on the fetus.
And get this: (italics mine)
"Even if people do start questioning abortion, it does not necessarily follow that they will change their minds about whether a woman should have the freedom to choose that option," Epp wrote in The Ottawa Citizen last month. "What it means is that pro-choice advocates will be in a position of having to justify abortion without relying on the illusion that the fetus is absolutely worthless.
"They will need to defend the view that, in spite of the unborn child being recognized as something of value, the woman's interests are paramount."
Which means that, in Epp's view, the woman's interests are not paramount at all.
So say goodbye to safe, legal abortion and hello to coat hangers and knitting needles.
No, the Pill doesn't kill.
The bill does.
Antonia Zerbisias is a Living section columnist. azerbisias@thestar.ca.