In this case, the answer is yes. Please take the time to read this story about an abortion survivor, and then think very carefully before you criticize Liberal M.P. Paul Steckle's recent heroic efforts to reintroduce this topic for discussion:
In introducing Bill C-338, 'An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (procuring a miscarriage after 20 weeks of gestation),' Steckle called on the House to debate the issue noting that Canada was one of the only countries in the world with absolutely no protection for the unborn in law whatsoever. The bill would restrict abortion after twenty weeks gestation; currently in Canada abortions are performed at tax-payer expense up to birth.
If you still want to play partisan political games after reading the article, just remember that Gianna Jessen is a woman who struggled as an aborted infant to choose life - her own.
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Update: Please check out the following links:
Focus on the Family - "Abortion Bill Tabled in Parliament"
Big Blue Wave - Lots of info and resources.
33 comments:
It's about time someone in the government had the guts to stand up and put a limit on abortion. It's a start. Good for my M.P. Paul Steckle!
At least people are going to be talking about it! I was afraid that the Thought Police might cart away anyone who brought up the subject.
Abortion is such an emotionally charged subject, it's almost impossible to debate any aspect of it without inspiring emotional reactions.
My position is this: there are situations where abortion is appropriate but those situations are the exception. If an abortion is appropriate, it must be done before the fetus is viable.
At least some fiberals have some brains. It is beyond belief that Canada has no limit to abortion. Technically you can abort 20 39 weeks, but I doubt you would find any doctor in the country that crazy.
Thanks for the support Steve. I am so encouraged that Paul Steckle has undertaken this daunting task.
Dr. Roy and Mac, yes there is a point where we must draw a line in the sand. I guess I feel very strongly about this because in fact there is someone very close to our family who has cerebral palsy and was adopted so the story in the post really hits close to home. She however had a very courageous birth mother who decided to allow her to have life. Thank God for that.
This should be interesting.
I doubt it very highly that the LPC would have let Steckle table this bill if they had a leader.
The other side of that knife is that without one theres nobody to keep the lib-left kookfringe in the liberal caucus from attacking Mr Steckle.
Mr. Steckle certainly is one of the few good Liberal MPs. Being from a rural riding, he has no be against his party on most issue. It will be difficult for him to be re-elected in the next general election and he knows it.
I have done research on the number of abortions (see my blog). The number of abortions past 20 weeks numbers in the hundreds. We know that in 2003, there were 325 abortions past 20 weeks. Some of them, as poor-choice activist Joyce Arthur has admitted, are for "socially compelling reasons" e.g. the teenager in denial about pregnancy. I encourage you to take a look at my blog for more information. Please talk it up. No one in the mainstream media has discussed this issue.
Thanks, Suzanne. Great blog. I just updated this post with a link.
At the risk of sounding judgmental, it would be nice if you sanctimonious holy rollers perhaps concerned yourselves more with the fate of tens of thousands of infants (fully born!) who die EVERY SINGLE DAY around the world from lack of clean water and are deprived of the other basic necessities of life. Perhaps instead of selfishly amusing yourselves by parsing through a fine tooth comb when abortion should or should not be illegal in order to assert the moral superiority of your creed, perhaps your efforts would be better spent getting off your collective arse and do something to REALLY protect life, given that you hold it so sacred and precious. Far be it for me to suggest that you have a double standard that allows you to turn a blind eye to the suffering and privations of others simply because they’re far and away, but the obsessive focus on abortion could be construed that way by some.
Red Tory, you've memorized the Pro-
Choice talking points very well. Congrats.
Red Tory, I desperately need your guidance. Could you please tell me what concrete steps you have personally taken to alleviate the terrible living conditions of children «who die EVERY SINGLE DAY around the world from lack of clean water and are deprived of the other basic necessities of life.»?
ROTFL!!!! Gabby, that was awesome.
Joanne, thanks for your thumbs-up.
You see, I truly DO want to learn from others who are far more compassionate and altruistic than I am.
I know I'm off topic, but ...
I wrote seeking some similar guidance from Bono after he expressed discontent with the Harper-Flaherty budget, but I've yet to hear from him or his "Make Poverty History" campaign workers.
I don't think my request was THAT unreasonable. All I wanted to know was how much HE had personally given out of HIS own personal income to the cause he so publicly promotes. In the meantime, I occasionally read about his jet-setting here and there and everywhere, all the while making sure that his halo was firmly in place ...
Whereas in yesterday's news, there was a report about Warren Buffett, reportedly the 2nd richest man in the world (head of one of those ugly greedy corporations), divesting himself of his billions to give them to a charitable foundation founded by another greedy corporate giant, Bill Gates.
Kinda makes ya think ...
Very dismissive, patronizing and condescending. Can't say I'm surprised, however I am disappointed. Those weren't "talking points" -- that's honestly the way I feel. You don't tolerate profanity on your blog, otherwise I'd tell you where to shove your response.
RT - that's honestly the way I feel.
O.K. then as Gabby said, what are you doing as an example of what you say we should all be doing?
And BTW, RT that's very presumptuous of you to suggest that ALL pro-lifers ignore the suffering of children in the world, and do nothing to help.
I find that Very dismissive, patronizing and condescending.
To answer your smug, facetious question “gabby” I give what I can, when I can to charities such as WorldVision. But that really misses the point. I was referring to Joanne’s little online talking shop. What are you doing to raise awareness and get others involved or motivated in actually addressing the problem? Yak, yak, yak, on and on you all yammer about abortion. Well, focus on the trees all you want, you’re missing the forest.
What are you doing to raise awareness and get others involved or motivated in actually addressing the problem? And what are you doing?
good going JO!
Thanks, Sara. Getting a lot of flack on this, but following what your heart tells you to do, and what you know is right is not always popular.
Red Tory's comments are reminiscent of those of White Supremacists towards abolitionists. "Why don't you worry about your 'own kind'? Why do you have to be such fetus (re:nigger) lovers? " As if fetuses are nobodies to worry about. Never mind all the suffering they experience RIGHT HERE AT HOME.
If there's one message I've seen from poor-choicers, it's that they do not want you to examine the value of a fetus or the morality of abortion. Do not, under any circumstances, ever suggest this act cannot be examined or questioned. It must, at all costs, be blindly accepted, in a manner reminiscent of blind fundamentalism. They never address the act of abortion: only the things that are invoked to justify it. Which is a "the ends justifies the means" mentality. Whatever it takes to get rid of the "problem" (re: fetus). Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
I have a couple of pictures of a baby who was killed at 7 months due to a partial birth abortion. It's not that graphic because the wound is behind her head, and it just looks red-- the rest of her is intact. Just look at the great big wound on her head. You tell me she didn't suffer.
Joanne, RT was using what is called a straw man argument to change the direction of the thread. One can only wonder at his motive for doing so.
Mac, yeah thanks. Straw Man or Red Herring. He is obviously extremely uncomfortable with this subject. I have heard this very argument from so many others Lefties: Let's not worry about the aborted kids until we have all the other ones looked after.
As Suzanne says, it is reminiscent of the struggle for equal rights of the black community. The only difference here is that the marginalized minority can't stage a protest march. Thank God one child was able to escape the death sentence and give a voice to all those who are denied the right to even draw their first breath.
That BTW, was the argument that Sir Paul used with the seal pups - they should be allowed to have their first swim. How ironic.
Good post Joanne. And great comments Suzanne. It always amazes me how angry abortion rights activists get when this subject comes up. Why are they not able to debate this is a calm, civilized manner? I think that deep down they realize that it is a human being and they don't want to face facts. Abortion = dead child.
The mental gymnastics that are used in this country to justify abortion is amazing. In law, there is such a thing as an "unborn child", but he's not a human being. What the heck is he, a wombat???
Not to put words in R.T.'s mouth, but I think one thing he was alluding to is the fact that there are organizations (with the tiny classified ads) whose purpose is to save the unborn child, by whatever ever means is required, mostly delaying tactics, until it is too late, i.e. the baby is born, or some legal limit has been passed.
Once the kid is born, it's the mom's problem, and these baby savers are nowhere to be found. They only only show up to lament the baby who dies anyway by coathanger. And the mother, well we hope the coathanger kills her to, don't we, since she "deserves" it?
There is a lot of talk here about hypocrisy among what you call "poor choicers". Actually "poor choice" is a good name for it. Abortion is always a poor choice. And yes it is killing a baby that hasn't been born. But to talk like pro choicers are full of anger? There is no anger. Extremely uncomfortable? No. Sad that abortions happen, certainly, and tired of having one's mental competence called into question by people who believe that sending pregnant women back to the coathangers is somehow an improvement. There is no mental gymnastics. Any other rhetoric you want to add?
The whole question is one of when does a person have legal rights, separate from those of his or her mother? Birth is when you get those rights.
Birth is when you get those rights.
I know that we've been down this road before, but please tell me exactly when the moment of birth is, L.S. Please. I need to know this. Thank you.
Whoa, well said, Tango-Juliette! Wow!
Liberal Supporter: Many "poor choicers" (I love that term!) should promote another option more often, and that is ADOPTION.
Interesting discussion going on at Red Tory's blog on this subject too. He seems a bit perturbed with Liberal M.P. Paul Steckle.
What is want to know is, WHERE ARE THE WOMEN WHO SUPPOSEDLY FEEL SO STRONG ABOUT THEIR RIGHT TO CHOOSE? WHY ARE WE ONLY HEARING FROM MEN??????
Yes, Joanne, I always wondered that as well myself!
Yeah, the old coathanger argument. There are some places in the Western world where getting an abortion is next to impossible, such as parts of Australia and the Southern US.
Tell me: where are all those coathanger abortions? Gimme some stats. The idea that thousands of women in the western world died of abortion has been resoundingly disproven. The number of women who did die was fairly small. And in this day of crisis pregnancy centres, adoption and social programs, there's no excuse. Even Ellen Goodman, a poor-choice columnist, admitted that the myth of thousands of women dying has been disproven. Former abortionist Bernard Nathanson, a founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League, and now a pro-life Catholic, says that the numbers were made up to con the media.
You know why they don't have coathanger abortions? Because they've been alerted to the fact that if you have one, you can kill yourself.
Don't want to die of a coathanger abortion? Don't have one! How come we do not require personal responsibility?
I note, once again, no poor-choicer has addressed the issue: whether it is morally acceptable and humane to kill the fetus in the ways I mentioned. What's the matter: afraid to confront the means?
There are all kinds of reasons to invoke abortion. Like you don't want women to get coathanger abortions. That's an end. Or control of one's own body. Or suffering of the post-natal child. etc.
The means that poor-choicers propose to accomplish this is allowing fetuses to be killed, even in the second and third trimester.
Why do poor-choicers not defend the morality and humaneness of this act? Does the end justify the means for them? Is this act so unspeakable that they have to dodge the issue and make it about the moral character of pro-lifers and their giving habits? Why don't they speak to the act in question being criminalized?
See, you can invoke all the justifications you want, but if the act itself is morally unacceptable, then that's all moot.
Joanne, check out RT's blog. He's having a spaz-attack at our expense!
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