Speaking as member of that left-wing fringe group called women
Most women in North America don’t think of giving birth as playing roulette with our lives, which is a testament to modern medicine, relatively high access to pre-natal care, and good nutrition. Most of us aren’t forced to deal with yearly pregnancies anymore which probably speaks to our relatively good overall health.
Good for us, but what about women in places like the Congo or Cambodia where access to the bare necessities is woefully inadequate? Childbirth is still playing roulette with the lives of those women and you cannot promote women’s health in third world countries without including and acknowledging there is a necessary role that therapeutic abortions play in both the emotional and physical lives of women.
I wish it were otherwise, but it isn’t, and failure to fund any third world women’s health initiatives without providing funding for therapeutic abortions is playing roulette with the lives of the most vulnerable women in the world. Frankly, it is not the role of those promoting women’s health to deny access to therapeutic abortions, because personal sensitivities are on the squeamish side. Squeamishness has no role in medicine or the promotion of healthcare.
For a Canadian senator to warn Canadian NGO’s for women’s healthcare to ’shut the fuck up about abortion’ or feel the wrath of a Canadian Prime Minister with a grudge is a challenge which deserves to be met if we actually care about the healthcare of women at home or around the world. I would even go so far as to suggest that a survey of Canadian women across the country would reflect that, we are currently very happy with the status of the laws governing abortion in Canada which is to say – we are happy that there are no laws governing abortion, but the conscience of a woman and her doctor. Third world women deserve no less than what Canadian women take as a given. And its time for Mr. Angry to take a time-out in the corner..
You are so lucky to have such a civilized policy in Canada. Here, in the US, the policy changes from state to state and those who need abortion the most often do not have access to it. I’ve always wondered why it’s considered acceptable for those in power to dictate to the poorest, the most desperate and those with the most to lose. That goes double or triple for the 3rd world! I read somewhere that past US administrations cut funding to any overseas clinic that gave out contraceptives. I hope that’s wrong because condemning women to have babies until they drop dead or watch their children die of famine is the height of cruelty.
ps – thanks for letting me comment so much. You know – or rather I should assure you, that I am a very civilized and polite poster and would never put anything rude or crude on your blog. There may be, in fact, I am certain that there will be times that we disagree but I have never used that as an excuse to be nasty or rude on the Internet.
I just go into the back room, stomp up and down and indulge my inner child in a temper tantrum! Because when I’m right, I’m RIGHT! I just don’t know why the whole world doesn’t understand this
Nancy, as much as I would like to accept your praise I should tell you Canada isn’t the paragon of virtue either. The title of my post came from a off-the- cuff remark our PM made to describe women in this country in a talk to his party faithful. While there are no laws governing abortion (owing to the Supreme Court striking down the law which governed abortion – the lack of law has more to do with the Cdn government’s inability to establish a consensus on the kind of law which is needed). Right up until our current government we were all happy (that is except for the contingent who believe they have the right to enforce their values on other women’s bodies) with the ‘no law’ status. Our current Prime Minister insists he has no desire to ‘re-open’ the abortion debate and yet the issue keeps coming up from his so-con MP base. Access to abortion is rather spotty as availability is left up to the hospitals or doctors to decide. In some provinces, abortion is non-existent and women are forced to make the trek out of province to get one.
What I don’t want to see is any law attempt to regulate or control the reproductive choices or options a woman makes. A woman should be master over her body and even if this means she uses ‘abortion’ as a form of birth control the state has no right to dictate what she does with her body. Frankly, any woman who uses abortion as a viable birth control method is not who I would suggest is prime mother material. Where the pro-choice fraction breaks down is on how pays for the abortion – government funding or the individual.
Overall, Cdns were generally centrists who use to prefer compromise
orto conflict. I am not so sure anymore.