Pro Choice - This is why Canada should not re-open the abortion debate

Today, Conversative MP, Stephan Woodworth wants to open the debate around the definition of when human life begins and admits it is to re-open the issue of abortion rights in Canada.

I don't like where he's going with this.

While I think that biological arguments could be made that human life begins at conception, another biological and ethical argument can be made that a zygote/embryo/fetus depends on the life of it's host (the mother) who is an autonomous human being with rights and freedoms. The life of the zygote/embryo/fetus has serious impacts on the life and health of the mother. Our criminal code recognizes this and protects the rights of the autonomous human being. Therefore we do not need to to change our criminal code definitions - precisely because it endangers the rights, health, and well-being of autonomous human beings.

Coincidently, the author of "What Pale Blue Dot?" wrote about why she is pro-choice and I couldn't agree with her more.

Because I know that pregnancy kills, and more pregnancies kill more, and I believe in a woman's right to ensure her own survival (if for nothing else but to care for existing children), I strongly believe that women should have affordable, safe access to any and all measures to prevent and terminate pregnancy and the social support to utilize these measures.  Women should be in absolute control of when and under what conditions they put their lives at risk to bear a child. (emphasis mine) And we should value their lives enough to respect that agency.

For comparison, the death rate in any abortion procedure between 1993 and 1997 was .6 per 100,000 (Kaiser, 2002).  This makes ANY abortion, including late term, overall ten times safer than pregnancy and childbirth.  As it happens, this rate is still accurate, with more risky surgical abortion risk at .625 per 100,000 (NAF, 2006).
The takeaway on this is pregnancy is risky.  It may be less risky in wealthy nations when women have access to excellent medical care.  But it is always risky.  Women should be free to only take on this risk willingly and enthusiastically.  (emphasis mine) As such, all family planning services, contraceptive and abortive, are basic lifesaving healthcare and should never be denied to women.
Any denial of this lifesaving care is to presume that the life of a woman is less important than that of her potential offspring.

What bothers me most about pro-life activists is that they sure do seem to care a hell of a lot about the unborn than the living.

Please write your MPs and ask them to honor promises made by Stephan Harper that he will not allow this debate to be re-opened.

Freedom

This news story is so moving. I think that as we move towards a more tolerant society, we need to protect freedom of expression. The story is how a  Thompson Rivers University student, Sooraya Graham, a Canadian woman who is also Muslim and chooses to wear a niqab and abaya took a photograph trying to portray an image through art that Muslim women - even those who wear traditional dress are normal.

This is Canada, she is Canadian, and she has the right to express herself through this medium and the fact a a Muslim man complained should not have resulted in her photo being censored. As her professor says, it is an example of what art should do - make you think and consider the world through a different lense.

I`m not saying the Muslim student group who were offended by the photo can`t express their reasons, but I am saying that that offense should not silence the voice of their fellow students - who is one of their own faith. I will say though that the reactions of the offended student group and Saudi Arabia`s embassy does say alot about their own views on women`s rights - both to freedom of expression and personal freedoms such as whether to allow others to take photos of you...while you are fully clothed...folding laundry. Strange that such as everyday occurrance can be so thought-provoking...and so offensive?!...as to make news....in Canada!

Today, although Sooraya and I are far apart on religious issues - I want her to know that I support her rights and freedoms. I think her photo is very compelling on so many levels. In fact, I`m even a little glad that this controversy happened - because now even more people will see your work and hopefully stop and think about their own biases.

Favourite Posts of 2011

Well, I didn't write as much as I would have liked this year. There is so much I want to research, share and say, and too many unfinished posts. Having a baby has been a great journey, and I love being a secular parent. That doesn't seem to mean much at this stage of the game, but I've had a fun time connecting with secular parents through an incredible large, private group of women from around the world on facebook and immersing myself in reading the blogs listed to the right and learning more about secularism and society from some of my favourite bloggers.

My voice on issues of atheism and secularism is still small and a little tentative, I am quite proud of a few pieces I've written this year. I hope to create this space as a place to use this type of voice more often.

When reviewing my readership statistics for the past year, I was so pleased to find so many hits for
Grief and Atheism.  I poured my heart this piece because it speaks to the humanity we all share, regardless of our beliefs. Believers in god(s) sometimes have the mistaken notion that athiests either don't care about death or devastate us more than themselves because athiests do not have the comfort of religion or god. I haven't found that to be true. I hope that those who read this post were comforted, felt supported, or felt like they understood that athiests do ascribe just as much meaning to their lives and the lives of their loved ones as most folks do - it just might look different.

I had a lot of fun writing The Dilemna of Santa. I think that this is mostly just a dilemma for me although there were some pretty heated discussions about this in the facebook group I mentioned earlier. I tend to overanalyze things too much. My mom thought I was crazy when I started entertaining the notion of "not doing Santa" and what some of my reasons were. This post only sums up my own conclusions of what was actually a very difficult decision-making process where I weighed many of the pros and cons. At the end of the day though, I don't think there is only one answer on this issue.

The Problem with Pretending to Know the Future and Science Doesn't Require Faith! were mostly rants about religious behaviours that annoy me, but I hope to find the courage to approach topics like these more often. I find it difficult to address such topics in a way that expresses my feelings and thoughts in a way that is respectful of religious individuals without offering undue respect to religious beliefs that are not worthy of respect. To be clear, I support freedom of conscious and freedom of belief.  I just do not support the idea that religious beliefs shouldn't be challenged if it is being held out as some of sort universal truth. Religious beliefs, like all ideologies, if promoted as The Truth, should stand up to criticism, testing, and debate in the marketplace of ideas.

And finally, in light of the recent Reddit misongyny event, my post early in the year on Judge shows that Feminism has a way to go yet shows that misongyny still holds a place in even the courts of Canada. It's a pervasive problem in society and needs scrutiny and discussion no matter where it happens - without changing the subject.

I hope to become a stronger voice in 2012; but in the meantime, I'm glad to have gotten my feet wet in 2011.

PS. I didn't forget the cute baby posts.

Parenting and Feminism with Humour - A Review of BossyPants

When I first picked up Tina Fey's new book Bossypants, all I expecting was a good laugh and an insider's view of working at Saturday Night Live.

What I did not expect was an inside view of an intelligent, successful woman who has the ability to speak about important issues like feminism, equality in the workplace, the stress of "having it all" in terms of working and motherhood, and parenting with humour, compassion, and honesty - all without being preachy.

I think comedy takes the edge off when discussing important issues - even when she's being snarky. She explains it well when describing her first sketch as Sarah Palin:

This sketch easily could have been a dumb catfight between two female candidates...however [it] was two women speaking out together against sexism in the campaign. In real life these women experienced different sides of the same sexism coin. People who didn't like Hillary called her a ballbuster. People who didn't like Sarah called her Caribou Barbie. People attempted to marginalize these women based on their gender...Not that anyone noticed. You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even realize it because of all the jokes.

And that is pretty much how she handles discussing many of her views in the book. I was particularly touched by her discussion about experiencing sexism in the workplace, how she handled it, and how it changed over the years. She showed through humorous stories that sometimes sexism and inequality exist because some people do not actually think that women can do what men do as well (eg. women aren't as funny as men), or they just do not understand what women are talking about (eg. a hilarious account of getting a Kotex Classic sketch produced, but men didn't know how it could be produced because they didn't know that women used to wear belts to secure their pads!). Although I haven't experienced much sexism in my places of work - with the exception of a board member who seemed to think it was my job to make his coffee because I was a woman - it was an interesting part of the book to read. Her advice is to ignore it if that particular person isn't acutally standing in your way of getting what you want, and to go over, under, through if they are. Her view is you can't change people, so don't waste your time. Focus on your goal, your talents, your accomplishments and prove you value that way. Then when you get to the top - don't hire the assholes who are stuck in the past.

I also appreciated her honesty about the struggle to balance being a mother and a career woman. She openly admits that there are tradeoffs - that there are times (approx. 3 times per year) she sits in her office sobbing when she realizes what she's missing at home. But then she remembers,

This was interesting to me because I am currently in the process of looking for child care when I return to work and I fully expect to be sad some days while I'm missing my little girl. But, like Tina Fey, ultimately this is what I need to remember:

"There are many moments of my work that are deeply satisfying and fun. And almost as many moments of full-time motherhood that stink like Axe body spray on a brick of blue cheese."

Having introduced Boo Boo to solids, I think I get the reference!

Anyway, I found the book  not only full of laughs, but interesting and thought-provoking too.

"Of course I'm not supposed to admit that there is triannual torrential sobbing in my office, because it's bad for the feminist cause. It makes it harder for women to be taken seriously in the workplace. It makes it harder for other working moms to justify their choice. But I have friend who stay home with their kids and they also have a triannaul sob, so I think we should call it even....Also my crying three times a year doesn't distract me from my job anymore than my male coworkers get distracted..."