Ignore your rights…and they’ll go away

In 1971, Sarah Weddington, along with Linda Coffee, argued the winning side of the landmark case Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. Admist the backdrop of a US Supreme Court that is currently divided on the issue of abortion, Sarah recognizes and fears that Roe vs. Wade could be easily overturned. According to the Vancouver Sun, she always wonders whether younger women have any idea of what life was like back “then” and feels there is still a need for the pro-choice movement and the protection of women’s rights. Indeed, I’m sure we all agree. Come listen to Sarah share her experience and insight at the Orpheum Theatre tonight!

Sarah Weddington
Unique Lives & Experiences
Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver BC
TONIGHT at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets $31 to $70 at Ticketmaster

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Ottawa Senators (and their wives) Support Pro-Life Charity…

I have a huge problem with so-called ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centres’. It’s less what they’re promoting than the fact that they’re terribly deceptive. Young women who are experiencing a ‘crisis’ pregnancy need real counselling regarding their options and that’s what many of them expect from a place that says it deals with ‘Crisis pregnancies’… but in fact these organizations are pro-life and often very manipulative.

So, it also bothers me when an organization like the Ottawa Senator’s wives organization, called Better Halves, raises money from unsuspecting hockey fans and then gives that money to a crisis pregnancy centre. Given the fact that the money donated is being matched by the Ottawa Senator’s foundation as well, I find this even more problematic. Heather Mallick explains on Rabble.ca

The Better Halves are giving a third of the proceeds of this year’s $50,000 Christmas Tree raffle to First Place Pregnancy Centre, an Ottawa anti-abortion group run by Pentecostal Christians.

Planned Parenthood told me it frequently talks to women who went to these apparently welcoming places for counselling on the three options — abortion, adoption and parenting. The group says women report feeling badly treated.

A Crisis Pregnancy Centre just opened up near where I live and everyday that I drive by it I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I hate thinking of the young women who get ambushed there. But it is worse that just that. These organizations are often not just anti-abortion, they are anti-birth control…. as Heather Mallick finds out….

I had an initially cheerful phone interview with Sens Foundation president Dave Ready, who said the Better Halves, when asked to choose three charities, chose:
• First Place.• Kids Help Phone.• Harmony House (a women’s shelter).

First Place was “in line with our mandate,” he said. “We did due diligence and checked that it’s a charity.”

“You went to the website?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you check on the links?”

“No.”

We went through the First Place site links together. There’s a standard disclaimer but First Place hopes we’ll find them “helpful.” I told Ready that some of the news headlines appeared to be libellous, particularly the ones linking corporations that make birth control drugs to the Jewish Holocaust and one drug itself to Nazi death camps. Others were grotesque: “One baby in 30 left alive after medical abortion” turns out to be an absurd, unsubstantiated anonymous “news story” in a British entertainment magazine.

You’re also guided to a donation page for the American Life League, a hardline group based outside Washington. There’s a shop, admittedly very funny, that sells “Abortion is mean” T-shirts for two-year-olds.

They offer booklets explaining that abortion is wrong even in the case of incest. They tell members to scare away raped children outside abortion clinics. They call RU-486 “the anti-human pesticide.” They offer sample letters to the editor to send to outlets that employ, I imagine, columnists like me. One begins: “Planned Parenthood is not ‘a good guy.’”

Ready gets more and more quiet as we track this. Soon he is desperate to get off the phone. He will not let me talk to a Better Half, who might well explain that she hadn’t known that First Place is financed by the Bethel Pentecostal Church in Ottawa and its mission — declared on the Bethel website but nowhere on the First Place site — is not just anti-abortion but anti-birth control.

Waiting On Choice

Just a quick note to point you all in the direction of an article today in the Globe and Mail on abortion wait times in Ottawa.

The interesting thing that arises from this article, for me, is the lack of attention given to either side of the debate; it just isn’t talked about anymore. Does this mean that abortion is any more ‘acceptable’ than it was in 1988? I don’t think so, no. I do think, however, that the lack of attention is actually a way of counteracting the positive gains made by pro-choice groups to make safe and legal abortions a reality for all women.

The main problem in Ottawa is money and time – specifically, operating room time. Doctors are willing to perform abortions, but the OR schedule is packed and there aren’t enough nurses and anesthetists to go around.

The push to reduce wait times overall has actually made things worse, experts say, because the province’s priority areas, such as joint replacement and eye surgery, take operating room time away from everything else, including abortion.

“The Ontario government has begun extra funding [for those priorities] but there aren’t any more nurses or anesthetists, so that means other things have to be decreased,” says the Ottawa abortion provider.

For example, she says, the hospital has cancelled six abortion clinic days per year – which adds up to about 120 abortions – to give more operating room time to orthopedics.

“It’s insane that no more funds are given by the provincial government for abortion services,” Ms. LaRue says.

The provincial government pointed the finger at local health authorities, noting that overall funding has increased for both the Ottawa Hospital and the Morgentaler clinic in recent years.

The abortion wait time is a local problem, a health ministry spokesman said.

“We do not track wait times for abortions,” said A.G. Klei, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health.

I find it distressing that as funding for other surgical procedures increases nothing is done by the government to counterbalance the resources which are siphoned off from other surgical domains. This applies to surgeries other than abortion. However, that a hospital should need to offload its extra procedures to an already overloaded private clinic does not bode well for the state of abortion funding in Canada.

One rare thing activists on both side of the issue agree on: The Canadian public doesn’t think much about abortion any more.

Anti-abortion activists decry the lack of attention to their issues. “Why aren’t we looking for a way to support these women and help them in their pregnancies?” asks Joanne Byfield, president of LifeCanada.

Pro-choice supporters, meanwhile, say they’re struggling to lessen the stigma of abortion and bring access issues to light. “I have not figured out how to say this so people grasp what is happening and how unfair it is,” Ms. Wright says.

For now, abortion wait time is an issue that’s confined to the shadows.

Women who need abortions are reluctant to speak out publicly, and few people are willing to stand up for a silent, stigmatized constituency.

“They know women will never complain,” Ms. Wright says. “Not about this.”

As this journalist observes those who need abortions are not in a place of rhetorical power–indeed they are a marginalized “constituency.”
Abortion is one of those things that we cannot wait on; it must be talked about–regardless of your ideological opinions on the issue, ignoring it isn’t safe for anyone…

Waiting On Choice

Just a quick note to point you all in the direction of an article today in the Globe and Mail on abortion wait times in Ottawa.

The interesting thing that arises from this article, for me, is the lack of attention given to either side of the debate; it just isn’t talked about anymore. Does this mean that abortion is any more ‘acceptable’ than it was in 1988? I don’t think so, no. I do think, however, that the lack of attention is actually a way of counteracting the positive gains made by pro-choice groups to make safe and legal abortions a reality for all women.

The main problem in Ottawa is money and time – specifically, operating room time. Doctors are willing to perform abortions, but the OR schedule is packed and there aren’t enough nurses and anesthetists to go around.

The push to reduce wait times overall has actually made things worse, experts say, because the province’s priority areas, such as joint replacement and eye surgery, take operating room time away from everything else, including abortion.

“The Ontario government has begun extra funding [for those priorities] but there aren’t any more nurses or anesthetists, so that means other things have to be decreased,” says the Ottawa abortion provider.

For example, she says, the hospital has cancelled six abortion clinic days per year – which adds up to about 120 abortions – to give more operating room time to orthopedics.

“It’s insane that no more funds are given by the provincial government for abortion services,” Ms. LaRue says.

The provincial government pointed the finger at local health authorities, noting that overall funding has increased for both the Ottawa Hospital and the Morgentaler clinic in recent years.

The abortion wait time is a local problem, a health ministry spokesman said.

“We do not track wait times for abortions,” said A.G. Klei, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health.

I find it distressing that as funding for other surgical procedures increases nothing is done by the government to counterbalance the resources which are siphoned off from other surgical domains. This applies to surgeries other than abortion. However, that a hospital should need to offload its extra procedures to an already overloaded private clinic does not bode well for the state of abortion funding in Canada.

One rare thing activists on both side of the issue agree on: The Canadian public doesn’t think much about abortion any more.

Anti-abortion activists decry the lack of attention to their issues. “Why aren’t we looking for a way to support these women and help them in their pregnancies?” asks Joanne Byfield, president of LifeCanada.

Pro-choice supporters, meanwhile, say they’re struggling to lessen the stigma of abortion and bring access issues to light. “I have not figured out how to say this so people grasp what is happening and how unfair it is,” Ms. Wright says.

For now, abortion wait time is an issue that’s confined to the shadows.

Women who need abortions are reluctant to speak out publicly, and few people are willing to stand up for a silent, stigmatized constituency.

“They know women will never complain,” Ms. Wright says. “Not about this.”

As this journalist observes those who need abortions are not in a place of rhetorical power–indeed they are a marginalized “constituency.”
Abortion is one of those things that we cannot wait on; it must be talked about–regardless of your ideological opinions on the issue, ignoring it isn’t safe for anyone…