Working in Montréal today --Free guns, lower taxes, imprison women

Good morning folks,

I will be working in Montréal today.

Now is one of those moments where I will make some statements that will have a polarizing effect on my readers, much like advocating the serving of seal meat in the Parliament Hill restaurant. Mmmm pan fried bashed head seal filet stuffed with dolphin fin served with steamed greens and artichoke.

While I expect some hate mail from some of you, just keep it civil.  Not so much for me, but really for you and your own karma.

I recently received a piece of campaign filth, campaign American style where a group, the CLC -The Campaign Life Coalition, is campaigning against the Liberal party and sent out a card filled with photos of aborted fetal tissue and several statements about Justin Trudeau.

I will disclose that I am neither a Liberal party supporter nor in the Conservative camp (who keeps just enough distance from the CLC so it has plausible deniability, but the CLC's mouth piece explains that it is working hand in hand with Conservative MPs and candidates).  I thought that I would make that clear, not a fan of either house.  I have also become quite 'meh' over the NDP since they have moved to pursue the popular vote, in effect, a man without a party, but that is a different Pulp.

I am going to wander a bit from topic flow but will be right back.  I do find it odd that it is usually proponents of less gov't, fewer laws, that are also proponents of more laws about women's bodies.  "The gov't should tax me less, let me 'free range' my children, leave my guns alone, but control my wife's, daughter's and neighbour's wife's sexuality and uterus" --really Biff?

That the card strangely suggests that young Justin is responsible for abortion in Canada is beyond absurd.  Way back in 1988 (Justin was 17), during the Conservative gov't of Brian Mulroney and after a few decades of slow movement away from imprisoning women for life, and forcing them to carry a fetus to full term over what ever objections they might have to the use of their bodies in this fashion, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada's abortion laws to be unconstitutional.

The highest court noted that the law "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations" and that the law "asserts that the woman's capacity to reproduce is to be subject, not to her own control, but to that of the state" were essentially a breach of the woman's right to Security of the person, which is guaranteed under Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I'll let that sink in a bit.  It was the Supreme Court of Canada not Parliament that freed women from the threat of imprisonment if she obtained an abortion.

The Conservative gov't then tried unsuccessfully to pass new legislation in 1989-90.  Yes, the C's have a long track record of trying to replace one piece of unconstitutional legislation with more unconstitutional legislation.  Although the legislation passed vote, while it was waiting to pass the upper house one young woman in Kitchener was severely injured during a botched back room abortion and a young woman in Toronto died from a self inflicted abortion.   Many speculated that she was too scared to go to the hospital for fear of being arrested.  The Senate ended up in a tie vote, failing to pass the legislation.

You see, the proponents of anti-abortion laws seem to always conveniently forget or ignore the fact that countries with anti-abortion laws do have something else instead.  Dead young women.

In the absence of legal, safe abortions, women will take what ever steps are available to them.  Lysol flooding, wire hangars, and back room improperly trained hacks.  These methods result in severe infections, horrible injuries and deaths.

Think about the mindset of a young woman, perhaps in university or the mother of several other children where an additional is simply not feasible, or the incest or rape victim that does not wish to discuss or make her circumstances public, or the woman with emotional stresses or perhaps it would be a high risk because of age or genetic make up, or what ever.  For as many women there are as many situations, all different.  There are a myriad of situations where the burden of carrying a pregnancy to full term and creating a new child that needs to be fed, clothed and cared can be too much to cope with emotionally, economically, physically.

Who the hell is the state, who are we, to require under the threat of life imprisonment (yeah, the good old day, what a bunch of horse sh*t) that economically limited women perform this act?  Safe abortion performed by well trained physicians has always been available to the wealthy and if Canada reversed itself back to the Dark Ages, then women of means will travel to any of the 75 or so countries on this planet where it is legal.  

And the less than economically advantaged?  Back rooms and death.

Hey, how about I list some of those 'enlightened' countries that the CLC would like Canada to emulate where a woman can die waiting for an abortion.

Angola
El Salvador
Chile
Nicaragua
Dominican Republic
Malta 
Democratic Republic of Congo
Somalia
Micronesia 
Laos
Iraq
Honduras
Haiti

Let's not let this become an election issue and how about Harper separate his party from the CLC and direct his candidates to disassociate from them as well?  And let's knock off this American style third party soft dollar campaign bullsh*t shall we?

If we give them a foothold on this issue, next it will be the re-illegalization of birth control or being gay.  It was abortion, the pill and same-sex sex that Justin's father, Pierre Trudeau, spoke of when he said in 1969 that gov't should stay out of the bedrooms of Canadians.

Have a good day.