Deep thoughts

The disembodied plaster fetus is a nice design touch, yes?

There is a serious challenge to be written to Bruinooge about his lurid comparison of selling organs on eBay and abortions. As many have observed, women don't attempt to sell their aborted fetuses on eBay, or at least I've never heard of such a case and I doubt it would be allowed to last for long.

It is true, though, that both are human-rights issues. We don't allow the sale of human organs because we know that desperately poor people would consider that an option for survival. It happens in other countries.

The Charter of Rights considers poor people to be fully human. Similarly, it considers women to be fully human, and thus capable of making decisions for themselves every bit as legitimate as the decisions any man might make for himself. In a democracy, no group of citizens should have the right to vote on the human rights of another group. Canada has approached that understanding probably more closely than has any other nation, and we should be proud that we have done that.

The rest of Bruinooge's noise is just noise. In a narrow sense, it is true that we have no laws controlling abortion, but abortion remains a medical procedure, and doctors answer to ethical standards higher than lawyers or MPs do; they are also held to those standards by provincial boards. No doctor in Canada would ever kill a viable baby, and late-term abortions occur only rarely, when the mother and doctor are faced with a choice between two deaths or one.

I'm a little confused by his comparison - does he think we SHOULD be able to sell kidneys on e-Bay? I mean, the garbage about kidneys having more rights than fetuses is pure junk- in fact it's an out-and-out lie. So why is he putting it out there? Are we witnessing the attempt to birth a new zombie meme? Now there is something that should be aborted.

Andrew is having a midlife crisis.

Huh. His attitude towards women stinks, for sure. But his argument doesn't seem to mostly involve the fetuses either--they too are just a means to an end. In fact, *everybody* is just a means to an end--it's ultimately a rather fascist argument. And it's a really stupid end.

Bruinooge is saying we must, absolutely must, stop abortion *because it blocks population growth*! Say what?! Population growth, apparently, is an inherent and absolute good with which nothing must be allowed to interfere. Why? Because in order for communities to be the way he wants them to be, there has to be a certain proportion of kids? I'm not clear why he wants a high birthrate, to be honest, and I doubt he is. Conservatives often do--it's an idea that gets crosspollinated between right wing growth economics, which holds that there has to be ever more peons to add to the surplus or everything will fall apart, and right wing Christianism, which is big on being fruitful and multiplying and subduing the earth, no matter what. The Rapture will be wiping all that messy "ecosystem" away anyhow.

Surely any sane person would concede that at this stage in the career of the great but closing-on-late planet earth, a shrinking population would be a Good Thing. But here we have paleoconservatives arguing that we just have to stop abortion . . . because it's important to keep on burdening the planet still more! They're nuts.

Note that as usual for the hard core antiabortion crowd, while he doesn't talk about it his beef presumably extends to birth control as well.

Oh let them talk. The more nimRod and his friends yammer, the more Canadians realize what a bunch of cavemen they are.

Given the moves by Republicans to limit not only access to abortion but birth control as well, it's hardly a surprise to see that Bruinooge and other members of the Conservative caucus would consider a woman to be nothing more than a life support system for a uterus.

Bruinooge's comments also have interesting undercurrents of racism and nativism on a number of levels.

If Bruinooge were actually and honestly interested in "enhancing the growth of the next generation of Canadians," he might have addressed the recent UNICEF report that ranks Canada last among "economically advanced" countries in terms of our record on early childhood education and child care.

This is a record the Harper-led party inherited from the Liberals, and has done little to improve after nearly three years in power.

Bruinooge might like to reflect on what "subtle" message he and his party have been sending on the value of the "next generation of Canadians" with this record.

By the way, what is "natural population growth," as Bruinooge uses the term? Is there an "unnatural" kind (e.g. through immigration) that we'd best avoid as a nation? Maybe this is what Mahigan is getting at as well.

I also agree with Yeti about the stupidity of the claim that kidneys enjoy 'protection' under Canadian law. As skdadl points out, the aim of laws against organ sales is to prevent exploitation of poor kidney owners, not to confer on kidneys any status as rights-possessors.

False analogy, pure and simple.

Returning to the subject of women's rights as full human beings, I note that this same Rod Bruinooge was presumably on-side with Harper's original plan to undermine the right of women workers to equitable pay for their work.

I wonder if Bruinooge has ever reflected on what message is sent by his leader's policy of undermining women's financial security in this way.

I agree that that reference to "natural population growth" is a racist or nativist dog whistle -- very odd coming from someone who uses his status as an aboriginal politically.

Or maybe not so odd.

The author writes:

"The importance we give our offspring prebirth affects the importance we place on them post-birth."

That assertion is completely false. There is no empirical evidence for it whatsoever. Certainly, European and American states which generally protect human rights also provide a broad right to abortion. Countries which deny abortion rights, from Mexico to Afghanistan, also fail to protect human rights more generally.

Even Communist states don't fit his assertion, since abortion rights are considered to be social, rather than procedural rights, and are thus better protected.

I'm reluctant to wade into this topic for a number of reasons (let's just say that while I may be a progressive Catholic, I'm still Catholic and do consider myself pro-life). I don't generally talk about it much in this crowd because I've been through far too many of those conversations in the past with people and I know nobody's mind is going to get changed (including mine).

However, there are some assumptions about Bruinooge's position that I feel the need to correct, because some commenters don't understand what he's actually saying.

Stephen and Jeff, from his position neither of the points you raise are concerns. Bruinooge believes that women should be staying home to raise the children while the husband works to support them. Equal pay is actually bad, because it discourages women from doing this. Similarly, Jeff, he believes that if we really thought children were important we would be encouraging women to stay home. From the socon perspective our society is actively hostile to creating the "proper" environment for raising children. The kind of social structures he believes should exist are generally correlated to societies with restrictions on abortion. He's being quite consistent there, if not elsewhere.

PLG, I agree that the birthrate thing is nuts but I think it's the thing that keeps the Mark Steyns of the world on board (those right-wing types who don't personally give a damn about abortion but are convinced that we need kids to compete with the Chinese or Arabs or whoever it is this week).

And that brings us back around to why I don't hang out with the other pro-lifers--because they actively oppose things like sex education, social safety nets, and other measures which in practice reduce abortion rates because those things don't fit with their broader social agenda.

But then again, from my perspective the only valid argument for being pro-life is that you view a fetus as a human being with inherent rights of his or her own. Bruinooge's other arguments are more or less irrelevant--if a fetus doesn't have rights then there's no justification for restricting abortions, unless the real goal is to engage in massive social engineering which is what I thought the brave Conservatives were fighting to stop the evil lefties from doing.

Well, Kevin, I will certainly say that I draw a significant distinction between people who are as it were culturally anti-abortion and people who are actually philosophically anti-abortion.

People who are philosophically anti-abortion operate roughly like this:
Reach the conclusion in some way that fetuses are human individual sentient, perhaps soul-bearing, beings.
From this conclusion, infer that abortion must be bad--a fairly reasonable inference given such a belief. Reason from there to appropriate policies for minimizing abortions, such as birth control, education etc.
I disagree with this initial conclusion, and I'd have to say that at a bare minimum people's reasons for drawing that conclusion pretty much have to be mystical and unprovable--matters of faith--and so really shouldn't be influencing the law of the land, just private personal conclusions about one's own personal behaviour. But with people who are philosophically anti-abortion you can have some kind of meaningful conversation.

People who are culturally anti-abortion seem to start from their cultural (and/or political) needs, conclude abortion needs to be bad for the sake of those needs, and derive their belief in the nature of fetuses from their need for abortion to be bad. That's why they have lots of related beliefs that make no sense in the light of a philosophical anti-abortion belief--those other beliefs also come straight from their cultural needs. You can't have a meaningful discussion with those people. They don't even have any real idea why they think what they think, they're just rationalizing what they need to be true.

Incidentally, many people who are philosophically anti-abortion are actually pro-choice in the usual sense of the word; some may not realize it. That is, say I have a belief based on my religious understanding that fetuses have souls and should therefore not be aborted. But say I acknowledge that I can't know this--it's a matter of religious faith and I'm not God, I'm fallible. Say further that for reasons along these lines, I believe in the separation of church and state. Then I could well believe that there should not be a Canadian law blocking abortion based on my Zoroastrian (or whatever) beliefs, but rather that abortion must remain a matter of individual conscience--even though *my* individual conscience and faith might enjoin me not to have an abortion and if asked to advise against. If that's my stance, then I'm pro-choice. I just happen to have already made the choice for my personal case, and have some beliefs about which choice is better. But I am not "anti-abortion" in the political sense that represents the typical use of that term, which is all about making laws to stop anyone from having abortions.

Note that this is all a hypothetical "I", a thought experiment. The real "I" isn't a Zoroastrian and does not believe that *anyone* has souls and has basically no philosophical qualms about abortion, especially the vast majority which are performed early.

So Kevin, are you actually pro-life in the sense of being anti-choice, wanting laws banning abortions, or do you just wish people wouldn't get them? The distinction is significant. Not that it's my business, but as long as the conversation is happening . . .

"from my perspective the only valid argument for being pro-life is that you view a fetus as a human being with inherent rights of his or her own. Bruinooge's other arguments are more or less irrelevant--if a fetus doesn't have rights then there's no justification for restricting abortions, unless the real goal is to engage in massive social engineering which is what I thought the brave Conservatives were fighting to stop the evil lefties from doing."

I think this is very well said by Kevin; there is no argument for restricting abortion unless a fetus is a human being.

And I think we should respect those who hold this position, as long as they retain a rights-centred analysis for human beings AFTER birth, also.

To me, though, it is highly counterintuitive to think that a twelve cell piece of matter affixed to the uterine wall is identical in terms of its rights with living persons. It seems to me like a context-free value judgment, with nothing particular to recommend it. I think it is more convincing to those whose religion demands it.

I find very few people who think that an apple seed is as valuable as an apple tree; or even as an apple. There, the distinctions are easier to make, because non anthropocentric.

Lemme start with this: I am pro-life. I am pro-choice. I am philosophically opposed to abortion, as I think it is the killing of an unborn child. However, as I am NOT an idiot, I am aware that restricting abortion does not lower the abortion rates, it merely raises the rate of maternal death. And as I said, I am pro-life. I'd rather see *no* one die. So if it's a choice between some death and even more death, well, hey, that's a no-brainer. Birth control for all!

One thing I have a real issue with is the idea that fetuses have a right to live, no matter what. That they have a right to live off the mother's body regardless of her wishes. *I* don't have that right. I cannot demand my mother give me her kidney because mine are failing. I can't say, "But I'll die. So you have to. I know it might kill you, but it probably won't, and since you're my mother, you have no choice". So why does a fetus have more rights than I do? It's clearly about controlling women to most of these jackasses who sully the term 'pro-life'.

And as for pay-equity being bad to these shitheels... do tell, what's a woman to do if her husband dies? Or leaves? Or is injured? Or his job doesn't pay well enough? (and DO NOT tell me that that wouldn't happen if women weren't demanding equal wages - it happened plenty before equal pay was law.) She's supposed to what? Go do the same job for less money? For the same work? Because otherwise more women would want to work? Really? That's their viewpoint? Ludicrous.

I think every time a "pro-lifer" gets airtime or print space in the mainstream media in the coming months, it should be met with lengthy and repeated replies that talk about the economic issues that this government has been avoiding. Raising the abortion issue at a time like this is a thinly-veiled attempt to distract the media from the pressing issues of the day. Canadians need our federal government to do its job. The biggest mistake bloggers and pundits and columnists could make right now is to get caught up in the abortion issue and forget about the bigger picture. I've had to stop myself, as a blogger, from writing about it for exactly that reason. It's tempting, but, like all temptations, it's a side-track.