Time Immortal

Dr. Andre Lalonde is worried:

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Ottawa, worries that [Sarah Palin]’s now renowned decision may cause abortions in Canada to decline as other women there and elsewhere opt to follow suit.

Because obviously, it’s a WRETCHED AND TERRIBLE THING that Canadian women opt not to engage in eugenics by targeting for abortion those unborn babies which test positive for genetic defects after blood screenings and amniocentesis, both of which may not give accurate results in the first place.

He says not every woman is prepared to deal with the consequences of Down babies, who have developmental delays, some physical difficulties and often a shortened lifespan.

I think Ms. Lucas says it best:“Just, WOW…You know, I was just thinking, not every woman is prepared to deal with the consequences of BABIES IN GENERAL, some of whom have developmental delays and other problems. Abort! Abort! Abort!”

George Jonas, not exactly known for his pro-life stance (if I recall correctly), said something interesting at the end of his most recent article: “So close to power with a woman so far removed from every reason for which feminists would wish to exercise it! The matriarchy feels betrayed. “Sadly, this election has become all about the rights of the unborn, and not about the rights of the born,” a correspondent wrote to me. Well, I don’t know: The born can at least vote and write letters to the editor. The unborn can only kick, squirm, and wonder whether Mommy grants them vacuum suction or life.

As an ex-fetus, in this predicament I’d like a pitbull on my side.”

And it’s worth mentioning Ace’s turn of phrase as well:“Hmmm… their “choices” will be reduced by their choice of a choice you obviously don’t approve of.”

Too true.

Dr. Lalonde frets that the example of Sarah Palin — and hers is a good example, to be sure — may cause more women to opt to keep their babies instead of choosing to abort them. Why should he care? If it’s really about women having “choice,” then is not one choice as good as the other? Is not the choice to keep the baby every bit as valid as the choice not to? Ah, but the doctor protests: the women might not be ready for the challenge of raising a disabled child. But so what? What does readiness have to do with it? I could have sworn the issue was concerned solely with choice, not readiness. If it’s really about women having “choice,” then can we really say that it matters if a woman chooses something for which she may not be entirely ready?

And if Dr. Lalonde insists that women must make informed choices, then would he support legislation mandating that abortion clinics provide information on alternatives to the procedure (e.g. Adoption services, parental support groups)? Would he support legislation mandating that prior to obtaining an abortion, young girls must seek parental permission and counselling? Would he support legislation mandating that prior to obtaining an abortion, women must view and/or read reference material about the development of the unborn child, and that they must be presented with images of the results of abortion as well?

Of course, it is unlikely that the doctor would support such things. So we must ask again: why his objection? Why does it matter if fewer women choose abortion?

As usual, Mark Shea has an excellent take on the matter:: “Golly, who could foresee that somebody who profits from death would want to have more death to profit from? And who could possibly have imagined that those who target a particular population for murder would come to hate that population in order to convince itself that the murders are justified and they aren’t committing grave evil? And who could have foreseen that somebody who defies this murderous wisdom and chooses to love a baby with Down’s instead of kill him would become a national lightning rod for all the guilt, shame, fear, and rage that comes from making this appallingly wicked choice? And who could have predicted that the very people who profit from the exploitation of this evil would continue encourage the hatred and tell soothing lies on behalf of the evil?”

Finally, the Shaidle suggests sending Dr. Lalonde pictures of your unaborted Down’s child, whom you very much love.

alalonde@sogc.com
phone extension 227

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada
780 Echo Drive, Ottawa, ON K1S 5R7

Tel: 613-730-4192
or 1-800-561-2416
Fax: 613-730-4314

I’d suggest sending him pictures of your unaborted child, period, O Reader.

For twenty years, under five prime ministers, Parliament has failed to reinstate any restrictions, with the result that Canada continues to have the world’s most radical abortion regime. The unborn child has, in this country, to this day, no protection in law whatever. This child is ruled a “foetus” who may be disposed of at any point up to and including the moment of live birth — a moment that can be as vague as any that occurs after the precise moment of conception.

Under Canada’s system, it would be perfectly legal for a doctor to plunge a pair of scissors into the chest of the baby pictured above (notice how the child’s lower half is still within the mother’s body). Twenty years ago today, we made it legal for that event to transpire, in the Crown v. Henry Mogentaler decision, ruled on by the late Justice (I use the term loosely) Bertha Wilson.

In the reasoning of the late Justice Bertha Wilson, no man could respond to the abortion dilemma, “even imaginatively … because he can relate to it only by objectifying it, thereby eliminating the subjective elements of the female psyche.”

But which women decide? For polls have fairly consistently shown, that women are more troubled by abortion than men; and few women are radical feminists.

The 1988 ruling was the most significant in a string of cases in which the same Puisne Justice and others wrote this principle — that a woman’s subjective judgement may trump objective facts — into the heart of Canadian law. In the Crown v. Angélique Lavallee, 1990, she extended this reasoning to hold that a woman who had been abused by a man could be excused for killing him, even if the man was defenceless and she came to the encounter armed. In such a case, the courts could employ the testimony of feminist experts on “battered wife syndrome” to discount witnesses whose view of the facts might be contaminated by “myths” and “stereotypes.”

I am speaking today in defiance of the 1988 ruling, being that I am in fact a man, and therefore should not be able to discuss the issue of abortion “even inaginatively.” Let me say, then, that as a man, I think Bertha Wilson — and all of feminism — has missed the point.

I am Catholic, and believe that abortion is the taking of a human life (and is therefore immoral). However, my view of the nature of the unborn is justifiable solely on the basis of biological fact. In my view, the abortion issue is really, honestly, only concerned with at what stage of development it is permissible to end the life of a genetically unique human being. As noted above, it is legal in Canada for the doctor to end the life of the infant human being pictured even further above. That’s the crux of the debate, right there.

But when Bertha Wilson wrote that a man can only relate to the issue by objectifying it (and, by extension, objectifying all women), she missed one important point: there has been no development of the sexual revolution or our progressive, secular society which has benefitted men more than the mainstreaming and/or legalization of abortion. In making abortion “safe and legal” (that sentence should normally be concluded with “rare”, but cannot be if one is speaking in truths), and in making abortion an issue of “choice” for women, feminists have stripped men of any and all responsibility for the outcomes of their sexuality. They have liberated men from any need to worry about the consequences of hooking up with one woman, or a series of women, for the express purpose of having sex.

Previously, a man was beholden to marry a woman whom he carelessly impregnated; men who abandoned such women were derided and looked down upon. Now, since the woman always has the choice to have an abortion open to her, it is not the errant man who will be looked down upon if he departs from the side of a woman who has proven just a tad too fertile for his tastes. After all, she has a choice; keep the child or keep the relationship. Why should men still be beholden to women who do not choose in such a manner as is conducive to sustaining the relationships on terms both partners regard as acceptable?

Nothing — not condoms, not the pill, nothing — has aided and abetted the continued and enhanced objectification of women by men as much as abortion has, because nothing has done more to eliminate any sense of responsibility from peoples’ understanding of the sexual act. Though condoms and the pill do much to chip away at the bedrock of maturity one would hope to find in a sexually active couple’s psyches, condoms and the pill are not 100% effective, and do sometimes fail to discharge (ahem) their proper interdictive role — one can, despite having used the pill and/or a condom, become pregnant (if female) or make one’s partner become pregnant (if male).

But abortion is the “final solution” to that uncertainty — it is (almost) always effective, and in a way that is both sudden and final. Depending on which research one chooses to believe, it may have some harmful physical, mental, or emotional side effects…or it may not. But that is rarely discussed anyhow; the important thing is that women have “choice”. And out of that regime of “choice” comes the final releasing of the human person from having to have any notion of consequence, any measure of responsibility, as far as the sexual act is concerned. Because even if all one’s other precautions fail, one can still sweep the mistakes under the rug with a simple outpatient procedure.

And unfortunately, a system like that benefits only men in the long run — after all, any man (or at least, the average post-modern man, more or less unmoored from any sense of personal responsibility or righteousness that Religion brings) is free to leave the side of any woman who does not make choices that are in line with his own lifestyle. And all this is to say nothing at all of how abortion has benefitted those who demand for themselves a male child first — abortion is used, in many places around the world, as a tool of gender selection, and even in Canada this practice is becoming common. That is eugenics, plain and simple.

But then, most of the early proponents of abortion — Margaret Sanger comes readily to mind — were racists and eugenecists, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that in the most permissive implementation of a system which they lobbied for, we see that eugenics is readily, and all too easily, practiced.

Twenty years ago, all of this was enabled in Canada by one careless court ruling. Perhaps in another twenty years, we will have begun to rebuild what was torn down so many years ago.