Maybe you could learn something about what your readers want to talk about. Or not. Your choice.
Showing posts with label Paul Russell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Russell. Show all posts
Sunday, October 6, 2013
National Post not afraid to talk about abortion
Hey Globe and Mail. Get a load of what Paul Russell is saying in yesterday's National Post.
Maybe you could learn something about what your readers want to talk about. Or not. Your choice.
Maybe you could learn something about what your readers want to talk about. Or not. Your choice.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The abortion debate is happening
Paul Russell devotes his entire column today in the National Post , The Week in Letters, to the abortion debate in Canada: Readers agree: It's time Canada had an abortion law.
He also publishes some excellent letters under the title ‘How many miracles were destroyed because of late-term abortions?
A few excerpts below from Mr. Russell's column:
"Our federal government doesn’t want to reopen the abortion debate — but many of our readers definitely do. Scores of letters focused on that issue this week, with the vast majority calling for either limits or an outright ban on the practice."
“We need a debate on abortion in Canada,” wrote Kieran McIllvray. “Other Western countries have no problem with such debates. Why is Canada different? We are after all talking about human life. We need to have a clear understanding of what that means, biologically, medically and of course morally....
...Three doctors waded into the debate on the Letters page. On Tuesday, in a note titled, “How to avoid live fetuses,” Dr. Christiane Dauphinais stated that the Quebec College of Physicians instructs doctors that “when performing an abortion on a woman who is 21 weeks pregnant or more … inject digoxin or potassium chloride into the fetus or the amniotic sac. This effectively kills the fetus, thereby avoiding having to deal with a live, aborted infant.” This guidance from the medical college repulsed at least one reader.
“Does this sound like a good doctor’s healing treatment or rather like an executioner’s order?” asked Regina Kosalka. “So much for the Hippocratic Oath reinforced in the Declaration of Geneva after the Second World War in response to atrocities perpetrated by Nazi and imperial Japanese ‘doctors’ participating in inhumane medical practices.”...
...A few readers pointed out how loaded the terminology is around abortion.
“Thank you for giving the issue of late term abortions the coverage it deserves, even though it was not an emotionally easy read,” wrote Patrick Stewart. “It is interesting how language affects how we think and act. A mother who plans to take her pregnancy to full term will refer to the unborn as ‘her baby,’ while another who plans not to carry the unborn to full term — and those who will assist her — refer to the unborn as ‘a fetus.’ ”
“Endless discussions about abortion is becoming stale and tedious, because [no one] can seem to make up their mind about the fetus-in-the-woman,” added Peter Koning. “We do not dare to talk about a real baby in mother’s womb.”
He offered this advice on how to bring clarity to the issue.
“Is our future Queen, Kate Middleton, pregnant with a fetus or a baby?” Ms. Koning asked. “Half if not more of the world is anxiously waiting for the birth of her baby, not her fetus. We don’t talk about her fetus, do we? It is a baby in her and every pregnant woman’s womb. Maybe the pro-abortionists should rethink what is in a woman’s uterus. Our government should also do some rethinking on the issue.”
Once again the National Post engages in the abortion debate. A debate we can't have in Parliament, a debate we can't have in most of the media, and a debate we can't have on university campuses.
Another insight into the abortion debate is this telling "pro-choice" comment yesterday in the Post from Jesse Kline, on the notion of morality. He says:
"Given that our society clearly has not come to a consensus about whether abortion is immoral, restricting a woman’s right to choose entails imposing one group’s morality upon another. In a free society, this act is itself morally wrong."
Following this logic, we should also not impose our morality on those sectors of the world's population who practice, say stoning adulterers. Or those people who practice murder and rape. If we do, then we are imposing our morality on another person right? But the reality is, that in a "free society", humankind makes laws based on morality all the time, just look at our criminal code. It's full of laws based on morality, that is what criminal law does. It would be morally wrong to not put such laws in place to protect the innocent. The only exception to this usual code of a societal morality, especially in Canada, seems to be when it comes to abortion. Why is that?
But the good news in all of this is, that if we consider all the places we can't have the debate, it seems to me that we are doing a pretty good job of having it in the National Post. Maybe Parliament, the rest of the media and the Universities will eventually come on board too. Otherwise they just might find themselves left behind.
He also publishes some excellent letters under the title ‘How many miracles were destroyed because of late-term abortions?
A few excerpts below from Mr. Russell's column:
"Our federal government doesn’t want to reopen the abortion debate — but many of our readers definitely do. Scores of letters focused on that issue this week, with the vast majority calling for either limits or an outright ban on the practice."
“We need a debate on abortion in Canada,” wrote Kieran McIllvray. “Other Western countries have no problem with such debates. Why is Canada different? We are after all talking about human life. We need to have a clear understanding of what that means, biologically, medically and of course morally....
...Three doctors waded into the debate on the Letters page. On Tuesday, in a note titled, “How to avoid live fetuses,” Dr. Christiane Dauphinais stated that the Quebec College of Physicians instructs doctors that “when performing an abortion on a woman who is 21 weeks pregnant or more … inject digoxin or potassium chloride into the fetus or the amniotic sac. This effectively kills the fetus, thereby avoiding having to deal with a live, aborted infant.” This guidance from the medical college repulsed at least one reader.
“Does this sound like a good doctor’s healing treatment or rather like an executioner’s order?” asked Regina Kosalka. “So much for the Hippocratic Oath reinforced in the Declaration of Geneva after the Second World War in response to atrocities perpetrated by Nazi and imperial Japanese ‘doctors’ participating in inhumane medical practices.”...
...A few readers pointed out how loaded the terminology is around abortion.
“Thank you for giving the issue of late term abortions the coverage it deserves, even though it was not an emotionally easy read,” wrote Patrick Stewart. “It is interesting how language affects how we think and act. A mother who plans to take her pregnancy to full term will refer to the unborn as ‘her baby,’ while another who plans not to carry the unborn to full term — and those who will assist her — refer to the unborn as ‘a fetus.’ ”
“Endless discussions about abortion is becoming stale and tedious, because [no one] can seem to make up their mind about the fetus-in-the-woman,” added Peter Koning. “We do not dare to talk about a real baby in mother’s womb.”
He offered this advice on how to bring clarity to the issue.
“Is our future Queen, Kate Middleton, pregnant with a fetus or a baby?” Ms. Koning asked. “Half if not more of the world is anxiously waiting for the birth of her baby, not her fetus. We don’t talk about her fetus, do we? It is a baby in her and every pregnant woman’s womb. Maybe the pro-abortionists should rethink what is in a woman’s uterus. Our government should also do some rethinking on the issue.”
Once again the National Post engages in the abortion debate. A debate we can't have in Parliament, a debate we can't have in most of the media, and a debate we can't have on university campuses.
Another insight into the abortion debate is this telling "pro-choice" comment yesterday in the Post from Jesse Kline, on the notion of morality. He says:
"Given that our society clearly has not come to a consensus about whether abortion is immoral, restricting a woman’s right to choose entails imposing one group’s morality upon another. In a free society, this act is itself morally wrong."
Following this logic, we should also not impose our morality on those sectors of the world's population who practice, say stoning adulterers. Or those people who practice murder and rape. If we do, then we are imposing our morality on another person right? But the reality is, that in a "free society", humankind makes laws based on morality all the time, just look at our criminal code. It's full of laws based on morality, that is what criminal law does. It would be morally wrong to not put such laws in place to protect the innocent. The only exception to this usual code of a societal morality, especially in Canada, seems to be when it comes to abortion. Why is that?
But the good news in all of this is, that if we consider all the places we can't have the debate, it seems to me that we are doing a pretty good job of having it in the National Post. Maybe Parliament, the rest of the media and the Universities will eventually come on board too. Otherwise they just might find themselves left behind.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
When pro-abortions get cranky
Anyone who reads the National Post, knows that every Saturday the Letters Editor Paul Russell, writes his own column highlighting:
"Some of the more passionately argued letters received that did not make it into the paper".
This week the theme was: "With contentious issues, the right word is crucial."
This is what Mr. Russell had to say about an apparently contentious word (at least for some), used in a column the previous week in the National Post, that caught the ire of a "pro-choice" doctor. The word is "pre-born child".
"Word choice is important when talking about the subject of abortion. Last Saturday, we ran a column by Scott Barber, in which he talked about “how the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ … have been responsible for confusing the public, sparking political battles and stifling discussion.”
This column provoked many responses, including one from Dr. Gail Erlick Robinson. Her letter stated: “Mr. Barber [has fallen] into another semantic trap promulgated by anti-abortionists. Referring to a fetus in utero as a ‘pre-born child’ is a [linguistic] anti-abortion device designed to instill guilt in a woman contemplating an abortion.”
“It is ironic [that] Dr. Robinson should be critical of the language used to describe the abortion debate,” shot back William T. Weiland. “She assumes that abortion is the norm; otherwise, why use the term ‘anti-abortion’? Dr. Robinson feels it is inappropriate to attach guilt to a woman contemplating abortion. In today’s society, where abortion is widely accepted, it is ludicrous to suggest that such language would instill guilt. The source of the guilt for women who have chosen to abort a child is the abortion itself.”
“One can easily see how desperate and unnerved the anti-life side is becoming when Dr. Robinson has to resort to spin and semantics,” added Cliff Pyle. “If she cannot accept the term, ‘a pre-born child,’ she should drop the term ‘doctor’ from her name and resort to comedy. Her comment that referring to ‘a pre-born child instills guilt’ will do nothing for those who do suffer tremendous guilt after an abortion.”
Well that sews it up for me. Pre-born child. Pre-born child. Pre-born child.
"Some of the more passionately argued letters received that did not make it into the paper".
This week the theme was: "With contentious issues, the right word is crucial."
This is what Mr. Russell had to say about an apparently contentious word (at least for some), used in a column the previous week in the National Post, that caught the ire of a "pro-choice" doctor. The word is "pre-born child".
"Word choice is important when talking about the subject of abortion. Last Saturday, we ran a column by Scott Barber, in which he talked about “how the terms ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ … have been responsible for confusing the public, sparking political battles and stifling discussion.”
This column provoked many responses, including one from Dr. Gail Erlick Robinson. Her letter stated: “Mr. Barber [has fallen] into another semantic trap promulgated by anti-abortionists. Referring to a fetus in utero as a ‘pre-born child’ is a [linguistic] anti-abortion device designed to instill guilt in a woman contemplating an abortion.”
“It is ironic [that] Dr. Robinson should be critical of the language used to describe the abortion debate,” shot back William T. Weiland. “She assumes that abortion is the norm; otherwise, why use the term ‘anti-abortion’? Dr. Robinson feels it is inappropriate to attach guilt to a woman contemplating abortion. In today’s society, where abortion is widely accepted, it is ludicrous to suggest that such language would instill guilt. The source of the guilt for women who have chosen to abort a child is the abortion itself.”
“One can easily see how desperate and unnerved the anti-life side is becoming when Dr. Robinson has to resort to spin and semantics,” added Cliff Pyle. “If she cannot accept the term, ‘a pre-born child,’ she should drop the term ‘doctor’ from her name and resort to comedy. Her comment that referring to ‘a pre-born child instills guilt’ will do nothing for those who do suffer tremendous guilt after an abortion.”
Well that sews it up for me. Pre-born child. Pre-born child. Pre-born child.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
A cheat sheet for letter's editors to keep readers
By far the best newspaper letter's page in the country, is the one headed up by Paul Russell at the National Post.
Today Mr. Russell publishes his cheat sheet for having your letter to the editor published. This is a comprehensive "writing letters" primer that will help anyone get their letter published.
Mr. Russell always publishes letters on both sides of any debate, including the abortion debate. The other national newspaper (and this may have changed since I stopped either subscribing to, or reading that other newspaper, but I doubt it) barely ever ran any pro-life letters, mine included. So I have no idea where Mr. Russell stands on the abortion debate. In my opinion that is as it should be. His bias whatever it is, doesn't seep into what he is willing to publish or not publish.
And since we can't have the abortion debate in Parliament because of Mr. Harper's national ban on abortion free speech, well all I can say is, thank God for the National Post.
Mr. Russell also regularly invites readers to submit 75 words on various subjects. He actually wants to know what people think. Imagine that.
Other newspapers could learn a thing or two by reading the Post's letters page. Not that they will. But they could. If you know what I mean.
My mother always told me to give credit where credit was due. Thank you Paul Russell.
Today Mr. Russell publishes his cheat sheet for having your letter to the editor published. This is a comprehensive "writing letters" primer that will help anyone get their letter published.
Mr. Russell always publishes letters on both sides of any debate, including the abortion debate. The other national newspaper (and this may have changed since I stopped either subscribing to, or reading that other newspaper, but I doubt it) barely ever ran any pro-life letters, mine included. So I have no idea where Mr. Russell stands on the abortion debate. In my opinion that is as it should be. His bias whatever it is, doesn't seep into what he is willing to publish or not publish.
And since we can't have the abortion debate in Parliament because of Mr. Harper's national ban on abortion free speech, well all I can say is, thank God for the National Post.
Mr. Russell also regularly invites readers to submit 75 words on various subjects. He actually wants to know what people think. Imagine that.
Other newspapers could learn a thing or two by reading the Post's letters page. Not that they will. But they could. If you know what I mean.
My mother always told me to give credit where credit was due. Thank you Paul Russell.
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