We need to take care of these people not kill them

 

When the cloud dwellers lose touch with the people

This letter appeared in the National Post today.

Dear Mr. Mendicino and Mr. Lametti,

Did you attend the trucker protests? Did you talk to any of the protesters? Did you do anything to engage with them to understand why they were protesting? Did you even care? If you had, you would have seen that they were peaceful. Why did you say they were not peaceful? 

You say the protests were done to "undermine democracy". You know that's not true, right? They were there to practice democracy. Please see the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms for definitions. 

You say that "the leaders have links to ideologically motivated violent extremists." These are very serious allegations you make here Mr. Mendicino and Mr. Lametti. Can you please provide your evidence to all Canadians of these "links to ideologically motivated violent extremists"? If you cannot, you might want to think about withdrawing these very scandalous remarks. 

Canadians would also like to see your "vast terabytes of disinformation" that you speak of. Perhaps you are mixing this up with the vast terabytes of disinformation Canadians receive from Canada's legacy media--who get millions of dollars in taxpayer funded handouts--on the protests?

The tragedy here, is that our government only allows for opinions and values that align with the government's; with the elites; and with the highly paid main stream media types. Any other opinions or values that come from the working man or woman, who were affected by the lockdowns in ways you can't even imagine, are not welcome in your stratosphere up there in the clouds. 

Our Prime Minister said of the truckers:

“The small fringe minority of people who are on their way to Ottawa who are holding unacceptable views that they are expressing do not represent the views of Canadians who have been there for each other, who know of that following the science and stepping up to protect each other is the best way to continue to ensure our freedoms, our rights, our values, as a country”.

Do you share the PM's views that the people in the convoy are a "fringe minority" who hold "unacceptable views" and "do not represent the views of Canadians"? Because if you do, you are very very out of touch with a whole whack of Canadians.

Stop telling us what we can believe

Dear Chris Selley,

I really must take issue with your recent column in the National Post on abortion. 

You say:

“It probably doesn’t need explaining how fantastically stupid abortion-to-Holocaust analogies are — the two things are overwhelmingly more dissimilar than they are similar — but I suppose it couldn’t hurt. The Canadian Institute for Health Information reports 83,576 women underwent an abortion procedure in 2019. They made that choice for a wide variety of reasons, some of which would attract more sympathy in the court of public opinion than others.”

To begin with CIHI grossly under reports the numbers of abortions done in Canada every year. If you had delved a bit deeper into the subject you would have learned this yourself. See here and here. (This is due to a complicated bunch of reasons but I would be happy to send you all of my research on abortion numbers in Canada if you care to learn the facts.)

This means that since 1988 there have been at least 100,000 abortions every year, which would mean at least 3,300,000 abortions since that year, never mind the ones done before that. Some find this comparison to a holocaust offensive. In fact you call it "fantastically stupid".

So what is the definition of holocaust? According to Merriam-Webster:

a: usually the Holocaust: the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II
b: a mass slaughter of people, especially GENOCIDE (emphasis added)

So you see there are many Canadians (Group A) who believe that abortion is a morally horrific act. They believe that taking the lives of defenseless human beings on such a massive scale scale, each and every year, is in fact a holocaust. On the other hand, there are many Canadians (Group B) who believe that abortion is an acceptable solution to an unwanted pregnancy. You seem to belong to Group B. While I don't agree with you, I wouldn't call your viewpoint "fantastically stupid".

Next you say:

“The vast majority of people who might retweet or nod in agreement with that NCLN tweet clearly do not, in fact, believe it. If you actually think a Holocaust is ongoing in your country’s clinics and hospitals, you don’t cheerfully promote online events featuring “pro-life badasses.” You don’t say things like “there’s a lot of joy in the air,” as a spokesperson for the anti-abortion Campaign Life Coalition effused of 2018’s March for Life in Ottawa. You’re beside yourself. You’re pulling your hair out, chaining yourself to things, frantically trying to keep people out of abortion clinics. Maybe you’re even blowing stuff up.”

"Joy" and "cheerfully"? Since you are not pro-life and have no idea what it is like to be pro-life and be discriminated against and marginalized by every Tom, Dick and Chris, we must try to, you know, keep each other's spirits up in such a difficult and thankless task it is, to advocate against abortion. As for "chaining ourselves to things trying to keep people out of abortion clinics"-- have you heard of abortion bubble zone laws where pro-life people have no freedom of expression rights, and at the March's for Life where handfuls of screaming antifa people are allowed to block thousands of us on our approved routes, and the police do nothing to stop them? See:

https://run-with-life.blogspot.com/2020/01/pro-life-right-wing-extremists.html

https://run-with-life.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-peaceful-prolife-people-are-dealt.html

https://run-with-life.blogspot.com/2017/05/march-for-life-2017-we-will-never-give.html

https://run-with-life.blogspot.com/2018/05/march-for-life-2018.html

And as for "blowing stuff up"? Did you really haul out that tired old mantra?

Finally, and most importantly, why is it that people from (Group B) always want to dictate what people from (Group A), are allowed to believe, allowed to say, and how they are allowed to act?

Catholic universities don't need to defend illegal abortions

My letter in the National Post last Friday:

Re: Tories accused of selective bias. Marie- Danielle Smith, Nov. 28

Science Minister Kirsty Duncan thinks the Tories should comment on the cancelling of the pro-abortion film Vessels at St. Paul’s University for free speech reasons.

First of all, this movie is about a doctor who takes her abortion trade to the open seas. Why? So she can provide abortions to women on a ship in offshore waters. Why? So she can bypass the country’s abortion laws and provide the abortion pill RU486 to women. This doctor is engaging in illegal activities to bypass the laws of sovereign countries.

Second, St. Paul’s University is a Catholic institution. Catholic institutions don’t condone abortion because Catholicism believes that abortion is an immoral act and is harmful to the woman and her family.

Duncan’s press secretary stated: “In a free society, we may disagree with a person’s views, but we must defence (sic) their right to hold them — unless those views promote hate.”

What about when those views promote illegal activities? Should we defend those views as well? I hope not. 

Patricia Maloney, Ottawa

Bill C-225 should satisfy pro-life and pro-choice people

Regarding Mike Schouten: A new bill would make it a crime to harm a fetus against a woman’s will. What’s wrong with that?

My letter published in the National Post on October 4, 2016:

It seems to me that if pro-choice people like Joyce Arthur can’t support a sensible bill like C-225 (that protects a woman’s choice to carry her pre-born child to term), it confirms one thing and one thing only: that is that they are not pro-choice at all, but rather pro-abortion. Hopefully, MPs can see this and vote accordingly. Blind ideology without common sense isn’t useful or helpful. Especially for the women who would be protected by this bill.

Patricia Maloney, Ottawa.

Justin Trudeau - thanks a bunch

Welcome back Canada - courtesy of the National Post. From Canada's most pro-abortion Prime Minister ever.

That the unborn are not “legal persons” is irrelevant

Barbara Kay turns the pro-choice legal personhood argument on its head in the National Post when she discusses Bill C-225 Molly's law:

 "— aims, in the words of abortion-law activist Mike Schouten, to “provide justice for women and families who have chosen to carry their babies to term...” 

"...Pro-choice argumentation was weak in 2008 and remains weak today. One fallacious gambit is that mother and fetus, even though each has her own unique DNA, should continue to be considered one person because their biological systems operate symbiotically. This implies that conjoined twins, whose systems also operate symbiotically, are one person, when they manifestly are not. However, the mainstay of the opposition is the “legal personhood” canard. That the unborn are not “legal persons” in law is true, but morally and historically irrelevant: women, after all, weren’t “legal persons” until 1929, but were always considered murder victims in their own right before that date. 

Hardline ideological feminists, who have a huge influence on politicians and the judiciary (which is why this bill is probably another exercise in political futility), regard the law as their ideology’s handmaiden..."

Ms. Kay has that right. Our hard line feminists scare our politicians to death when it comes to abortion. Joyce Arthur and anonymous blogger "Fern Hill" have of course already spoken out against Bill C-225. No surprise there.

But we know why the pro-abortions are really against Bill C-225. Joyce Arthur said it herself about Bill C-484:

"If the fetuses are recognized in this bill, it could bleed into people's consciousness and make people change their minds about abortion," 

For the pro-abortions, it is very very important that this never be allowed to happen. The legal killing of preborn children must be preserved at all costs.

Even when a woman is attacked and the child she chooses to carry to term is brutally killed.

Assisted suicide - its chilling reality

Good letter in today's National Post:

Re: Euthanasia Makes Us All Complicit, Andrew Coyne, April 19.In his book, Other People’s Lives: Reflections on Medicine, Ethics and Euthanasia, Richard Fenigsen wrote that, “In Holland, the country much praised for its practice of voluntary euthanasia, the lives of 400 disabled newborns are terminated every year by denial of medical assistance, dehydration/starvation and lethal injections. The reports of government-ordered studies revealed that lethal injections are given to 1,000 gravely ill persons who had never asked for death, but have a “low quality of life” or “no prospect of improvement;” some were killed “because the families could not take it anymore” or even because their beds were needed. Thus, along with the voluntary euthanasia that is going on, we witness the extermination of persons who embarrass their families, are undesirable for society, or arbitrarily judged unfit by doctors.

In a society, the ones who are in most need of protection are infants, children, the aged, the weak, the infirm and the marginalized. We are slowly turning into a society that, under guise of constitutional guarantees of freedom, autonomy and self-determination, is riding the slippery slope of exterminating the very people who need our protection the most. 

Cynthia Robles, Mississauga, Ont.

Pro-abortions should stay true to facts

Today in the National Post Robyn Urback complains that pro-life people are being hard on Planned Parenthood. She says:

"Back in July, a series of controversial videos emerged purporting to show that Planned Parenthood was profiting of the sale of aborted fetal tissue, which is illegal, though the tapes actually went only so far as to confirm that the organization was being reimbursed for transport costs associated with donating tissue to medical research, which is legal."

It seems that like most "pro-choice" people, Ms.Urback probably never even bothered to watch the Planned Parenthood undercover videos. If she had, she would have been aware when there were negotiations between PP employees and the undercover person taking the videos, about the prices that would be charged for the fetal body parts. If the costs were truly only for transport costs, well then negotiations would not be needed would they? This is selling for profit pure and simple.

Ms. Urback also feels that calling Planned Parenthood an abortion factory is "morally disingenuous and utterly incorrect". Wow. Does she really believe that? What else does one call the systematic, repeated slaughter of children before they exit the womb if not an abortion factory? 

What is morally disingenuous is not only the killing of these children, but making a profit from it. Unfortunately there are far too many people of the "pro-choice" persuasion who simply can't see this. Or maybe they don't want to see it.

If ABC link is real why suppress the risks?

Barbara Kay: Tough questions on the health risks of abortion remain

October 23, 2015
(reprinted with permission from the author)

October is International Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Upcoming, November is International Preterm Birth Awareness Month. “Uh oh,” I can almost hear certain pro-choice stakeholders muttering: “Is she actually going there?” Yep. Fasten your seat belts, readers. Like they say in those corny action movies, “I’m going in!”

“In” is the political war zone of Induced Abortion (IA) research in which the contested territory are the links between IA with i) future preterm birth and ii) elevated rates of breast cancer (known as ABC). The links are there. Nations that proscribe abortion have low premature-birth rates and low breast cancer rates. Nations with high abortion rates have high rates of premature birth and breast cancer. But are the links causal or coincidental? An army of pro-choice obstetricians and gynecologists and their supporting institutions deny causality. A battalion of (both pro-life and pro-choice) researchers and epidemiologists producing reams of large-scale, peer-reviewed studies insist on causality.

Full disclosure: I have no personal dog in this hunt (never had an abortion or miscarriage or preterm birth myself, or breast cancer). My views on abortion are not dictated by religious belief. Politically I’m neither pro-life nor pro-choice. Like the majority of Canadians I believe in regulation. Sex selection abortion, for example, really disgusts me, but even pragmatically speaking, we need regulation so we can collect the data we need for research. One thing I don’t believe is that the science on any reproductive intervention on a woman’s body — IA, IVF, surrogacy or whatever — is “settled.”

My “ideology” is therefore pro-scientific research that is untainted by political correctness, and pro-informed consent. But our culture can’t seem to get beyond the “rights” aspect of abortion into the “data” aspect. Ambiguity around what is promoted as a risk-free surgery can dampen women’s confidence, obviously. But if the risks actually exist, what benefit to women is there in suppressing knowledge of it?

That is the main point I make as an interviewee in a new documentary film that just premiered in Los Angeles. “Hush” is dedicated to exploring the effects of internal politics on scientific inquiry into women’s reproductive health. To be more precise, the politics that kick in on one issue only: abortion. It’s actually kind of weird: There is no controversy surrounding the elevated breast cancer risks causally linked with childlessness, late-start pregnancy, early menstruation, the Pill and hormone replacement therapy. All these causes, known because of continuing research, have one thing in common — estrogen proliferation. But suggest a causal link between estrogen-proliferative IA and breast cancer — and watch the fur fly!

The film’s director, Punam Kumar Gill, a respected member of the arts community and a Chatelaine nominee for “woman of the year” has served as writer, director and producer on seven documentary films to date. She brings a deft combination of personal motivation and investigative acumen to her task.

Gill, who considers herself a “product of feminism,” had always assumed IA was safe and without harmful effects. That changed some years ago, when the sudden onset of pre-eclampsia in her second trimester of pregnancy resulted in the spontaneous abortion of her baby. When she attempted to gather information on possible health consequences, Gill encountered resistance amongst health professionals to discussion of any risks. She was further troubled by the bromides set out by health organizations on their websites, as well as by the disparity in public policies around informed consent in different jurisdictions. In Canada and many states, as the film notes, abortion seekers are given no routine pre-surgery counselling, while 35 states mandate pre-abortion counselling, 25 cite IA-linked fertility risks, and five cite the potential ABC link.

What you will mainly see in Hush, apart from graphically illuminated revelations of research suppression amongst health organizations, notably the National Cancer Institute, is Gill talking to people, including amongst others: women whose abortions resulted in physical and psychological complications they were not advised might happen; an internationally prominent gynecologist who denies that IA involves any significant consequences whatsoever, and who considers continued research unnecessary; a breast surgical oncologist disturbed by her growing roster of patients with aggressive breast cancer in the 25-39 cohort, many with a history of IA; and a statistician studying eight European-Scandinavian countries who finds IA “to be the best predictor of breast cancer.”

Women’s reproductive health issues are the third rail of the medical profession. I rarely see an objective news article on abortion, fertility or female cancers that is not immediately either attacked or defended from a politicized perspective, rather than simply assessed on its own terms. I think Hush, which seems to me an objective overview of the situation, should be seen by pro-choice women, pro-life women and women who are simply concerned about themselves or their daughters achieving their reproductive goals with optimal chances for long-term health. That is to say, by pretty well all women.

National Post and Linda Gibbons

Dear Christie,

Thank you so much for writing this fair story in the National Post. As I'm sure you have guessed by now, Linda is a pro-life hero. I've never seen coverage of Linda's arrest in the Globe, and I don't expect to.

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

http://run-with-life.blogspot.ca/

The media and social conservatives

My letter in today's National Post

Re: Please, Treat Us Like Lepers, John Robson, May 19.

Thanks to John Robson’s refreshing counterpoint to the unabated bullying from the media we endure, as “scary,” “radical bozo,” “far right” and “socon zealots,”,also known as social conservatives. This constant vilification is ironic, when the so-called progressives like to speak of tolerance at every opportunity, except it seems, when it comes to us scary types.

It seems there is only one socially acceptable value system allowed in Canada, and it’s not being socially conservative.

Patricia Maloney, Ottawa.

941 stillbirth and livebirth abortions done in 2013-2014

Below are numbers for late-term stillbirth and livebirth abortions (Code P96.4 "Termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborns") from CIHI for 2013/2014.

I reported on this information previously here and here for 2010/2011.

It's important to note that there are two different outcomes for these late-term abortions coded with P96.4 "Termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborns". Some of the babies were delivered stillborn (780). And some were delivered alive (161).

Notice that Quebec reports neither stillbirths nor livebirths for code P96.4, so we have no idea how many are being done in Quebec. Last time I did receive numbers for the livebirth abortions for Quebec but not for the stillbirth abortions. CIHI told me this is because:

"Quebec data is not included. As part of the Agreement between the Government of Quebec and the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the data transmitted by Quebec and held by CIHI may only be used for the mandate given to CIHI by Quebec. Therefore, CIHI is not authorized to provide you with the requested data for Quebec."

When I asked for clarification on this,CIHI said:

"Data transmitted to us by a jurisdiction still belongs to the jurisdiction in question. We are authorized to provide Québec’s aggregate data or information only when the request falls within the mandate in the agreement between CIHI and the Government of Québec. Media requests do not fall within the mandate."

Notice that the numbers of livebirth abortions this time, i.e. for 2013/14 (161) are higher than last time, i.e. for 2010/11 (158) and don't even include Quebec numbers (there were 21 livebirth abortions reported in Quebec in 2010/2011).

Both stillbirth and livebirth abortions are on the increase in Canada. Last time CIHI reported 727 stillbirth abortions compared to 780 this time.

As for the livebirth abortions, we can assume that at least some of these babies were probably aborted because of serious fetal abnormalities, as reported in this National Post story at 5 months gestation.

And the National Post also reported that:

"many hospitals make it a policy to first terminate the fetus in-utero, perhaps using lethal injection... Dr. Wendy Norman, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, confirmed in an email to the Post that abortions “performed intentionally in major centres for pregnancies over 20 weeks would almost certainly include a technique … to induce fetal demise PRIOR to the delivery of the fetus.”

If what Dr. Norman says is true, this would mean the child would die before it exited the mother's body, which means it would not be classified as a livebirth abortion. Yet these current stats confirm doctors are still performing abortions resulting in livebirths, so what is going on here?

I suspect that some of these babies are born alive because they are not giving the baby the injection first to stop its heart. But I am only guessing.

In fact all we have is speculation, since there are no reasons attached to any of these deaths. Are these livebirth babies tossed aside and left on their own, struggling to survive until they die? Are they done on compassionate grounds so the mother can hold her child before the child dies? If so, then why isn't the child allowed to be born at term and placed in perinatal palliative care? Is it because we don't offer perinatal palliative care to pregnant women in these difficult situations? That would be true compassion. And if we don't offer this option, why not?

And why won't Quebec let us see their livebirth abortion stats? If I could speak French I would request the information from the Quebec government through access to information.

What we do know about these babies who are subject to late term abortions, is that some of them are born alive (161), then they die. What are the reasons for these abortions? Why are the numbers increasing?

And of course CIHI is not ATIPable, so whatever CIHI won't divulge is completely hidden from us. If the data still resided with Statistics Canada, I could do an access to information request and ask to see this agreement with Quebec. But I can't do that with CIHI.

Lots of questions, very few answers.

Justin Trudeau's Liberal Charter of Values

Chris Selley on Trudeau's moral exhibitionism

"Are we really at a point where Liberal MPs must believe Norway’s abortion laws are a misogynist abomination? 

Odd as it is, it is what it is. There is clearly no political gain to be had for any party from engaging this issue — except by trying to out-pro-choice the others, or so the Liberals and New Democrats seem to believe. (NDP leader Thomas Mulcair is also touting a pro-choice-only rule, though this seems less surprising.) But if you want to run with Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals, it’s apparently not enough to be content to leave the abortion status quo alone. If you have the slightest appreciation for the abortion laws in the aforementioned feminist paradises, it seems you are unwelcome — because those governments, in Mr. Trudeau’s words, dare to limit “what a woman chooses to do with her body.” 

It’s a weird position. It seems totally unnecessary. It smacks of moral exhibitionism more than anything else. And I’m sorry, but I can’t quite get past this: Mr. Trudeau, you’re a practising Catholic. Are we really at a point where Liberal MPs must believe Norway’s abortion laws are a misogynist abomination, but are free every Sunday to give alms to one of the most powerful anti-abortion organizations on the planet? And if so, are their evangelical colleagues who disavow reopening the abortion debate also now free to worship? Or will they still hear the whispers of hypocrisy, hidden agendas and political conspiracies from across the aisle?"

I guess we can next expect Trudeau to come up with his very own Quebec style Charter of Values.

He can then dictate how all Liberals will be allowed to think, what their personal beliefs can be, how they should look, what they can wear, what they can eat and who they can associate with.

That'll fix em, eh Justin?

Pinko Pepsi

Today my sister and I saw a pink Pepsi truck. It was doing the breast cancer industry a great big favour with their "support" breast cancer schtick.

That's the very same industry that refuses to acknowledge any possible link between abortion and breast cancer.

This week while shopping, I saw Cashmere toilet paper at a great price. But when I looked to see if the breast cancer industry logo was still on the package, and it was, I said nope, not buying that.

And now I won't buy Pepsi. Not that I buy Pepsi in the first place. But if I did, well I wouldn't anymore.

For more on the ABC link see here.

As Barbara Kay wrote in the National Post on the recent ABC research done in China.

In what has been described as a “real game changer” in breast cancer research, a new peer-reviewed study from China not only endorses the long-mooted link between IA and breast cancer, but concludes the risk rises with every abortion a woman has. The study, “A meta-analysis of the association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk among Chinese females” was published last week in Cancer Causes and Control, an international cancer journal.

Even after this recent study, what do we still find on the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation's web site?

MYTH: Abortion and miscarriage cause breast cancer
THE FACTS: Abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. Scientific evidence  demonstrates that there is no link between breast cancer and spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or induced abortion. 

Pretty sure I won't be buying anything pink anytime soon.

Abortion-rights advocates ran away from Gosnell

Saw this in today's National Post. Here it is from the Washington Post by Charles Krauthammer.

Krauthammer is talking about a strategy for Republicans. Now if we had a political party in Canada who had any backbone, we could easily do this in Canada.

Since we don't have a political party with backbone on life issues, this strategy can be used by pro-lifers themselves. That's us, people.

"...Yet there is a very simple, straightforward strategy for seizing the high ground on abortion in a way that transcends the normal divisions and commands wide popular support: Focus on the horror of late-term abortion — and get it banned. 

Last year’s Kermit Gosnell trial was a seminal moment. The country was shown a baby butcher at work and national sentiment was nearly unanimous. Abortion-rights advocates ran away from Gosnell. But they can’t hide from the issue. 

And the issue, as most succinctly defined by the late liberal Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, is infanticide. Describing one form of late-term abortion known as partial-birth, Moynihan said: “I had once remarked that the procedure was too close to infanticide. And now we have testimony that it is not just too close to infanticide, it is infanticide.” How else to describe crushing the infant’s skull in mid-delivery before the head leaves the birth canal?"

Calling late-term abortion what it is: a living, viable, pain-feeling human being being killed. Infanticide.

"Stay away from the minefield of gender politics. Challenge the other side on substance. And watch them lose."

Stephen Harper's house of cards

It's been an interesting week for Stephen Harper.

Abacus is reporting that more Canadians think that Justin Trudeau would do a better job of the economy than Stephen Harper. Imagine that?

(UPDATE: I just looked at the report in greater detail and it seems to me that the questions asked in this poll on the economy were only asked about Thomas Mulcair, and not all the leaders. Yet when I google the topic, all the news agencies including Abucus, seem to be framing this as how the leaders would do on the economy.)



And Justin Trudeau released his Liberal Senator bombshell this week, making all Liberal Senators independents. Read today's Chris Selley: Look who suddenly has a plausible Senate reform plan for a good analysis on this move.

And veterans aren't happy with Conservative Minister Julian Fantino.

And last but not least, Social Conservatives haven't been too happy for some time now, with Stephen Harper's world famous refusal to let us debate abortion in Parliament.

Everyone else seems to be just catching up I guess.

My oh my. Where will it all end?

Is permitting and financing abortion good public policy?

More on Religion arguments are only a distraction in the National Post's letter of the day.

Stop vacuuming for a second

I almost missed George Jonas's piece on Thursday, the Suicidal Generation. Thankfully my husband pointed it out to me.

Jonas had some very insightful words about the state of the world, and how the patriarchy has given way to the matriarchy.

"No generation has been as adept at sawing off the branch on which it was sitting as ours. We want to live in good health forever — fair enough — and start by killing off those who would help us achieve this ambition. We have nothing against babies, and actually wish other people had more of them because we may need them as ratepayers and organ donors, but having to bring them up cramps our style. 

As if extending post-retirement — i.e., unproductive — life by 20-30 years weren’t economically reckless enough, we pursue policies of longevity while casually slaughtering those who might pay for it. Sometimes I feel like going: “Hey, fellow, stop vacuuming for a second! That lump you’re about to remove is your only possible means of support in your Viagra days.
“Never mind if it’s alive or not, you are! You’re alive, and not only want to live past the age of peak productivity, but past the age of self-sufficiency as well. Cost what it may in diagnostic, surgical, pharmaceutical and geriatric research and treatment, you want to explore the far shores of dependency and maximum consumption of medical care and social services. Yet there you go, vacuuming away your sole means of support as if there were no tomorrow — and for you, there may not be.”
...
Had I been born a little earlier, say, 30 million years ago, in the same place, I wouldn’t have become a columnist. What geologists call the Pannonia basin was the bottom of a shallow sea then, covering much of Europe. Born in such a place, chances are I would have been an ancestral fish. I couldn’t have participated in building a society in which the least safe place is the womb and babies have no one to fear but their mothers. Yes, I would have missed something for sure."

I for one, am very glad that Jonas has received the Order of Canada. Much better than one of his predecessors, Dr. Henry Morgentaler. Who made his living from vacuuming out babies. Thank God for small mercies.

Religion arguments are only a distraction

I am always amazed when people insist on equating being pro-life to being religious. Like these three letter writers did in reply to my letter in the National Post. 

All  three writers brought religion into the discussion. This is always a warning sign to me of a weak argument, just ahead. And I'm never disappointed. 

They can't come up with any good arguments to defend their "pro-choice" viewpoint.

I just read George Jonas: Arguing bioethics with politicians and perch and he offers his own insight on the topic.

“So I read in the paper that you support life,” an acquaintance tells me. “Funny; never knew you were religious.” 

Religious? Funny. I never knew one had to be.

Jonas goes on to explain his point with his usual charm and wit. Read it. You'll love it.