So I got the news and it wasn't good... sigh... at least I am no longer in stasis. UBC does not want to give me the opportunity to write for two years and end up with a BFA. Fine. Fine then. (I am being passive aggressive...ha! crackin' myself up...) I am of course quite capable of rerouting myself to a poets life without them. Hmpphf!
So then there is the CBC hosting a "5 wishes for Canada" thing on facebook for the kids. The whole thing is now overrun with anti-choicers.... here's what I posted to the CBC blog, Editorial #1 on topic:
I am a bit shocked that the discussion about abortion came up this way in a forum that is essentially nationalist. I believe stongly in all that I do, but it seems this little project has been hijacked... Abortion has nothing to do with our nationhood, although how each state chooses to deal with abortion medically and legally might be said to define the nation in some way.
So then there is the CBC hosting a "5 wishes for Canada" thing on facebook for the kids. The whole thing is now overrun with anti-choicers.... here's what I posted to the CBC blog, Editorial #1 on topic:
I am a bit shocked that the discussion about abortion came up this way in a forum that is essentially nationalist. I believe stongly in all that I do, but it seems this little project has been hijacked... Abortion has nothing to do with our nationhood, although how each state chooses to deal with abortion medically and legally might be said to define the nation in some way.
We in Canada have a Supreme Court and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1988 it was decided that legal sanctions by the state against the provision of abortion is a violation of women's equality rights under the Charter.
If the 'wish' for Canada' is in fact a return to a legal situation where any person participating in abortion (mother and doctor/other medical staff in particular) can be criminalized, then this wish, should it be acted upon, would be a return to this version of women's legal inequality with men.
If the 'wish for Canada' is really 'abolish abortion' and it is meant to be taken outside of the legal relationship between the state and each Canadian, and perhaps is a call to the wider social contract, there are some basics that are required:
1) A Guaranteed Annual Income for all. We have raised generations and generations of children in poverty, but there is no need to continue this. Several governments have come to power in Canada promising to alleviate the poverty of children. Give their parents and potential parents money and the children will not be poor. Give a woman some money in her own name and she will be able to decide what to do about her pregnancy without the worry about feeding, clothing, and sheltering the child after birth
2) Proper and thorough and yes, culturally and religiously sensitive, health and sexuality instruction. Too many people become sexually active as adolescents and as adults without an understanding of the mechanics of their bodies, how to behave sexually with self-respect and how to deal with the bombardments of crass and sexist messages about proper sexual behaviour for men and women.
3)Free and widely available contraception of all sorts. Why do we have to pay for the pill? for ECP? for condoms, male and female alike? Why are young men and women who go to doctors looking for tubiligations and vasectomies discouraged and put-off? If you don't want to have a baby, you don't want to have a baby. Why are the people who don't want women to have abortions often the same ones that refuse to respect someone choosing to take responsibility for themselves and their sexuality by using contraception?
4)Discuss parenting early with young people. Why do they value raising children? What tools and supports will they need to do so? If they think they do not want to parent, why not? How can each person's decision be valued before the crisis of an unplanned abortion?
5) The End of Violence Against Women. If men who rape stop doing so, if men who batter stop doing so, raped and battered women will not be in the position of having to deal with the after effects of rape and violence, which sometimes includes pregnancy and abortion.
There is probably more, but this is a start. I am pro-choice, pro-abortion even, and I heartily agree that I would like to live in a world where pregnancies are welcome and women are free to birth and parent, (with or without a partner to parent alongside them.) I hope that world will also have room for the people who don't want to have children, and that all of us will have the tools and wherewithal to prevent a pregnancy or to get pregnant without the moral judgements of others interfering with our ability to do so. In this world, perhaps abortion won't be abolished, it will only become a mostly unnecessary and very occasionally used medical procedure, offered by those who are trained to provide the best and most respectful health care.
*************************
You can find the whole thing on facebook, look here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2392827649
join the facebook group and then support progressive wishes, make up your own.
And the CBC site is here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_1.html
and here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_2.html
(editorial 1 is where all the action is...but support 2!)
as an aside: I'm on facebook now, I gave in, its a good distraction on a day like today...
peace.
If the 'wish' for Canada' is in fact a return to a legal situation where any person participating in abortion (mother and doctor/other medical staff in particular) can be criminalized, then this wish, should it be acted upon, would be a return to this version of women's legal inequality with men.
If the 'wish for Canada' is really 'abolish abortion' and it is meant to be taken outside of the legal relationship between the state and each Canadian, and perhaps is a call to the wider social contract, there are some basics that are required:
1) A Guaranteed Annual Income for all. We have raised generations and generations of children in poverty, but there is no need to continue this. Several governments have come to power in Canada promising to alleviate the poverty of children. Give their parents and potential parents money and the children will not be poor. Give a woman some money in her own name and she will be able to decide what to do about her pregnancy without the worry about feeding, clothing, and sheltering the child after birth
2) Proper and thorough and yes, culturally and religiously sensitive, health and sexuality instruction. Too many people become sexually active as adolescents and as adults without an understanding of the mechanics of their bodies, how to behave sexually with self-respect and how to deal with the bombardments of crass and sexist messages about proper sexual behaviour for men and women.
3)Free and widely available contraception of all sorts. Why do we have to pay for the pill? for ECP? for condoms, male and female alike? Why are young men and women who go to doctors looking for tubiligations and vasectomies discouraged and put-off? If you don't want to have a baby, you don't want to have a baby. Why are the people who don't want women to have abortions often the same ones that refuse to respect someone choosing to take responsibility for themselves and their sexuality by using contraception?
4)Discuss parenting early with young people. Why do they value raising children? What tools and supports will they need to do so? If they think they do not want to parent, why not? How can each person's decision be valued before the crisis of an unplanned abortion?
5) The End of Violence Against Women. If men who rape stop doing so, if men who batter stop doing so, raped and battered women will not be in the position of having to deal with the after effects of rape and violence, which sometimes includes pregnancy and abortion.
There is probably more, but this is a start. I am pro-choice, pro-abortion even, and I heartily agree that I would like to live in a world where pregnancies are welcome and women are free to birth and parent, (with or without a partner to parent alongside them.) I hope that world will also have room for the people who don't want to have children, and that all of us will have the tools and wherewithal to prevent a pregnancy or to get pregnant without the moral judgements of others interfering with our ability to do so. In this world, perhaps abortion won't be abolished, it will only become a mostly unnecessary and very occasionally used medical procedure, offered by those who are trained to provide the best and most respectful health care.
*************************
You can find the whole thing on facebook, look here:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2392827649
join the facebook group and then support progressive wishes, make up your own.
And the CBC site is here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_1.html
and here: http://www.cbc.ca/wish/2007/06/editorial_2.html
(editorial 1 is where all the action is...but support 2!)
as an aside: I'm on facebook now, I gave in, its a good distraction on a day like today...
peace.
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