Stand-up Guy

Now this is more like it:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to back aid for abortions abroad if he’s serious about  making maternal health a “top priority” for Canada, says Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.

Iggy comes out swinging, with the obvious.

Good for him.

UNICEF estimates that some 70,000 women a year die from botched illegal abortions. Who knows how many of the 500,000 women who die of pregnancy-related complications every year -- that's one a minute -- would be living if they had access to therapeutic abortions?

“We don’t want to have women dying because of botched procedures. We don’t want to have women dying in misery,” Ignatieff told reporters today after meetings on Parliament Hill on issues of international development. “We’ve had a pro-choice consensus in this area for a couple of generations and we want to hold it.”

So do most Canadians.

Of course, if Harper gets his majority, it's game over for women's reproductive freedoms.

The Prime Minister announced in the Star and at Davos, Switzerland, last week that the health of mothers and children would be the focus of Canada’s attention during this summer’s G-8 meetings in this country. 

Harper has not specifically said what this aid would include, but support for abortion would be a tough sell for him within his own Conservative caucus, where there are pockets of considerable sentiment against abortion.

''Pockets?''

My friend and colleague Susan Delacourt understates the fact that the overwhelming majority of the caucus is decidedly anti-choice.

The Liberal leader said he has no reason to believe that the Conservatives would withhold foreign aid from projects that assist women in getting abortions, but he pointed out that this was a problem in the United States during the time of former president George W. Bush.

Yes. It was called ''The Gag Rule'' -- one of the first things Bush signed when he entered the Oval Office -- and it caused the defunding of any NGO, health clinic or hospital that counseled women to get abortions for whatever reason.

“In the United States, during the Bush regime, there were substantial limitations on what international agencies could support in terms of women’s health,” Ignatieff said. “We don’t want us to go that way. We want to make sure that women have access to all the contraceptive methods available to control their fertility.”

And so do most most right -- as in the Do The Right Thing -- thinking Canadians.

That said, quite a few Liberal caucus members are also anti-choice.

Unfortunately, unless Ignatieff gets enough votes, it may well be the right-whinging Canadians who get their way.

Interesting, no, how women's issues are suddenly so big?

You know, I am beginning to think that Harper may have made a politically fatal error when he cynically prorogued Parliament last month. Not only has he dropped in the polls, not only has he galvanized many Canadians into paying attention to politics, not only has he set up a situation where media and the opposition can constantly be on the attack without his flacks jumping in to change the channel, not only is he mute on issues such as Rights & Democracy and UNRWA, he is helping Canadians to better understand what he and his team represent.

A backward-thinking bunch if ever there was one.

COUP DE GRACE NOTE: Today, BQ MP Nicole Demers reminded me of this Con job, which shows just how much the Harperites care about borned children

OTTAWA – Federal money earmarked to fight the tragedy of fetal alcohol disorders has been quietly chopped back year after year, says a new report.

"Each year the initiative has received only a portion of the dollars allocated," says an internal evaluation. "It is unclear why this cutback has become the norm."

The Public Health Agency of Canada has been budgeting $3.3 million each year for its fetal alcohol spectrum disorder initiative, but consistently spends only about two-thirds of the cash, says the report.

The evaluation, completed last year, was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The disorder, the result of alcohol consumption during pregnancy, causes a broad range of physical, mental and behavioural disabilities.

It's believed to affect 300,000 Canadians, costing about $24,000 annually in social services and health care for each afflicted child, many of whom suffer severe learning disabilities.

Oh, and I posted this last year, but it's worth reposting. It reinforces my argument that women muist be more than walking wombs if the world is to become a better place.

Comments

[Shell]

Thanks, AZ! Well done! I didn't know about the cuts to FAS funding. In Saskatchewan this is a huge problem & getting treatment is still extremely difficult. Of course they cut the funding - why would I be surprised?
Is there some way we can send the video you added directly to Stephen Harper, but add in some Canadian women suffering under this anti-woman rule in Canada?! "This applies to Canadian Girls too!, Mr. Harper."

[Alongpursuit]

This is exactly what I want to hear from Mr. Ignatieff. Good for him. What will Harper say in response?

[Mary Sunshine]

Thank you for the excellent video link.

As for Canada, I don't think Canadians will ever wake up. All most of them ever think about is their competitive advantage against their (Canadian) neighbours.

[Bina]

Looks like the groundhog finally came out and saw his shadow today. Too bad Iggy can't be like that more often.

[Jim M]

Apart from being the only respectable thing to do, Michael Ignatieff's initiative may also be the most effective to way pop the Conservative Party's balloon. For far too long, politicians of the Conservative Party (and certain Liberal Party politicians) have been posing as the champions of unborn children, winning votes from the pro-life movement without actually 'delivering' anything to them. After so many years of playing — and winning — the bait and switch game with pro-life/pro-death penalty/anti-same sex marriage groups (which are just one group pretending to be three, from what I can tell), it is almost impossible to believe that the latest response from the government (via Dimitri Soudas bull-feed), accusing the Liberal Party of using issues like abortion and same-sex marriage as "political footballs." Fortunately, I was not trying to swallow food or drink water when I read that. The Conservative Party has also been getting away for far too long with posing as Canada's only hope to combat crime. This country would eventually have more police than citizens in their world, instead of just the ones we need to break up Conservative domestic disputes and infighting (haha). At least they are telling the truth, though, when they say that Canada would need many extra police in a neo-conservative world, but they don't say the extra numbers are for containing the fallout of their disastrous social policies. The Conservative Party platform is obviously designed to benefit someone, though. It's just not designed to benefit most of the people who vote Conservative, apparently.

[...pat.]

Why are we not hearing from Jack this week? The NDP's stand on women clearly gives them the lead here.

[Max]

It's amazing to me that these "walking wombs" apparently have had no impact on the upbringing and instilling of values in their offspring. Funny, I always credited my own mother, who bore 7 children and was a (gasp!) stay at home mother, for teaching me to value everyone's contributions to society. For teaching me to respect women, but more importantly, to respect everyone, regardless of sex or colour, equally. Apparently I was duped. Men = monsters, women = breeding machines. Got it. Guess I better divorce my wife (don't worry, she'll be fine since she has her own career, and we're childless) and find myself a walking womb I can subjugate. Should be easy, right?

[M]

Jack might be too afraid to offend some voters if he came out swinging on Harper and challenged him to make sure family planning and access to contraception and safe abortions were part of the plan to "save" mothers and children. After all, Jack didn't really stand up to save the gun registry a month before December 6 last year - and didn't censure the member of his caucus that seconded the conservative Bill C-391 to scrap the long-gun registry when it was introduced.