All the single ladies

Via Dammit Janet:

Crazy right wing lady conbot Phyllis Schlafly, self-styled as America's ''leader of the pro-family movement since 1972,'' exhausted from her travails against gays and lesbians, uppity women, healthcare advocates, liberals, anti-gun activists, etc. etc. etc., has now set her sights on that scourge of western society ... the single welfare mother!

Unmarried women, 70 percent of unmarried women, voted for Obama, and this is because when you kick your husband out, you've got to have big brother government to be your provider."

On Thursday, in an interview with Talking Points Memo, Schlafly repeated her link of single women, Obama and welfare, and added.

"Yes, I said that. It's true too. All welfare goes to unmarried moms.''

No, there are no single welfare dads. No welfare disabled. No welfare elderly. No welfare veterans. No welfare gun victims. No welfare anything except Single! Welfare! Mothers! and their bastard babies (but Heaven forbid that they have abortions, eh Phyllis?)

And you thought the Harris regime was over?

Mother Load

Now, let me see, if I were 22 years old, with seven or eight kids to feed and clothe, with miles to walk every morning to just get water with which to wash clothes and cook some rice, the last thing my exhausted body and fragile family would need is another pregnancy -- or a dose of HIV.

But does the Harper government get that?

Is the Pope Catholic? (Oh and he's another one who cares about women and, cough cough, children.)

I've hit on this topic before, here, here, here, etc., about PM Stephen Harper's announcement two months ago on supporting maternal health at the coming G8 summit, and how he and his handmaiden international cooperation minister Bev Oda refuse to connect maternal health to family planning, access to contraception and condoms -- which means freedom from dying in childbirth, freedom from AIDS, which means, uh, maternal health. (Read this, if you have a sec.)

But they don't make those connections in TheoConWorld.

Anyway.

Here's the latest, from the Star's Susan Delacourt:

In the Commons on Wednesday, International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda pointedly left birth control off the list of aid projects the government intended to support, saying that “saving lives” was more important than family planning.

“We have chosen to focus the world’s lenses on saving the lives of mothers and children,” Oda said. “When we know what we can do by providing clean water, vaccinations, better nutrition, as well as the most effective way is the training of health care workers and improving access for those women, that is what we are going to do.”

And on Tuesday, during a Commons committee hearing, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon made clear that the maternal-health priority “does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning.”

Liberals and New Democrats are incredulous, saying that this is a direct copy of the foreign aid policies of former U.S. president George W. Bush, who banned any support for aid organizations that supported abortion in developing countries for the eight years he was in office. Barack Obama reversed that ban within days of taking power last year.

That would be the so-called Global Gag Rule.

To continue:

Liberal MP Keith Martin, also a doctor, said without providing access to a “full array” of family planning options, women and men can’t protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancies.

“As a result, you have higher abortion rates, more disease, more maternal deaths and more maternal injuries,” Martin said.

He said he was “shocked” that the government took family planning off the table and accused the Conservatives of being hypocritical.

“They can’t say on the one hand they want to save lives . . . yet on the other, deprive people of having the tools to be able to reduce the death rate,” he said.

“The government is slaughtering good medical practice on the altar of ideology,” he said, adding that the government’s medical plan “defies science.

“In fact, it violates the ethics of good medical practice,” said Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca).

But, with this government, it's not about good medical practice. It's about making women be fruitful and multiply, even if multiplying kills them and their children.

Status of women mannequin minister Helena Guergis is not standing up for real maternal health either, judging from this message track exchange with NDP MP Irene Mathyssen at Monday's committee meeting.

Ms. Irene Mathyssen: What role will you play in the Prime Minister's G8 maternal and child health initiative, if any, and are you at all concerned by the fact that money for women and children in this country has not appreciably increased in regard to maternal health and child health?

 Hon. Helena Guergis: I will play whatever role it is that the Prime Minister is defining for me in this process, happily, and I'm very proud and honoured to be a part of that process.

Memo to the HarperCons: Read a book, maybe a science book, or a medical text.

Just not the ''Good Book.''

(Image from Save the Mothers.)

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Susan has some late night thoughts.

In all the Cons' command

I've been having some fun messing with the national anthem, thanks to the Harper government's commitment, announced during yesterday's throne speech, to castrate gender neuter O Canada. 

With a little help from some Facebook and Twitter friends, here's what I have so far:

Oh Canada! Our home on native land.

True hetero love, in all the Cons command.

We stand on gays for thee.

Green Assassin has a real good version here.

Understand that I am not opposed to this move. First because the anthem has been changed many times, and isn't even a good translation of the original French.  Second because women deserve to be acknowledged as well -- especially since there are many serving in Afghanistan where two have already lost their lives.

And that's without making much of our golden girls' performances at the Olympics. How many times did they stand up for Canada while the anthem played?

Although, when you think about it, ''all thy sons' command'' is not inaccurate when you consider the male-female ratio in Parliament, provincial legislatures, corporate boardrooms ...

Anyway.

As others have noted, this sop to women -- oh gee thanks and whoop-de-do -- hardly makes up for the government's disregard for women and families in the federal budget brought forth today. Not only are EI premiums rising while corporate taxes drop, but Harper still has not solved the daycare dilemma.

Today Finance Minister Jim Flaherty tossed a bone to single parent families with this: 

To save on tax on the $100 per month for children under the Universal Child Care Benefit, single parents will be able to report the income on the tax return of a child under the age of 18.

Which will work out great for richer families. Poor families .. not so much.

Meanwhile, there's this:

Split families: Parents who share custody of children more or less equally will now also be eligible to share the Child Tax Benefit, Universal Child Tax Benefit and the GST/HST credit.

Which sounds great in principle. But I've been on this beat long enough to know that, when parents are at each others' throats over custody, child support and property, this could lead to even greater conflict..

On other issues relevant to women, I can't say there's a whole lot. Nor is there anything for seniors on small fixed pensions. Nothing on housing. Nothing on health care.

For this they needed the recalibration vacation? Give me the break they took!

But what really galls is that the anthem change is being blamed on us femi-nazis because, as you know,  women have have been storming Parliament Hill demanding abortion rights be mentioned, along with equal pay, in the song.

We feminists have so much influence on the Harper government. Snerk.

But ... what do you know?

The push came from an openly gay feminist named Nancy Ruth. That's Senator Nancy Ruth. That's Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth -- a woman I have a lot of time for actually.

But the truth is, tossing this into the political mix right now was strictly a Harper decision.

And it was as cynical as anything else he has done.

O CONada!

P.S. Heh.

Speaks for itself

I don't like to give politicians free reign rein but I have to say that I endorse every word of this Liberal party of Canada news release, posted here without any edits. I did add some links.

Today, Liberal MPs Carolyn Bennett, Maria Minna and Anita Neville released the following open letter to International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda:

Dear Minister Oda:

We are writing today to urge you to reconsider your ill-advised decision to not include  Canada’s longstanding support for contraception and reproductive health services as part of your recently-announced maternal and infant health initiative for some of the world’s poorest countries.

By refusing to fund programs that respect women’s reproductive rights – including  contraception and reproductive health services – you are allowing ideological differences to get in the way of good health care and gender equality.

While immunization, access to clean water, better nutrition and improved training for health-care workers are all important to the health and safety of women and girls, addressing the real issues underlying poor maternal and infant health requires that the full gamut of options be made available to promote educated family planning and gender equality. Anything less is a mere bandaid solution.

We are particularly concerned when we see members of your government spreading false information on this issue. In a recent editorial, Conservative MPs Maurice Vellacott and Brad Trost tell readers that there is “no evidence” to back up claims that proper education, resources and support would reduce maternal death and complications – when in fact there is substantial factual evidence.

Just an excerpt from that editorial, penned by two TheoCon MPs who are clearly experts on what is good for women:

As Ian Gentles, research director at the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research, noted in a recent National Post article, Poland virtually prohibited abortion 20 years ago. Since then, maternal mortality has decreased by 75 per cent, infant mortality by almost 66 per cent, and the rate of premature births by more than 50 per cent.

According to the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2009, Ireland, the only other European country where abortion is illegal, has the lowest maternal mortality ratio of any country, with one death per 100,000 live births.

All of which I debunked here.

Back to the release:

A 2006 International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) report ("Death and Denial: Unsafe Abortion and Poverty") demonstrates that women who can’t access reproductive health services are more likely to obtain an unsafe abortion, and more likely to die as a result of pregnancy, childbirth or unsafe abortion.

Recent research by the Guttmacher Institute and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) (PDF) makes a compelling case for greater international support for sexual and reproductive health programs.

The report states that satisfying the unmet need for contraceptive services in developing countries would avert 52 million unintended pregnancies annually, which, in turn, would save more than 1.5 million lives and prevent 505,000 children from losing their mothers.

The key findings of the report are that maternal deaths in developing countries could be slashed by 70 per cent and newborn deaths cut nearly in half if the world doubled its investment in family planning and pregnancy-related care. It states that “investing in both family planning and maternal newborn services can achieve the same dramatic outcomes for $1.5 billion less than investing in maternal and newborn services alone.”

The risk of maternal mortality increases with each pregnancy. Yet research shows that 215 million women who would like to delay or avoid childbearing do not have access to modern contraception. Providing contraception to those who want it would avert about one-third of maternal deaths.

About 20 million women have unsafe abortions every year. About 8.5 million of those women need hospital care for complications, but that is not available to about three million of these women.

According to the UN Population Division, 61 percent of the world’s population live in countries where abortion is permitted. Providing safe abortion services where abortion is legal would prevent many of the estimated 68,000 deaths of women each year from complications arising from unsafe abortions.

But this issue goes beyond adequate health care. International human rights law states very clearly that maternal mortality constitutes a violation of the right to life and is linked to or results from violations of many other human rights, including the rights to health, education, equality and non-discrimination.

Canada is a signatory to several agreements that commit to providing a full range of safe and reliable family planning methods and reproductive health services. The Development Assistance Accountability Act, for example, requires that any assistance provided by Canada be consistent with international human rights standards. In June 2009, a UN Human Rights Council resolution also committed Canada to provide “the effective promotion and protection of the human rights of women and girls” which includes “sexual and reproductive health.”

Most notably, Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself signed onto last year’s G8 Leader’s statement, which clearly promotes accelerating progress on combating child mortality, including through “sexual and reproductive health care and services and voluntary family planning.”

Getting beyond addressing the symptoms of poverty means giving women the resources they need to make decisions about their lives, which is the key to lifting entire communities out of destitution.

Based on what we’ve seen from your government thus far, we have every reason to be concerned. Your government has launched a systematic assault against women’s equality here in Canada.  You have banned the words “gender equality” from the lexicon of the department of Foreign Affairs and Status of Women Canada.  You have cut funding to Status of Women and scrapped the Court Challenges Program.  And you have downgraded pay equity from a non-negotiable right to a bargaining chip.

In conclusion, we once again urge you to reverse your position around your maternal and infant health initiative. We ask you to fight for what is right and reasonable, and in the best interests of all women. It is only when women and their families are given access to all family planning and reproductive health options that we will truly be successful at helping to lift them out of poverty.

Sincerely,

The Hon. Dr. Carolyn Bennett, Liberal Health Critic and former Public Health Minister

The Hon. Maria Minna, Chair of Liberal Women’s Caucus and former Minister for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

The Hon. Anita Neville, Liberal Status of Women Critic and former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister Responsible for Status of Women

Meanwhile, the National Post thinks I am ''hyperventilating'' over the Harper government's attacks on women's rights.

IMAGE: Lifted from this spoof site mocking Vellacott and Trost for their stance on same sex rights.

Yahoo, Another reproductive Rights Round-Up

Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war ...

Let's begin in the Sunshine state of Florida where Southern Baptist theologian, father of eight and Republican rep Charles E. Van Zant proposes all citizens, especially of the wombanly persuasion, share his upright way of thinking.

Here's his way of thinking though: Rather than punish the maternal units, go after the doctors who perform the evil abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

An expansive measure to make most abortions illegal in Florida has been filed for the 2010 Legislative session, challenging federal protections in place for more than 40 years.

Both anti-abortion advocates and abortion rights supporters agree the 53-page proposal is an attempt to directly challenge the 40-year-old Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions in the United States in 1973.

“The Legislature finds that there have been 50 million abortions in the United States since the Roe decision,” the bill reads. “ The Legislature further finds that every life lost to abortion was sacred and of the highest value.”

Sponsored by Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, HB 1097 would criminalize most abortions now allowed under state and federal law, increase penalties for physicians who perform such services and require pregnant women to receive more information on adoption. The bill was filed Wednesday, the same day that right to life groups made the trek to Tallahassee to meet lawmakers and rally support.

Except in cases where a woman’s life is considered in danger, doctors who perform abortions would face first degree felonies punishable by up to life in prison and civil fines.

Now, it's doubtful this bill will get very far. But you can bet Van Zant will have back-up in the House. And, if they don't succeed this time, they'll try another way to crack this.

By the way: You'll find the comments over at Feministing rather amusing.

Now to Oklahoma where a particularly invasive law was declared unconstitutional -- but only on a technicality.

On Friday an Oklahoma judge declared a controversial law unconstitutional that would have  enacted a host of new abortion regulations, including one mandating that detailed demographic and personal information about women seeking abortions be posted online. Though pro-choice activists are applauding the decision, it was not indicative of a dismissal of the regulations themselves. Instead, the judge knocked down the law due to the fact that it violated Oklahoma’s "single-subject" rule, which states that each law can only cover one subject.

The law, which was initially scheduled to go into effect on Nov. 1, 2009, would have required a woman seeking an abortion to fill out a 10-page questionnaire asking everything from her age and marital status to the date of the abortion to the county in which it took place. That information would then be posted on the state’s Department of Health website. Proponents of the law say that names would not have accompanied the statistics. But opponents say the law was a scare tactic that infringed on women’s privacy, and that people in small towns in Oklahoma could easily draw conclusions about identities from even seemingly anonymous information.

Undaunted, the forced birthers are back at the drawing board, drafting, count 'em, four new laws that will get around the technicality.

In other action, the panel passed four separate abortion measures that previously had been declared unconstitutional because they had been combined in one bill.

Bills must deal with only one subject.

The panel passed HB 3290 by Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow. It would require a doctor to be in the room when the abortion pill RU486 is administered.

The panel also passed HB 2780 by Rep. Lisa Billy, R-Lindsay, which would require women who seek an abortion to have an ultrasound and have its contents explained to them.

Rep. Ryan Kiesel, D-Seminole, said the Legislature should focus on preventing unintended pregnancies rather than bringing further disgrace and shame to women facing the most difficult decision of their lives.

Billy responded: “This bill is about choice for women. It is an opportunity for her to understand what is growing inside of her and the consequences.”

The panel passed HB 3110 by Rep. Pam Peterson, R-Tulsa, which would allow health-care providers who object to abortion not to participate in the procedure.

Peterson’s other abortion bill, HB 3284, also passed.

It would require women who seek abortions to provide a host of information about themselves to be posted on a public Web site.

As if there aren't bigger things to worry about in Oklahoma -- like how one in five actual children live in poverty.

Oh but it gets better in Utah.

A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this week and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some instances.

According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah's proposed law unique is that it is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended miscarriage.

The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who was seven months pregnant, paid a man $150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because, at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.

The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care, with penalties including up to life in prison.

Never mind how desperate that 17 year old girl must have been to pay somebody to beat her up. (Can you imagine?)  Might it be a coincidence that there are no abortion providers in 93 per cent of Utah's counties? 

Nah.

To continue:

In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by "reckless" behavior.  

Using the legal standard of "reckless behavior" all a district attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to cause miscarriage, even if she didn't intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.

"This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," says Missy Bird, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah. Bird says there are no exemptions in the bill for victims of domestic violence or for those who are substance abusers. The standard is so broad, Bird says, "there nothing in the bill to exempt a woman for not wearing her seatbelt who got into a car accident."

Such a standard could even make falling down stairs a prosecutable event, such as the recent case in Iowa where a pregnant woman who fell down the stairs at her home was arrested under the suspicion she was trying to terminate her pregnancy.

Because, Lady, when you're preggers your body is nationalized by the state.

Now to Africa where, if women aren't being raped, they're being denied access to legal abortions. So they have illegal ones. And then they die.

Take Kenya. For 20 years, Kenyans have been working fitfully to revise their constitution and are now mere weeks away from possibly finalizing the document. But this milestone in the nation's slow move towards real democracy may be marred by another human rights calamity. If the constitution is approved in its current form by the Kenyan Parliament sometime this year, Kenya will join the inglorious ranks of three nations -- Northern Mariana Islands, Uganda, and Zambia -- that have prohibited abortion within their constitution.

The most recent draft of the constitution had solid human rights protections for women. However, a review by a parliamentary commission resulted in the evisceration of many of the core democratic constitutional provisions. This included amending Article 25, which in its original language guaranteed that "Every individual has the right to life" (emphasis added).

The wording choice for Article 25 is hardly revolutionary. In fact, it reflects the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is consistent with the majority of national constitutions in the world. But conservative religious groups are not partial to international legal precedence and many lobbied Kenyan parliamentarians to amend Article 25. Which they did, and then some.

Article 25 still protects life, but life is now defined as beginning at conception. Moreover, Article 25 also outlaws abortion. Phrases in the draft guaranteeing the right to healthcare, including reproductive health care, and that no one may be refused emergency medical treatment (say, for an unsafe abortion) were also eliminated from the draft text.

Which brings us to Nicaragua, and this shocking story.

A pregnant 27-year old Nicaraguan woman, "Amelia," with metastatic cancer has been denied medical treatment on the grounds that it might harm her baby.

Nicaragua passed a draconian anti-abortion law in 2008 which criminalizes abortion even in the case of rape or incest or when the mother's life is in danger. Nicaraguan doctors are prohibited from treating pregnant women with cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria and cardiac diseases, and threatened with prison sentences for providing health services or information related to abortion.

Amelia has effectively been handed a death sentence by her government. Each day she is denied treatment, she edges closer to death; in a tragic irony, she will most likely die before the baby is even born. Her 10-year old daughter will be left without a mother, since the Nicaraguan government values the life of an unborn fetus over that of a mother. 

And doesn't that just put the ''life'' in ''pro-life?'' (And if you want to do something to help, please go here.)

Jump to Dammit Janet! where Fern reminds us that this is what PM Stephen Harper and his theocratic vision of maternal healthcare looks like.

... it's not just the preventable deaths of these women, but the bloody suffering they go through. And their families. And their soon-to-be-orphaned children.

Yet this is the kind of no-family-planning, no-contraception, no-abortion, misogynist healthcare Steve is promoting.

It's unconscionable.

Indeed.

And, finally, something  completely different. Angie the Anti-Theist is having an abortion -- and is documenting it. (Follow the Twitter debate here.)

Here's an excerpt of Angie's guest post over at The Friendly Atheist:

Prior to conceiving my son five years ago, I was told I would never carry a child to term because of sexual abuse that happened when I was 7- and 8-years-old — and I barely did. I didn’t find out I was pregnant with him until the 21st week, roughly halfway through my pregnancy. When I did find out, I was underweight for the duration of the pregnancy, and I had several other high risk indicators. I did my best to gain weight (it helped that my ex-husband worked at a pizza store).

Even still, I made several trips to the emergency room throughout my last two trimesters. During my eighth month of pregnancy, I actually lost ten pounds due to a pretty horrible stomach virus. It was as if I had no immune system at all while pregnant. I went from having never received IV fluids in my life, to being intimately familiar with the feeling of cold fluids dumping into my veins. And let’s not even get into the other causes of dehydration.

When my son was born, I decided I didn’t want any more kids, in part because I’d learned during my pregnancy that I was a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis, a fatal and painful disease (of which my son was fortunately spared). I don’t regret that decision. My son is happiest when he’s getting one-on-one attention from an adult — he has even manipulated the system at school so that he gets to hang out with his teacher while she eats lunch and the other kids nap! I honestly don’t believe siblings are always a blessing, always friends, or always best for a family.

I know that I can be a damn good mom to the one special needs child I have — he had many health problems when he was younger and he is speech delayed and has a short attention span now — but I don’t know if I could be a good mom to two kids, one or both of whom would have special needs. I know my mom had more children than she could afford or care for, and I don’t want to make the same mistake. 

Now, considering all that, I think Angie is entitled to make her own decisions about her own health and well-being, as well as those of her son. But you can be sure that there are millions of people who believe that they have the right to colonize her body.

Reproductive rights are human rights.

End of stories.

Support Bros

One of the greatest things about PM Stephen Harper's sudden professed interest in women's well-being -- at least that of those women who don't live in Canada, of course -- is how it's making many men here owning up to being pro-choice. They're actually blogging about it.

Now, a quick look at the male opinionators listed in my blogroll will reveal that there were already many guys out there who got it. It's just that, now, even more are speaking out. (And, yeah, even if it's about scoring partisan political points, who cares? We women need all the Support Bros we can get.)

In the US, in the wake of that Tebow anti-choice uproar, feminist bloggers are cheering on the likes of pro-footballer Scott Fujita as well as these guys:

Which brings us to this post today by BCer in Toronto Jeff Jedras (I added the boldface):

In a story in Embassy Mag (behind a subscriber firewall, but I’ve pasted the relevant sections below) Canadian International Development Minister Bev Oda confirms safe abortions, and even contraception, will not be part of the Conservative push on maternal and child care:

Oda says no abortion, contraceptives support
   

But the WHO reports that lack of both contributes to unnecessary deaths.

CIDA Minister Bev Oda says the government's child and maternal health strategy will not address unsafe abortions in developing countries or support access to family planning and contraceptives. Rather, she said that to ensure the aid agency remains effective, "it's the lives of mothers and babies that we are focused on."

<SNIP>

When asked about support for contraceptives and family planning in an interview last week, Ms. Oda said: "In order to maintain our focus, again our focus is on maternal and child health and mortality rates.

"We want to make sure that mothers, pregnant women, are healthy and can have safe births, and that the birthing process is made safer because if you look at the number of births during the actual birthing process, that's where a number of maternal deaths happen," she added.

"We also want to make sure when babies are born, they are born as healthy as possible so that they can live through their early age, up to the age of five, with as strong and good health as possible."

Which is pretty much on the same HarperCon Wombs on Wheels message track she was on when she spoke to CBC Radio's Carol Off last week.

I won't belabour all the reasons why maternal healthcare includes contraception, family planning, AIDS prevention and, yes, abortion. I've done it so often. I just want to emphasize Jedras' point:

The idea of a major push to address maternal and child care is a noble one. But ideology can’t be allowed to dictate the program and the help we’re going to give to women in need. We should listen to the experts on the ground about what is needed and what will be effective to meet the goals we’re trying to achieve and let them direct the resources accordingly.

That has always been the Canadian policy, and the Conservatives desire to address this challenge is legitimate, it shouldn’t change it now. Sadly, though, it seems that the trend of the Harper Conservatives allowing ideology to guide development and aid decisions is ever expanding.

Jedras also dug up this video. It's from CBC News yesterday.

Please pay special attention to the note The Family Canada put up with it.

Your letters and emails to Members of Parliament has paid off! Shelly Glover confirms that Abortion will now not be included in the Canadian Government's plan to help women and children overseas.

Pray for the Conservative Party of Canada and our Prime Minister! Donate and volunteer your time at www.conservative.ca

Forward this video to all of your Christian friends!!!!!

Canada: Now Under OMG Management.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Joyce Arthur has more.

Of course, Ignatieff is a politician, and bringing up abortion is no doubt a political strategy in part – but it’s also the absolutely right thing for him to do. It is impossible to tackle maternal health without addressing unsafe abortion, which is a leading cause of maternal death in most developing countries. Given the critical importance of legal safe abortion in saving women’s lives, and the Conservative Party’s well-known anti-choice stance, Ignatieff would have been remiss not to make it a burning issue. The majority of women in Canada are pro-choice, and we are surprised, pleased, and hopeful to see Ignatieff stand up to defend the rights of poor women in other countries.

Conservative politicians and commentators have heaped scorn on Ignatieff’s concerns, however, and condemned him for turning women’s health into a “political football.” But most of the politicking is actually coming from Ignatieff’s critics, who have launched attacks without the benefit of any facts, and even less compassion for women. Some of the coverage is so shockingly ignorant that it qualifies as being misogynist.

Go to her page for a misogyny round-up.

If you can bear it.

Coming up short

The welfare of women continues to dominate the political agenda through the suspension of Parliament.

And so, a few items of note.

Over at Rabble.ca, Murray Dobbin nicely sums up how the Harper government has run "roughshod'' over women.

Nothing new there as regular Broadsides readers know. If I had the time, I would add in a lot more starting with the threats to our reproductive choices and the pending elimination of the long-gun registry.

By coincidence, Regina Mom today documented the dollar value of some of the cuts to programs that helped women achieve equal rights and economic parity.

Finally, NDP leader Jack Layton took advantage of the current political climate to issue a news release challenging party leaders to put Canadian women and children first.

Mr. Layton invited Mr. Harper, as well as Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe, to cooperate in 2010 to improve the lives of Canadian women and children. He outlined a series of concrete New Democrat proposals that, if embraced by the other parties, would mean real progress for women and children. Those proposals include:

• Employment Insurance rules that deny eligibility to six in ten women;
• adopting key recommendations of the 2004 Pay Equity Task Force;
• increasing support for women’s groups working to prevent violence;
• launching an inquiry into 520 missing or murdered Aboriginal women;
• launching a federal initiative to ensure every child has daily access to healthy food;
• boosting the Guaranteed Income Supplement to end poverty among seniors (overwhelmingly women).

It's stunning to me that, in this country, in this century, kids and seniors go hungry.

Who was it who said that, if you want to know the true measure of a man, watch how he treats old people, children and animals?

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Layton had an op-ed in today's National Post.

Canada is among the wealthiest nations in the world, yet 70% of Inuit preschool-age children live in homes where there is not always enough food. There are many mothers in Canada who live in unsafe places, who are going without food, electricity or heat because of persistent, deep poverty. These deprivations have a devastating effect on Canada's very youngest, evidenced by the fact that infant mortality rates in low-income neighbourhoods are almost double those in richer ones.

Mr. Harper acknowledges that the solutions to maternal and child health problems are "not intrinsically expensive." This holds true for Canadian women and children as well: Providing safe drinking water on reserves, addressing the affordable housing crisis, and funding organizations that support women and children are all relatively inexpensive compared to the health and social costs of poverty in Canada, which are estimated at more than $20-billion per year.

<SNIP>

To put the full consequences of (Harper's) indifference into perspective, imagine a city the size of Winnipeg full of children: That is the number of our kids who live in poverty in Canada today.

As a country, we have the ability to take decisive action to end this cycle of marginalization, and Mr. Harper has shown that he knows that investing in women and children will get the job done in the developing world. It will be pure hypocrisy if he refuses to make similar investments here at home.

Labour pains

It just gets better and better.

Further to the previous post, about how the HarperCons are now caught between the devil and the deep  blue machine on the connection between maternal health and reproductive freedoms, this As It Happens interview last night by CBC Radio's Carol Off is a totally worth your time.

You can listen to it by clicking on Part II here -- the interview is at the top of the half hour -- or going directly to the Windows Media Player here.

First up is Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett -- who knows a whole more about maternal health than the entire Conservative caucus.

That said, I would have liked to have heard another Liberal MP on the subject, emergency room physician ob-gyn Keith Martin, who has been in the field in some of the hellholes for women of the earth. Maternal health is practically an obsession for him. He insists that it will have a positive impact on everybody's health. That's because, if you create the physical infrastructure (clinics, hospitals etc.) and train the people to help pregnant women -- as well as those who don't want to be pregnant -- your efforts extend to other areas of healthcare in the region.  (We had a long conversation on Thursday afternoon which I hope to write up soon.) He also doesn't shy away from the subject of abortion.

Anyway, Bennett is followed by Bev Oda, Minister of International Co-operation, the cabinet minister who was stuck with the tough questions after PM Stephen Harper made his grandiose, opportunistic and hypocritical announcement about ''championing'' the cause of maternal health last week.

Off keeps trying to pin her down, on how much the government is willing to commit, what exactly its plans are, whether it recognizes  the connection between maternal care, child mortality and reproductive rights ...

Oda gives an Olympic-worthy skating performance, doing triple flips to avoid dealing with the specifics and, more important, family planning.

My only regret is that Off didn't pin Oda down on maternal health and infant mortality right here at home.

Still, I knew this was going to be fun.

This may be the issue that brings the Harper government down.

My work is done here.

(H/t to reader Jay H. who sent me the link.)

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Via Dammit Janet  come this.

Despite harsh criticism from two prominent Catholic bishops, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff stood firm on Friday on his position that abortion rights must be tied to any Canadian plan to improve maternal and infant health in the developing world.

Calgary Bishop Fred Henry on Friday called Mr. Ignatieff’s proposal “pathetic,” while on Thursday Archbishop Thomas Collins of Toronto labelled the Liberal leader’s position on abortion and the developing world “sad.”

“In light of the many positive contributions that Canada can make to the improvement of maternal and child health, it is astonishing that the leader of the Opposition has issued an official statement advocating contraception and abortion as fundamental elements in addressing this important issue,” said Archbishop Collins. “Even those who think that abortion should be allowed do not, however, propose it as a positive contribution to the good of society.”

Bishop Henry was even more blunt.

“I thought it was pathetic for a political leader to suggest that abortion is somehow tied to the health of women and children,” said Bishop Henry. “It was a particularly crass remark in light of all the orphaned children we now see in Haiti. It was absolutely incredible that he would say that and he is alienating religious people with these comments. This will not win him votes.”

Male celibate priests who don't even believe in contraception pronouncing on women's reproductive rights in the 21st Century.

BWAHAHAHA.

Perhaps you gentlemen might get over that virgin birth thing.

Electile dysfuntion

Here's an absolute must-read by my Star sistah Susan Delacourt.

It's all about how the Liberals are wining that ''left-wing fringe group'' called women while PM Stephen Harper is playing to the oil guys and cowboys -- at the expense of the environment and Canadian unity, according to my other Star sistah Chantal Hebert.

Not surprisingly, its headline reads ''PM from Mars, Iggy from Venus?'' and it shows how Harper's Johnny-come-lately position on maternal healthcare, not to mention his utter disdain for the plight of our own First Nations kids, could make all the difference during the next election. I added the boldface.

... when Harper talked to Sports Illustrated this week about the "tough and aggressive and ambitious" traits of the Canadian national psychology – comparing it to the skills needed for hockey – it's entirely possible that those words found their mark with women. And child care may be as much a men's issue these days as it is a concern for women.

What may have an effect, though not strictly down the gender divide, is Ignatieff's rather risky decision to raise the subject of abortion.

He did it on Tuesday in the context of Harper's new foreign-aid priority – the Liberal leader asking whether help for women abroad would include aid to organizations that support access to safe abortions. This is a hot-button issue for largely Conservative, anti-abortion advocates. In fact, support for abortions is exactly what groups such as Campaign Life were asking Harper to avoid in the wake of his announced new focus on foreign aid for women.

Officially, Harper's office dismissed the Ignatieff announcement, accusing him of playing political games with an issue of conscience and morality.

Conservatives, however, are in a bit of a glass house when they throw rocks in that direction, with their own history of attacks on Liberals over sensitive issues such as anti-Semitism, patriotism and support for the troops. In many ways, this was a deliberate Liberal effort to turn those visceral, wedge tactics back on the Conservatives.

And unofficially, Conservatives were counselling each other to avoid falling into the Liberals' trap this week – to not get baited into another polarized debate on abortion, which, history shows, tends to drive more voters away from the Conservatives than it attracts.

The irony is, the Con men are caught between a rock and a hard place here. If they say they don't want to re-open the abortion debate -- as if it ever closed -- they'll anger their socially regressive base. If they do start talking about abortion, and let all those caucus members, overwhelmingly anti-choice, start yapping, then the Cons will drive away the fiscal conservatives who are socially progressive.

Heh.

Meanwhile, NDP leader Jack Layton, who today announced that he is battling prostate cancer, is getting in on the maternal healthcare action. Monday, he's holding a newser to ''challenge his three federal counterparts to seek common ground to make the concerns of women and children in Canada a priority in the next session of Parliament.''

Heh-heh.

Guess we're gonna see a lot more blue sweaters and kittens during the campaign.

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.