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There's more to life
Read the article / show / issue that provoked me to write a letter and my response below that or go straight to my response
Date Posted on this Site
June 20, 2006
Publication
Toronto Sun
Publication Date
March 17, 2006
Published Content
There's more to life
By RACHEL GIESE
The best piece of advice I ever received about raising my son is this: What you do matters more than what you say. If you want your child to grow up to be a respectful, compassionate person with some basic table manners, you had better mirror those behaviours yourself.
I was thinking about this as I watched the antics of the so-called "pro-life" lobby in the United States these past few weeks. So-called because I have yet to find a single pro-lifer who cares as much about life as they do about controlling women's bodies. I won't deny that the movement loves fetuses, but those are just about the only things it loves and the only "lives" it wants to protect.
As you may know, state legislators in South Dakota recently enacted a sweeping ban on abortion, allowing it only when a woman's life is at risk. That's right, there are no exceptions, even in cases of rape or incest -- because, really, what could be more life-affirming than forcing a traumatized 14-year-old girl who was raped by her father to carry a child to term?
Other states, namely Indiana and Missouri, indicate they will follow suit and prohibit abortion there as well. Meanwhile, in Boston, the social services arm of the Catholic Church has stopped providing adoption services because of a Massachusetts law that permits gay couples to adopt. Yes, you read me right. The one recourse the Catholic Church allowed pregnant women who could not raise their children is now closed to them in order to spite gay people.
Now, wasn't Boston the same place where the Catholic Church for years turned a blind eye to rampant sexual abuse of children by priests? I guess the church was too busy protecting unborn children to protect actual, born ones.
And lest we get too smug up here in the Sodom and Gomorrah of abortion-providing, same-sex marriage-loving Canada, just last month editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal were fired for publishing a story that questioned the way pharmacists administered "Plan B," an emergency contraception drug. As directed by the Canadian Pharmacist Association (CPhA), pharmacists grill women about their sexual history, store the information in a database and in some cases have refused on moral grounds to dispense this legal drug.
(Just to clear up any misunderstandings, Plan B is not an "abortion pill." It does not prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. It prevents conception by delaying ovulation. As such, it seems to me pharmacists have no more right to refuse to administer Plan B than they do the birth control pill.)
If I could adapt my parenting advice for opponents of abortion, I'd say this: If you really want people to believe you are pro-life, act like it. While 800 abortions were performed annually in South Dakota, there are about 1,500 children at any given time in that state's foster care system. How about lobbying on their behalf?
Or, given that the U.S. states with the strongest anti-abortion laws also are those with the lowest funding for services for poor children, how about spending your considerable energy and passion on ensuring those kids get adequate health care, nutrition and education?
Or, instead of channeling your fundraising efforts to harass women making one of the most intimate and private decisions a person can make, how about using that money to support the orphanages in the Balkans that house kids who were the product of a mass campaign of rape by Serbian soldiers?
That might begin to put the "life" into "pro-life."
My Response Letter
RE There's more to life - March 17, 2006
Ms. Giese's logic is faulty.
She attempts to attack the credibility of pro-lifers by questioning their commitment to related causes. But this position fails on at least two fronts:
- Ms. Giese asserts that pro-lifers need to do more than just advocate for the unborn in order to show they are pro-life. The pro-life position is clear, and the people who advocate this position are obviously committed to the dignity of life. No other action is required to prove their mettle. Indeed, it would start to become absurd it we utilized this test for all arguments. For example, using Ms. Giese's logic, those in favour of the death penalty would actually need to kill someone before they are taken seriously.
- Ms. Giese lists three activities that pro-lifers could undertake in order to prove they're truly pro-life. Assuming we could overcome the logical fallacy that other actions are required as proof, Ms. Giese has no evidence that pro-lifers are negligent in performing the actions she mentions. Pro-lifers are also foster parents, adoptive parents, and donors to related causes. They do not stop fighting for the rights of children just because the children have emerged from the womb.
In truth, Ms. Giese attempts to attack pro-lifers, because she cannot credibly attack their argument.
Was my response published?
No
Did I get a response?
No