Wednesday, March 22, 2006

DOSSIER # 23: PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION

Within every culture there are topics that one is not supposed to talk about. Things that you are not supposed to question, truths that you are not supposed to deny. Even the most ‘open’ of cultures has things that they are not supposed to say. Similarly, no culture considers itself ‘closed minded’.

In modern day vernacular these terms are synonymous with been ‘left’ or ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ in your outlook. But these terms as employed by the left are really just words and rhetoric from the 1960’s generation who were reacting to the ‘conservative’ culture of the 1950’s. When young people born post 1970 use them, they have very little meaning.

In our culture, ‘open minded’ usually translates to ‘think like me’ and ‘tolerance’ usually means ‘you better affirm my sexual lifestyle’. In truth, open mindedness means that you should be able to see the world from outside of your own box.

Tolerance is both sides allowing the other to live without the other pushing their views legally onto the other.

Sadly, this has not existed in Canada for decades. Nowhere is this true more than in the question of abortion or as this essay will deal with, partial birth abortion. It is the one topic you are not allowed to discuss in polite company. Even amongst people I know who support it and have had abortions, they do not discuss it or the effect that it had on them. It is something we are all supposed to implicitly endorse, but we are not supposed to think about it too much lest we break down our cultural assumptions on it.

To be blunt, Canada now needs to have a debate on partial birth abortion. It is a topic that will not go away. Canada is the only country in the modern West that has absolutely no restrictions whatsoever on abortion.

Think about that for a second.

Canada is the only country in the modern West that has absolutely no restrictions whatsoever on abortion.

That means exactly what you think it means. A woman can go into a hospital, 8 months, 3 weeks, 6 days and 23 hours into labour, with a fully formed baby in her body and order the doctor to kill it. So long as half the child is in the womb, the procedure is legal. Now many doctors will not perform this procedure this late in a pregancy, but in cases where the woman persists, doctors have been known to come up from the States to perform it. Most people are not aware of this.

This ‘late term abortion’ or ‘partial birth abortion’ is a process that many find tantamount to infanticide.

In the Partial Birth Abortion Act that President George W. Bush signed in November of 2003, the process was defined as (courtesy of Wikipedia) :

an abortion in which --

(A) the person performing the abortion deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and

(B) performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus

Now in this terminology the term used was fetus.

Let’s ask a question regarding Canada’s lack of restrictions. In those few moments right before a healthy baby is born into a new mother’s arms; is this ‘creature’ still a fetus, or is it a fully breathing, human baby?

Here’s another example for the patriarchy obsessed feminist set;

Let’s say a woman is pregnant and she is in an abusive relationship; her husband beats and abuses here brutally and physically. One day in the eighth month of her pregnancy, while her stomach is full; while she knows what sex the baby is and she is already buying clothes, let’s say her husband beats her viciously until she is within an inch of her life and is unconcious. He makes her body look like a jigsaw puzzle. Let’s say say she survives the attack…but her baby does not.

Does aggravted assault seem like the only thing the husband should be charged with?

Should the mother have a say or ‘choice’ as to whether or not he is charged with murder of the child if she was committed to having the baby at this late date?

Should the spouse be charged with murder of the unborn baby at 8 months as well?

In Canada, he would not and the brutalized woman would have no 'choice' in the matter. And that is the way the feminists want it.

This is Canada’s dirty little secret, the one that we are not supposed to talk about. Radical secularists and feminists do not want this discussed. It is obvious why. On any moral level it cannot be justified that a baby in the womb this late in pregnancy has no rights at all. But, once we give a child in the womb rights at this late stage of pregnancy, then the whole debate of when life begins starts…and a debate about the morality of abortion begins.

Radical feminists and secularists know they are on the losing side of this debate and when the grisly details of the procedure are known (complete with the crushing of baby skulls and the dismemberment of baby limbs) there is very little they can do to justify it.

It is why they would rather focus on the Charter and not on the child.

This is where the debate on abortion in Canada must begin. Right now we have no laws whatsoever governing it. That is unheard of for a civilized country. It is unheard of for a country that says it believes in social justice.

I do not blame Stephen Harper for not wanting to instigate this debate. It is a scary one; one the left wing establishment in this country does not want to have, therefore they demonize, vililfy and lie about those who want to have it. But I believe it is coming.

And it is one that I will be glad to partake in once it arrives.

11 Comments:

At 1:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks Nicol. It's nice to hear others talking about an issue I'm very passionate about.

Many Canadians I talk with haven't even heard the term "partial birth abortion" before... let alone the grisly details that the prodcedure involves... or that there are at least 2000 of this "rare" kind of abortion each year in the U.S.

The philosophy "it's not a child, it's a fetus" is one I encounter a lot and it's chilling. We've been slipping down the slope of human objectification for decades and I hope I'm not around when we find the bottom.

Thank-you for caring.

 
At 3:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I was in grade 8 I did a project/essay on abortion. I was very disturbed how graphic the books I was reading were, especially at such a young age of 13. I remember crying after reading some of the procedures.

This is a topic that got a lot of discussion in my health and illness class today. We were talking about a parent (woman or man)'s right to do those genetic tests to find out for birth defects, and then what would you do if it came out positive.

It's a hot topic being discussed. However not partial birth abortion. I am really floored that there are no restrictions, I was under the assumption that 3rd trimester abortion was illegal. I'm not sure why I thought this, but I really thought it was true.

Thanks Nicol for bringing this issue to my attention.

 
At 3:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

PS good to see you back! I missed your posts (as well as Canadianna's, but she's not back :(

Keep the posts coming! I also would like your comments on my predicament with a prof.

 
At 10:12 AM, Blogger Mike said...

If a woman were to off her six month old and then claim choice as her defense she would be fully prosecuted. Why? Because life trumps choice, and to suggest life doesn't begin until the baby is fully removed from it's mother is utterly illogical.
Great post Nicol. I've linked to it.

 
At 11:21 AM, Blogger Les Mackenzie said...

If a woman were to off her six month old and then claim choice as her defense she would be fully prosecuted.

Not necessarily...

http://www.thecomputergeeks.ca/BLOG/?p=957

 
At 5:19 PM, Blogger Mike said...

I stand corrected!

 
At 11:05 AM, Blogger Suzanne said...

I would like to thank you for this post. So many people are completely ignorant of the complete absence of any protection of the unborn child.

 
At 10:59 AM, Blogger Joanne (True Blue) said...

I've been posting on this as well, Nicol. In fact I just added a link to your site on my last post.

What do we have to do to get the politicians to listen? Clearly, the Conservatives won't touch this because of their election promise. Therefore maybe everyone should be writing to the Grits & Dipper M.P.'s?

 
At 6:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just wanted to say thanks as well. Having finally become a parent, I find this now more heart-wrenching than ever. I'll fight this to my dying day. More to come...

 
At 5:52 PM, Blogger Joanne (True Blue) said...

Vicki, you and everyone else in Canada who feels strongly about this should be writing the Liberal and NDP M.P.'s. It won't do any good at all to contact your Conservative M.P.'s because they have been forced to remain silent on this subject. If the Grits and Dippers see this as something that will win them votes, they'll change their minds, trust me!

 
At 8:53 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Any MP from any party who dares exercise free speech is dead politically. Just read comments on neo-marxist toronto MP carolyn bennett's website to see an example of the hate and vitriol some MP's have had to endure just for even discussing this issue (and many other). There is a courageous female MP from Ontario who has had to endure vicious attacks in both past federal elections just because she dared to speak out...

As long as the secular religious left control the MSM and can count on the slavering adherence of their disciples in the socialist parties in the commons, expect free speech and any meaningful debate to be stifled...

 

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