[Wōdnes-dæg] Abortion: Politics of, and Reasons to be Pro-Choice

{An Ontario Conservative MP takes part in the March For Life anti-abortion rally on Parliament Hill, 10 May 2012. Image found on theglobeandmail.com from Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS.}

Quick Warning
Introduction
Summary
Reason One
Reason Two
Reason Three
Afterword
Closing




Quick Warning

A quick warning - parts of this entry may be more graphic than you're comfortable with. If the discussion of abortion, especially when sarcasm and analogy are involved, makes you squirm, then you may just want to skip this one.

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Introduction

It’s heartening to know that abortion is a sheerly political thing among Conservatives at the party level. At least, that’s what this article from today’s Globe and Mail suggests.

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Summary

The article explains that a lone Tory has put forth a motion to redefine when human life begins, and that the Prime Minister’s Office has tried to keep this motion from getting support. The official line is that a vote for what is essentially an anti-abortion motion is a vote against Mr. Harper’s wishes, but senior party members have also said that it is a vote against Mr. Harper himself.

So what could be triggering party member Stephen Woodworth’s desire to re-open the abortion debate in Canada? Some sort of high morality founded on invented dogma? Nope. Not explicitly so.

Apparently, this MP knows that his re-election in 2014 depends on anti-abortion supporters. And he wants to make it clear to them that he really is the man they voted for.

This story ran on page A4 of the print edition, so isn’t big news (rightly so, since Toronto is still reeling from Saturday night’s Eaton Center shooting). But it is good to hear that Canada’s legalized abortion will not be coming under federal scrutiny any time soon.

So why am I, a Catholic of many years, thankful that the debate will lie dormant for now? For three reasons.

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Reason One

I agree with the current Canadian law that states that a fetus becomes a human person after it has exited its mother’s birth canal.

I agree with this law because it makes concrete sense. Yes, the different stages of development have been mapped out and know that such a vital thing as the heartbeat starts at 6 weeks, can begin to hear at 18 weeks, and can potentially respond to your voice at 25 weeks. But if you put a seed in the ground and peek in on its progress as it sprouts into a tree, once the seed breaks open, but the sprout still has to get through to the earth's surface, can what's come out be declared a sapling or a tree?

Until a fetus has left its mother it is a part of her, just like any organ is a living part of any other human being. It’s not a pleasant analogy because babies are so cute and full of potential, but could a tumor be declared a human being if it grew its own working heart or lungs or mind?

(The tree and tumor analogies may be crude, but defining "human life" is a sticky thing to do with some degree of objectivity.)

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Reason Two

Fetuses are very much a part of their mothers up until the point when they’re born or brought into the world. Because of this, if you remove the mother, then the fetus would not be able to survive. A baby couldn’t be expected to survive if left alone either, but the key difference is that a baby is no longer hooked into the human female’s automatic feeding system after it’s born. The cord is cut, and it becomes it’s own separate entity.

Whether you consider a fetus a part of a woman’s body or not, it is living inside of a woman’s body and that woman should be able to decide what she wants to do with it. And that’s not playing god, it's simply altering the body, something people do all the time in ways both obvious and not.

Further, abortion is not a recent invention. Though where surgery or one sort or another is the norm today, in earlier times it was much more common for a woman to abort a fetus through one of several folk methods like fasting, hard labor, taking diuretics, or getting an enema (check Wikipedia for a full list).

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Reason Three

Making abortion illegal would do more harm than good.

If abortion is made illegal that won’t stop people from getting them - even though making drugs, extortion, and rape illegal certainly has stopped people from getting and doing them.

But what’s truly dangerous about making abortion illegal is that it would force those who seek them out to go underground, and methods hidden in the darker parts of society are not going to be as clean and safe as those practiced in well-lit clinics.

Though, considering the economy’s current state, maybe abortion should be made illegal - it might give the wire coat hanger industry a boost.

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Afterword

This editorial also appeared in today’s Globe and Mail, and it nicely sums up what Catholics really should consider when it comes to real world issues like abortion and the LGBTQ presence in schools.

“Gay, straight, Catholic
Re Catholic Schools Fear Fallout From Bill 13 (June 5): In 2008, Georgetown became the first Catholic university to open an LGBTQ resource centre. As a Georgetown student, a Canadian and a Catholic, this meant the world to me and my friends, several of whom are gay and practising Catholics. Why did the Washington university open the centre? Because the violence that emerges from ignorance and intolerance violates Catholic teachings. Because love, respect and growth are cornerstones of Jesuit teaching. Because we are men and women for others.
After donating $1-million for LGBTQ programming at Georgetown, former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue explained: “The Center is inspired by Catholic and Jesuit principles of respect for the dignity of all and education of the whole person …” It is upsetting that Ontario’s Catholic school boards are unwilling to act on the core values of Catholicism: tolerance, non-judgment and love.
Kelsey Spitz, Toronto”

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Closing

Check back here Friday for a hunt for the good in the newly released thriller Gone.

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[Moon-dæg] Logical Defenses Of Ontario Wind Power

Introduction
Wind Farms Forced on Rural Ontario
Wind Turbines Are Eyesores
Wind Turbines Don't Turn When Power's Needed Most
Closing

{Turbines aligned, like solid arguments for and against them. Image from an Earthy Day 2012 blog}

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Introduction

There are a number of arguments that have been raised against wind turbines in Ontario. A mere three are that: The wind turbines were forced on residents of rural areas by the current Liberal government; the turbines are eyesores; the turbines don't generate power when it's needed most.

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Wind Farms Forced on Rural Ontario

Although there appears to be little record of it on the internet, many residents of rural Ontario feel like the provincial Liberals have forced wind turbines into the landscape, giving the affected residents and municipalities little say in the matter.

At the least, Energy Minister Chris Bentley has said (in February 2012) that rural municipalities will have some say in the locations of wind farms, but there's little to suggest that rural municipalities will be able to outright refuse wind farms.

On the one hand, it makes sense that this lack of democratic choice has caused so much protest on the part of rural Ontario, but on the other it could be seen as a provincial government simply doing what a provincial government does: govern.

In a democratic society the governing process needs to involve the say of the governed, but going around that brings up one major question.

Were wind turbines, in any form, mentioned in any of the Liberals' platforms for the 2003 and 2007 elections?

No, not specifically, at least.

But a quick Google search turns up the 2003, the 2007, and the 2011 platforms.

A search for the word "energy" in these platforms reveals an emphasis on "clean" and "renewable" energy in the 2003 platform; the statement that the Liberals will

"Make our energy greener and cleaner, with the province’s first long-term energy plan in a generation. Our plan will replace coal by doubling renewables and doubling conservation" (page 6)

in the 2007 platform; and energy that's described as "clean," "green," and "renewable" is mentioned throughout the 2011 platform (which also includes dramatic shots of people in front of wind turbines).

The references to renewable power are vague, yes, but they do hint towards things like wind power - it may sound cruel, but Ontario got what it voted for.

Because the Liberals have had a majority in the past three elections, running on a platform with a mention of such energy (though not explicitly "wind power" or "wind farms"), it's logical to conclude that even if rural Ontario wasn't unanimously for the Liberals in the 2003, 2007, or 2011 election, the province at large was, and the Liberals could take that acceptance (even as narrow as it was in the 2011 contest) as a green light to do what they thought best for the province.

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Wind Turbines Are Eyesores

To argue that wind turbines are eyesores and blots on the previously pristine Ontario countryside is to do what some likely did when skyscrapers first began to be built. City skylines have indeed been changed by the presence of the skyscraper, but these former eyesores have since become part of the cultural idea of what a city is - arguably worldwide.

Now, it's true that wind turbines can't exactly be compared to skyscrapers in all respects - it's much easier to make a building aesthetically pleasing because all it has to do is stand firm, when moving parts get added to the mix and these parts' motion needs to be efficient things get more complicated. However, places like Germany, where wind power is used to a great degree, don't seem to have much of a problem with the turbines and their appearance.

They're clumped together, sure, but that doesn't really make things that bad.

Anyway, having wind turbines dot the landscape is not a bad thing, it adds variety to an otherwise repetitive skyline. Forests and fields and cliffs and ravines are excellent, but adding in some wind turbines isn't necessarily that bad.

And though they may make some stretches of countryside less appealing to some people, they have attracted tourists to others, and will help to make those spaces left untouched even more prized than they are already.

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Wind Turbines Don't Turn When Power's Needed Most

Another argument lobbed against wind power (in Ontario, at least) is that when the power that these turbines generate is most needed it's nowhere to be found. The best example of this are hot summer days where the oh-so-necessary wind isn't blowing, and the turbines sit idle.

However, if excess power generated by wind turbines is stored in the grid during peak hours/days, then this argument is rather toothless. On the other hand, if excess power from wind turbines is not stored in the grid (or elsewhere), then more planning in that regard is definitely necessary.

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Closing

Check back here Wednesday for an article on the newest news, and check back on Friday for a hunt for the good in The Darkest Hour.

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