Pro Choice -Abortion Lobby - Latest Set Back

When I first worked in an abortion clinic a quarter century ago the conventional wisdom was that a 'fetus' was not 'human' and that "life' did not occur until 3 to 6 months later.  The idea was that in removing a 'fetus' one was really simply taking out a 'growth' or a 'tumor'.  At that time I was screening pregnant women and making the referrals for abortion even before I later did abortions.
At that time I was probably considered 'pro choice' and there was clearly some sad but few cases in terms of maternal care and unavailability of contraception.  That was a quarter century ago.
Since then ultrasound and other advanced technologies have indicated that life is present at a much earlier stage.  Morning after abortion pills and contraceptive advances have been astounding, providing all manner of scientific information.  There is even a resurgence of abstinence as a contraceptive approach, something as strange as yoga or vegetarianism was when I was a young doctor. As important sexual behaviour has been influenced by a whole range of sexually transmitted diseases previously unheard of. Along side this is a pornography industry geared to both men and women with some of the greatest stake holders being todays business women.
Politics commonly lags far behind scientific advances and businesses are simpy entrenched in what is most lucrative.  I was doing 'street medicine' and volunteering my services in those old days whereas today abortion is truly Big Business and highly lucrative. Canadians who went across the US border were routinely 'scalped' by the 'curettage cowboys' keen on making a fast buck.  Here abortions are scheduled and run like a factory compared to all the messiness of obstetrical practices.
Then abortion clinics advised patients to avoid obtaining ultrasound.  This was because once people had ultrasound which amounted to truly 'informed consent' the benchmark of standard medical practice and truly transparent clinical delivery, the business clinics found that many who had ultrasounds decided against 'abortion'.  Patients still go on to have abortions fully informed and as increasingly evidence showed that those who had abortions had subsequent psychiatric problems with increased depression risks, this transparency may well change that.  In surgical practices, being informed for loss was found to improve post operative results. Hence no surgeon today would consider an amputation without fully advising the patient of the procedure and likely pros and cons of outcome using the latest media to assist in this informational session..
So here was where abortion shifted from science to politics and business. The book "Aborting America' certainly raised all manner of concerns. The scientific work of Dr. Philip Ney and colleagues further raised concerns about the ultimate 'costs' of abortion societies.
Now in British Columbia doctors are advised not to tell parents of the gender of the child for fear that women will abort the female fetuses.  China is accused of using abortion to indeed build one of the largest male armies in the world.  The anti feminist campaign there is said to start in the womb.
In Canada it turned out for radical feminists that when boy babies were aborted it was okay but when parents were preferentially aborting female babies that was not part of the grand plan. Subsequently all parents are denied the information that could help them make and 'informed choice."  In this case 'pro choice' becomes decided 'anti choice' and 'discriminatory'.
Why all parents should be penalized and not allowed to know the gender of their child because a minority of individuals are using abortion for what radical feminists call 'frivolous' reasons is uncertain. Apparently pro life folk long ago contended that many of the 'reasons' supported by pro choice folk for 'abortion' were often 'frivolous' and 'uninformed'.
At this same time as Rush Limbaugh is roundly condemned for questioning why he should pay for others contraception when a girl wants her contraception paid for by the health care program at a religious school.  Obama even steps into this providing a shoulder for the poor girl, a law student, to cry on.  We have long come to expect drama from Russ Limbaugh but this bit with Obama  harkens back to the medieval religio political plays done for the masses of the day.  The jokesters meanwhile have a hayday making fun of the need for Post Clinton Democrats to support the broadest appeal for abortion and contraception.   In the end it seems that  abortion is something that non abortion folk will be encouraged, if not forced,  to collectively pay for so long as only boy babies are aborted perhaps.
Politically there is a desire with the advances in scientific knowledge, the evidence of 25 years of practice, the pros and cons of that process, the ready available, even publicly funded contraception choices and now abortion to review this whole subject again.  Politicians, judges and lawyers all either tremble or salivate at the thought whereas science plods on.  By the time the politicians catch up science may well be working on immaculate conception much to the terror of religious groups. Only last year a transexual man had a child and extra uterine conception and delivery isn't the thing of science fiction.  Bio ethicists are meanwhile doing push ups mentally with the idea that life may be as close as thought even as scientists have developped the first trans-matter delivery systems physically confirming.
It reminds me of the great joke where scientists inform God that they are now ready to make a human, and just as they pick up some dirt to complete their experiment, God says , get your own dirt.
The critical factor of public funding in these economically challenged times is not whether funding something is good, it's always good to spend somebody else's money on any good cause. The trouble is that if we fund one thing another doesn't get funded.
Radical feminists argued 'my body my own' and that might have been true but the courts held that men who believed women were using contraception but lied were still accountable for child support.  As a male, I am biased.  I simply  don't agree that I am excluded from all discussions relevant to the future generations of society especially when radical feminists want only boy babies to be aborted.
Finally when did a 'tumor' or a 'mass of tissue' become a 'gender' Gender is implication of life and humanity so denying parents the right to know the 'gender' of their children is a somewhat draconian measure of a group claiming 'pro -choice' while denying just that.  Knowing the gender of children, for those who are having children, can help them in planning the future of their children, those that live of course.
Pro Life has to date been more scientific and indeed increasing supportive of all  'rights' in the community, not just those of a privileged few.
That said, there is a real need for ongoing support of children whose parents are not traditionally motivated towards parenting.  The courts have had an abysmally costly and punitive record regarding children suggesting that if we collectively took the billions of dollars that have historically funded 'court fights' and put that 'war chest' money into the 'peaceful' raising of children supporting primary care givers especially in formative years the whole issue of 'abortion' might well itself be viewed differently.
In the area today there are many questions of bio ethics, and much of today's debate simply couldn't have occurred 25 years ago because the knowledge wasn't there. Despite the abortion lobby being happy with the present lucrative business deal it seems reasonable for society at large to consider that review may well be  indicated.

Individualism, Collectivism, Abortion and Pro life.

Individualism, to give a starting point, is defined in wikipedia as:

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of theindividual".^[1] Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance^[2] while opposing most external interference upon one's own interests, whether by society, family or any other group or institution.^[2]

Individualism makes the individual its focus^[1] and so starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation." Classical liberalism (including libertarianism), existentialism andanarchism (especially individualist anarchism) are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis.^[3]

Collectivism is defined in wikipedia as follows:

Collectivism is any philosophic, political, religious, economic, or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human being. Collectivism is a basic cultural element that exists as the reverse of individualism in human nature (in the same way high context culture exists as the reverse of low context culture), and stresses the priority of group goals over individual goals and the importance of cohesion within social groups (such as an "in-group", in what specific context it is defined). Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation. Collectivism originated in socialist theory^[1], although it is used and has been used as an element in many different and diverse types of government and political, economic and educational philosophies throughout history, ranging from communalism, democracy, monarchy, and socialism to totalitarian nationalism and exists in some organized religions. Collectivism is sometimes confused with socialism, but while socialism, as a political and economic theory, draws more from collectivism than it does from individualism, it is directly concerned with perceived economic justice or injustice such as the elimination of private property. Collectivism regards group action as more important than individual action somewhat independently of cultural context, and does not propose a system of government and civil life, as socialism does and has been used in such ideologically opposite systems as monarchy. Most societies contain elements of both collectivism and individualism.

Corporatism refers to a form of collectivism that views the whole as being greater than the sum of its individual parts, and gives priority to group rights over individual rights.^[2][3]

In Canada parlaiiament is a democratic organization that is limitted by the appointed Supreme Court of Canada.  In the Morentaller Abortion decision the Supreme Court over turned the Parliamentary democratic 'pro life' decision of the day.  This decision spoke to the essence of individualism and collectivism.  Ironically, Canada's Supreme Court took the anti life decision that marks the Chinese communist pro abortion position.  In contrast parliament, Canadians collectively, women and men, felt that birth was not merely an 'individual' expression but that men were indeed part of the equation, as were parents and community.  The Mortgentaller decision was not so much pro female as anti male, anti family,  anti community. It was communistic and anarchist in it's roots and genocidal.  4 male lawyers and 1 female lawyer over turned democracy on this decision in Canada.

Now, not surprisingly lawyers say that the fetus needs a lawyer.  Certainly this would represent a 'make work' project of the first order but does speak to the 'interdependence' of our society today. (My dog Gilbert perked up and insists that as I'm not throwing the ball for him this minute, he too needs a lawyer)

The halcyon cry of the day was 'my body, my own' yet all men in Canada had by law to respond to conscription should the cry arise and now all women will too.  Sloganeering so communistic in it's flavour doesn't get around the 'interdependence' of all of us. As we grow individually and as a nation in spirituality we know what First Nations people have always taught in their statement 'all my relations'.

Post modern society is a far cry different from the atomistic modernism of Mortgentaller that gave rise to two world wars and the shameful Holocaust that caused at least one Freudian to say that Morgentaller's history has caused him to 'indentify with the aggressor'.  To a fetal person Morgentallerism is Naziism indeed.

Further, the Mortgentaller decision has condemned doctors who do not want to be forced to do abortions as appointed government doctors have consistently been pro death as opposed to pro life on the fetal question.  Indeed having a 'pro life' position as a doctor can be the very grounds for being passed over for promotion. Pro life doctors indeed are the most condemned in CAnada today because there is an erroneous notion that abortion is somehow a 'female position'.  Yet when radical feminists are advised that a 'woman's council' could well decide such decisions excluding even men, these adolescent girls want their 'own way', ie their cake and eat it, much as all children do in any society.  The reality is that everyone is affected by abortion as they are affected by children.

The issue isn't male or female but rather collectivism versus individualism.  The Supreme Court of Canada as late as 1928 denied women 'personhood'.  It's now 2012 and they are denying children 'personhood'.  This is not the dark ages either when no one knew the scientific make up of a child was DNA, both male and female.  A man and a woman in society also have parents and brothers and sisters.  They are by nature 'interconnected'.  There are often other children.

When I worked in a street clinic I offered women the options of abortion, having the baby and giving the baby up for adoption, or keeping the baby.  The latter two decisions were financially supported then and there was no fast tracked mainlining of death as in today's abortion clinic world where the lucrative nature of the practice and the industry of abortion speaks louder than any morality.  Ironically, at the very time the abortion proponents argue that women 'own' their womb they are the very ones that deny women the right to 'sell' the product of their wombs.  Canadian women en mass go to liberated pro women countries where women can arrange with another woman to have their child for them.  The abortionists call this 'selling babies' but they are more keenly interested in keeping their brand and closing out the competition.

Further, radical feminist doctors in BC demanded they receive gratis the products of abortion for lucrative 'stem tissue' research and sale becoming royally incensed when a another doctor argued that the downtown east side women whose abortus products these were  should 'own' the products of the abortus and be financially be imbursed.

Collectivism and individualism.  There is no need for back alley abortions and no one is suggesting this at all.  The fact is that Pro Life is Pro Choice because the abortionsists today deny women autonomy and integrity and treat women individually as 'numbers' separate and apart rather than as persons interpersonally connected.  To believe the abortionists all pregnant women are divinely impregnated, fathers, mothers , grandparents, siblings and all of community unnecessary to the act of insemination.  As a doctor I am ashamed of Canadian history regarding Morgentaller and think it horrendous that this man should have received an Order of Canada for his destruction of family, community and country.

Interestingly in law, the corporation is a 'legal individual' so Morgentaller and I are considered 'equal' without any consideration of the clear cut David and Goliath image this creates.  I am alone and easily crippled and silenced by the abortion industry. There is and never has been any money that causes me to hold one position against another but as a physician I long ago learned to follow the money trails.  Morgentaller 's brand is a money machine.  A baby is not.  Indeed a baby has no resources but a mother and a mother needs a community and a baby needs a village.  The Canadian Supreme Court would deny our interconnectedness in this regard, give all power to the 'abortion brand' , deny women true personhood and pro choice, attack pro life advocates in shockingly deceitful ways and reduce ethics and morality to factionalism. Either you are for me or agin me, adolescents say.

The decision clearly needs review and Canadians have to ask themselves if they are wanting a democracy lead by parliament or what in this decision is 'dictatorship of the proletariat' communism where abortion and aetheism go hand in hand with a nihilism of depression.  Hope is the alternative and support of women, true support of women, all women in society, is freedom.