“Work is the curse of the drinking class.” ~ Oscar Wilde.
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
Who is that curiously handsome masked man?
I don’t know, but the Bat-Computer seems to have gotten a lot smaller.
21st Century tech, baby! 
I came acrossthis news storytoday on one the the websites I contribute to.
Makes me proud to be a Canadian to know how profound an impact this young man has had on our country. 
Amen.
It was such a shame that he died so young and wasn’t able to finish his run.
So, what do you guys think about Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose voting in support of re-visiting when life begins for a fetus? It seems a little incongruous to me.
I find it refreshing that Conservative ministers were able to vote freely.
I am in complete agreement with the vote outcome.
I am also in agreement with Ms. Ambrose’s statement: “I have repeatedly raised concerns about discrimination of girls by sex selection abortion,” Ambrose tweeted Wednesday. “No law needed, but we need awareness!”
There are doctors in certain metropolitan areas who are willing to abort based on gender; that is very sad.
I don’t follow how abortion based on gender ties into the debate on when life begins for a fetus.
Is anyone doing anything for Culture Days this weekend? Between Die Fledermaus (the show I’m currently working on), Nuit Blanche, opening night of Trovatore and my kids’ school’s FallFest, I don’t think I’m going to get a moment’s rest all weekend!
You cannot logically discuss the former if you do not open up the latter for discussion. If, as currently stands, abortion is legal up to the moment before the child is born, how can you even discuss the issue of sex-selective abortion?
Speaking as a pro-choice guy, I have to admit sex-selective abortion gives me pause. This is not a good trend.
I have got to get back to T.O. more often. Would love to see you perform!
Ever feel like coming out here? I’m in a community theatre production of “Hairspray” in November.
I don’t support the idea of sex-selective abortion either; I’m not sure how to separate abortion on demand from sex-selective abortion, though.
Abortion law (or lack of it) in Canada is a done deal. It’s a can of worms that (IMHO) rivals Meech Lake or Charlottetown; and I doubt that any party, whether they form the government or not, would really want to reopen it. Even if the government was somehow obligated to, I don’t think things would change–one to two generations of women have grown up understanding today’s abortion law, and I don’t think they would appreciate turning the clock back (see Morgentaler et al. v. Her Majesty The Queen, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30). Either public pressure would prevent it; or, at the very least, the government that tried to return it to regulation it would lose in the next election on the issue. A free vote on this issue allows Harper (who did not support the motion, as I understand) to say, “Look, we had a vote, it failed; it’s over and let’s not hear about it again.”
That being said, I was a little dismayed to find that our local MP voted in favour of the measure. He said he did so, based on letters and messages from constituents, which is understandable–we’re in the heart of Alberta’s Bible Belt. But I somehow feel that our MP’s religion played a part as well. He is an uneducated Mormon–sorry, but as a lawyer licensed to practice in Alberta, I know there is no such degree as a “Ph.D. in Law” which our openly-Mormon MP claims to have, and which he claims to have earned from a Utah school that nobody locally has ever heard of–thus, I do not consider him to be educated in Canadian law, as Canadian lawyers who attend accredited Canadian schools are. (Do Mormons honestly believe that their religious schools’–except, perhaps, for BYU–degrees carry any weight in the real world?) As such, I am sure he was not thinking of the best interests of his female constituents, or indeed, of all Canadian women. I am sure he voted as his religion demanded, which I disagree with.
Was there any point to that vote at all?
On a somewhat-related note, the question of gender selective abortion vs. general abortion has made me consider my feelings on the topic. I have to say, I support abortion as a woman’s right to choose, period, regardless of the reasons, so I support gender selective abortion as well, even though I think it is a terrible idea and hope nobody actually does that.
I would now like to see some statistics on ‘gender selective’ abortion - just how many of these are being done in Canada in a year, and of the total number of abortions per annum, what percentage are ‘gender selective’? Does anybody happen to know?
Over 90% of abortions in Canada are done in the first trimester, only 2-3% are done after 16 weeks, and no doctor performs abortions past 20 or 21 weeks except for compelling health or genetic reasons. The risk of maternal mortality is probably greater in carrying a pregnancy to term (7.06 per 100 000 live births) than the risk associated with abortion (0.56 per 100 000 terminations) (Grimes D. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2006; 194: 92-94).
From http://www.cmaj.ca/content/184/9/E492.full.pdf+html
And I have now put more effort into this than Ms. Ambrose, or most of the Conservative party. Tiny numbers of abortion past 20 weeks and slight cultural preference for boys in immigrants from traditional male oriented societies.
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest Rona Ambrose has put a little thought into this, probably a lot more than you have, and might be legitimately concerned about a future threat, not a present occurrence.
For all the shit she’s taking, Ambrose has worked hard at her portfolio, and she is especially active in dealing with the needs of immigrant women, who often face stuff that her white-bread critics cannot begin to imagine. Maybe she’s a bit dialed in to the potential of sex-selective abortion arriving in Canada in force, and it bothers her. It sure as hell bothers me and I’ve been pro choice my whole life.
I’m curious why you think we might have a problem with this in the future - wouldn’t the forces that encourage Asian woman to have gender-selective abortions be more-or-less non-existent in Canada?