If women don't have access to abortion providers, they'll kill themselves with coathangers!

Or maybe not, says one pro-abort study abstract:

Although not common, self-induced abortion continues to exist in the contemporary United States, where women are being criminalized for the practice.

I have a question: how come men are never "criminalized" for the acts they perform? But we never hear of men being criminalized. Or blacks. Or any number of  groups. Just women.

This paper analyzes the reasons that women have for inducing their own abortions given the existence of legal alternatives. It argues that changes in medical technologies and information technologies have made self-abortions safer and more accessible,

No, no, no. If abortion is criminalized, women will stick coathangers up their crotch and kill themselves en masse because they are too stupid to know better. It's true because feminists say so.

while structural and cultural barriers have limited access to legal abortions. While some feminists and reproductive rights advocates have problematized the practice of self-aborting itself as dangerous and indicative of the deterioration of the rights guaranteed under Roe v Wade, this paper suggests that feminists must turn their attentions to changing the terms under which abortion is treated under the law.

Much as I'd love to read the rest of the article, I'm not paying 34.95 to do so.

Canadian Abortion Stats 2009

They're out. But incomplete. Largely because BC clinics failed to report the info.

Still, you get the feeling that the number of abortions is going down in Canada.

Thanks to Stop FOI Censorship for the reminder.

Study paints grim picture of homosexual behaviour in the US

Another interesting study. Formatted for easier reading.

The National HIV Behavioral Surveillance (NHBS) System collects risk behavior data from three populations at high risk for HIV infection: MSM [men who have sex with men], injection-drug users, and heterosexual adults at increased risk for HIV infection. Data for NHBS are collected in rotating cycles. NHBS participants must be aged ≥18 years, live in a participating metropolitan statistical area, and be able to complete a behavioral survey in English or Spanish. Men who reported being infected with HIV or who had no male sex partners during the past 12 months were excluded from this analysis.

So this study excludes those who are HIV positive...in other words, the homosexual population most likely to have engaged in dysfunctional behaviour.

Results: This report summarizes data gathered from 8,175 MSM during the second data collection cycle of NHBS.

That's a fairly  large survey sample.

In addition to having at least one male sex partner, 14% of participants had at least one female sex partner during the past 12 months.

How many of these call themselves "exclusively gay". I wish they'd asked that question.

Unprotected anal intercourse with a male partner was reported by 54% of the participants;

Men don't want to use condoms. Shocking, I know.

37% reported having unprotected anal sex with a main male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex and to whom he felt most committed, such as a boyfriend, spouse, significant other, or life partner), and 25% reported having unprotected anal sex with a casual male partner (someone with whom the participant had sex but with whom he did not feel committed, did not know very well, or had sex with in exchange for something such as money or drugs).

Noninjection drug use during the past 12 months was reported by 46% of participants. Specifically, 38% used marijuana, 18% cocaine, 13% poppers (amyl nitrate), and 11% ecstasy. Two percent of the participants reported injecting drugs for nonmedical purposes in the past 12 months

Of the participants surveyed, 90% had been tested for HIV during their lifetime, 62% had been tested during the past 12 months, 51% had received a hepatitis vaccination, 35% had been tested for syphilis during the past 12 months, and 18% had participated in an individual- or group-level HIV behavioral intervention.

Condoms not always used, drug use is common.

I'd be interested in comparing these numbers with a similar population of heterosexuals.

Interpretation: MSM in the United States continue to engage in sexual and drug-use behaviors that increase the risk for HIV infection. Although many MSM had been tested for HIV infection, many had not received hepatitis vaccinations or syphilis testing, and only a small proportion had recently participated in a behavioral intervention.

Negative generalizations about homosexuals? Homophobe!

Public Health Action: To reduce HIV infection among MSM, additional effort is needed to decrease the number of men who are engaging in risk behaviors while increasing the number who recently have been tested for HIV.

How about discouraging homosexual behaviour altogether? Oh no, that would be too obvious.

It bears repeating: abortion is a shady business

So, will anyone prosecute this abortionist for failing to report child abuse?

Video: #OccupyRacism -- a new video by Steven Crowder

I hated the comment about Barack Obama being "less black" than Herman Cain.

Yes, Barack Obama is actually bi-racial.

But I just hate the whole racial gradation thing.

Who the hell cares?

And no, I'm not calling Steven Crowder a racist and I don't think race matters to him, either. I just hate the talk about who's a real Black person. Or Canadian. Or Quebecker. Just always hated that discourse.

Archbishop Prendergast on the priesthood

I really liked this blogpost from Ottawa Archbishop Terry Prendergast. It's about the priesthood. I think this applies today:

When the Christian community established its canon of the Scriptures, however, it reordered the sacred books so that the Old Testament would conclude with the prophet Malachi, from which today's first reading is drawn.

The Church did so because it wished to make its own Malachi's criticism of powerful priests who were not meeting God's standards. God, according to his messenger—Malachi means “my messenger”—was about to purge corruption from amidst the ministers of his people:

“The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming...? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the [priestly] descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness' (3.2-3).

Malachi was zealous to correct abuses in Israel's faith life: overly-political priests, abuses in worship (people were offering defective animals in sacrifice), permitting intermarriage with foreigners that led to a loss of faith among Israelites, and the spread of social injustices.

Malachi appealed to the common fatherhood of God shared by Israelites as a reason to shun marriage with foreigners. He conceived marriage as a covenantal bond instead of a contract that could end in divorce. Malachi anticipated the exalted vision of the spousal union and abhorrence of divorce that characterized Jesus' teaching on marriage.

In the closing words of his public ministry, Jesus took up Malachi's vision. He allowed that the scribes and Pharisees, because they had been constituted religious leaders, were to be followed in what they said. But not in what they did!

Legalized abortion is convenient for pro-abortion anti-choicers, too

Nicholas Macleod relates:

“I was doing ‘Choice’ Chain outside of Rideau Centre in Ottawa, in the hub of downtown. A sixteen-year-old girl, let’s call her Lisa, came up to me and said hi. We spoke for a few minutes, and she told me that she had done pro-life activism, and that her parents were very pro-life.

“She then told me that she had been raped at a party, and that as a result of this she was a month and a half pregnant. Lisa explained that although many people were harassing her to get an abortion, she was keeping the baby. She related that she had even had to close down her Facebook page because people were posting messages telling her to get rid of her child. Lisa told me in a strong voice that she knows that this is going to be difficult, especially when she starts becoming visibly pregnant, but that she will deal with it.

“This girl is a hero. She is not only dealing with this tragic situation, but she is doing it with strength and joy. It is hard to hold a graphic sign on the streets and talk to a hostile public, but not nearly as hard as what this young girl is doing. She is a hero, and we can be, too.”

Two plead guilty in Kermit Gosnell case

Abortion is a shady business. It's a running theme.

VIDEO: It's time for another episode of "abortion is a shady business"

An abortion patient ends up in the hospital. What do the crack staff do?



Hyuck hyuck hyuck. Abortion. A barrel of laughs. So pro-woman.


H/T: LifeNews

Another item for the "Abortion is a Shady Business" File

The client had organ failure, but the staff didn't want to call an ambulance...

She thought about calling an ambulance, but instead called the clinic, whose personnel told her to transport her mother to Schulberg’s clinic in a taxi, rather than to the hospital in an ambulance. In the end, nurses from the clinic ended up driving out to the motel where Pheap and Chantha were staying. They brought Pheap outside in a wheelchair, laid her across the back seat of their car, and brought her in for the abortion.

Without administering pain relief or oxygen to Sem, who was still unconscious, Schulberg killed her 23-week-old unborn child.

Chantha’s boyfriend, who was present for much of the ordeal, described the clinic’s attitude as: “Just get the job done and get them out.”

How often must we read this story before someone DOES something about this?

Perhaps there should be a law that, under certain circumstances, an ambulance must be called. Otherwise abortion staffers will keep driving clients to the hospital instead of calling an ambulance.

Economics 101: Bernard Goldberg on Wealth Re-Distribution

Bernard Goldberg comments on the Occupy movement, and states the obvious. It bears repeating for all those people who think government is the solution to poverty:

A man says, “There’s a class war going on in this country. We’re the richest country in the world, and we have the most inequality between the rich and the working people and the poor.” Well, yes. Of course. That is an inevitable byproduct of a society where a man is allowed to rise as high as his abilities and talents will take him. Some people will always do better than others, and because becoming rich is hard work, there will always be many more poor than rich. How else would they like it to be?

Glad you asked. Our friends in Oakland would have you believe that if government brought the rich down to the level of the poor, and redistributed the pilfered cash among the proletariat, the distribution of wealth would finally become fair. More questions: (1) For how many years do they think this is possible? Once you’re in the business of collecting all excess wealth, what is the incentive to create a dollar above the level deemed excessive? In the name of brotherhood we’ll say that some of the formerly rich will stick out for awhile, but at some point you’re going to bump up against diminishing returns, and then what do you do, when there’s nothing left to redistribute?

Make more money? You can't if people are discouraged from making profit.

I remember my days in the NDP. One of the big casse-tête was wealth creation. I remember sitting around with my fellow comrades trying to come up with ways to create wealth without relying on the capitalist system. The only other alternative appeared to be co-ops.

The problem with co-ops if you don't get to do things your way. Do you want to put in ridiculous hours into a business where you don't control the profits or the agenda? Maybe you might want to do it out of social engagement-- and I think that's fine. But most people start businesses to make money off and implement their own vision.

Capitalism has its disadvantages, but economic freedom is still the best thing going, notwithstanding its flaws.

And oh yeah:

Sooner or later, our Oakland classists would get to the ugly truth: Poor people don’t make the world work. There are plenty of countries that behave exactly as they would like America to behave; they could live in one, if they really wanted.

You want to make the world work? Start your own business and do things better than your competition.

Study examines attitudes of women towards unprotected intercourse

Another Abstract, FYI:

Background

Despite the high prevalence of unintended pregnancies caused by lack of contraceptive use, little is known about women’s reasons for or attitudes toward unprotected intercourse (UI).

Methods

We included 562 women seeking pregnancy termination at six U.S. abortion clinics who completed surveys on their experiences and attitudes about UI, knowledge of the risk of conception, and willingness to engage in UI in the future.

Results

Respondents reported an average of 18 acts of UI leading up to conception. The most commonly reported reasons for UI were thinking one could not get pregnant (42%), difficulties procuring a contraceptive method (40%), and not planning to have sex (38%). When asked about attitudes toward UI, 48% reported that UI feels better or more natural, 36% said it is okay to have UI once in a while or at certain times of the month, and 28% cited partner or relationship benefits as a reason to engage in UI. In addition, 23% said they were somewhat or extremely likely to engage in UI in the next 3 months. Younger women (<20 years), women who named partner or relationship benefits to UI, and women who underestimated the risk of conception were significantly more willing to engage in UI in the next 3 months.

Conclusions

Given the prevalence of risk taking and the perceived benefits of UI, contraceptives, particularly long-acting methods, need to be made easy to procure and use. The success of coital specific methods may be limited by women underestimating the risk of conception.

But these coital specific-methods were supposed to STOP unintended pregnancy. Guess what...

Canadian abortion stats to be released October 28th

Kudos to Patricia Maloney at Run with Life for pinning down the date. I was wondering when those would come out.

And apparently there will be some attempt to fill in the gaps of stats from past years. The quality of abortion stats has gone way down in the last decade.

I think Brad Trost and the pro-life caucus might do well to get some kind of law to properly count abortions. I think such a measure could easily pass the House and provide the pro-life movement with a "win".

Poor-choice advocate: We are pretty tired of talking about "choice"

Peggy Cook:

Another thing we often discuss is the domination of the movement by the talking points of an older generation, and an older focus. We are pretty tired of talking about "choice", especially since it is most often coming out of whiteness and a more privileged class.

And being born...

In Madagascar, abortion is considered violence against women

...according to the national union of social workers.

They have set up a branch called "Women in Distress" whose aim is to address violence against women, which in their view includes abortion.

The president of the union says that at least two or three times a week, post-abortive women, or women who seek abortions, consult them.

Many of the pregnant women are victims of marital rape, and the social workers try to get the mother and the family to accept the child, who is viewed as an intruder. They also set up group therapy for women who have abortions, as well as individual therapy.

The only downside is that their group advocates for "family planning" and the teaching of "reproductive health" in high school.

"Reproductive health" is a big scam, in my view. It's the door through which to introduce abortion.

Update

So I approved a big pile of comments today. I don't know when I will approve the next batch of comments. The baby doesn't sleep a full 5-6 hours straight at night, so I'm a bit of walking zombie at this point in the time. (Please refrain from easy potshots on that comment).

I also want to discourage contentious debates because I don't have the time or the energy to moderate on them right now. So it may be a few days before I publish comments again.

LA Abortionist offers free abortions

Before you poor-choicers get all excited, Christina from Real Choice notes:

This resourceful fellow's name was familiar to me, so I searched my site and found out why: he'd screwed up when injecting drugs into an abortion patient, causing tissue damage that resulted in the amputation of several fingers.

Not only is his nose in the trough sucking money from California taxpayers to pay for his so-called free abortions, he uses a spambot to drum up business on a pro-life blog. He rates right up their with p0rn site operators and penis enlargement scammers.

Sheer marketing genius.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: abortion is a shady business.

In which I vent my frustration about the MSM and the Occupy movement

Dear MSM:

The Occupy Wall Street Movement and its clones are irrelevant. The protest is pointless. It will not change anything. It makes lefties feel good. That's about all it accomplishes.

Please adjust your coverage in consequence. There does not need to be hourly updates of what is occurring. Not even daily updates. Because there's nothing productive going on.

And to Sun News Network: I realize payback is sweet. Casting the spotlight on the socialist nutjobs in the crowd after decades of lefties doing that to right-wingers is just delicious.

But it's not funny after the 10th segment. Ezra Levant did it. Brian Lilley did it. Michael Coren did it. Jacqui Delaney did it.

Okay we get it. A number of these socialists are ignorant, clueless, racist and so forth.

Can we cover OUR issues now?

Please. Just shut up about it. It's not worth all this air time.

I DON'T CARE. And I suspect most people don't either.

Free speech victory! Hyperlinking to defamatory material not libel court rules

In its unanimous decision, the court said a hyperlink, by itself, should never be considered "publication" of the content to which it refers. But that doesn't mean internet users shouldn't be careful about how they present links. The court says that if someone presents content from the hyperlinked material in a way that repeats the defamatory content, they can be considered publishers and are therefore at risk of being sued for defamation.

...

The court said hyperlinks are like footnootes in that they communicate that something exists but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. The person who wrote the secondary article may have no idea they were referenced, and, the person who wrote the primary article may have no idea if the material they linked to is changed at a later time.

This is excellent news. And it only makes sense.

Why Rent Control Does Not Work

It's election time in Saskatchewan and the NDP is proposing rent control. Here's why it won't work: 

1. Construction will stop. Businessmen will not build if someone is going to tell them what rent they can expect.

2. Existing rental units will not be renovated and maintained. Businessmen cannot afford to run out and fix plumbing emergencies and paint rooms if their profit is gone.

3. Renters will be afraid to work or get better jobs because their rent will increase. They will be afraid to work themselves out of fixed rental brackets. That is bad for families and individuals. It encourages unemployment and living on welfare. People lose their sense of pride and responsibility.

4. More and more uncivil civil servants will be hired with an antagonism towards property owners and businessmen. More tax payer money will be wasted and more people will have to pay more taxes which will be used against them. There will be continued antagonism between renter and owner instead of mutual benefit.(...)

5. There will be a cry for more public housing because the private sector will not build if they cannot make a profit and if they cannot control their business.

6. Housing shortages will continue and grow worse.

7. Government waste and interference will grow worse.

8. Slums and families without homes to call their own will multiply.

Read the rest at Gay Caswell's Blog.

If you want cheaper housing, build more of it and encourage home ownership. It's the law of supply and demand.

So let me get this straight Your Graces

If you don't like the media outlet's stance, you won't let them cover your plenary sessions?

So have you banned any other organizations, particularly secular ones? No? Would you? You think playing nice with the secular media will help you?

“The leadership of our Conference has expressed serious concerns over the manner in which positions have been taken by your organization,” he continued. “Our Executive Officers in turn have indicated that the CCCB Media Relations Officer should exercise caution in dealing with your organization.”

Yeah, that's some caution. Alienating the very organization that can bring you down. Smart move. #sarcasm

Meanwhile, Salt and Light has live coverage on its website.

Update:

Also in French if you want to avoid simultaneous translation

VIDEO: Ron Paul describes witnessing late-term abortion in hard-hitting pro-life ad

Life is valuable? Really?

How dare this man put a baby's life above that of a grown woman's autonomy! How dare this man refuse to kill babies and value their lives even if they are disabled!

In the immortal words of Joyce Arthur, fetuses are not that important. You're all nuts for thinking they are.

Study highlights effect of oral contraceptives on women's relationships

An interesting abstract:

Hormonal variation over the menstrual cycle alters women's preferences for phenotypic indicators of men's genetic or parental quality. Hormonal contraceptives suppress these shifts, inducing different mate preference patterns among users and non-users. This raises the possibility that women using oral contraception (OC) choose different partners than they would do otherwise but, to date, we know neither whether these laboratory-measured effects are sufficient to exert real-world consequences, nor what these consequences would be. Here, we test for differences in relationship quality and survival between women who were using or not using OC when they chose the partner who fathered their first child. Women who used OC scored lower on measures of sexual satisfaction and partner attraction, experienced increasing sexual dissatisfaction during the relationship, and were more likely to be the one to initiate an eventual separation if it occurred. However, the same women were more satisfied with their partner's paternal provision, and thus had longer relationships and were less likely to separate. These effects are congruent with evolutionary predictions based on cyclical preference shifts. Our results demonstrate that widespread use of hormonal contraception may contribute to relationship outcome, with implications for human reproductive behaviour, family cohesion and quality of life.

Source:


Proc Biol Sci. 2011 Oct 12. [Epub ahead of print]
Relationship satisfaction and outcome in women who meet their partner while using oral contraception.
Roberts SC, Klapilová K, Little AC, Burriss RP, Jones BC, Debruine LM, Petrie M, Havlícek J.
Source


School of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, , Stirling FK9 4LA, UK.

Pope St. Callistus I: A saint for our times

This caught my eye because my infant daughter's middle name is Callista. So today is the feast day of one of her patrons: Pope St. Callistus I:

Pope Saint Callistus began as a slave who formed a bank with his Christian master's charity fund - donations to be given to poor widows. One day it was discovered that all the money was gone, and Callistus immediately fled Rome. Legend says that he was identified in Portus but that he jumped overboard the ship in order to escape. He was captured and brought back to Rome. Soon after he was imprisoned for fighting with Jews at a Synagogue - apparently over money lost through bad loans.

Taylor Marshall calls him the patron saint of "compromised financial services." That's an understatement.

He should be invoked for banks and other financial institutions seeking bailouts. And people who can't balance the books in general.

VIDEO: Brian Lilley's Interview with Bill Whatcott

Bill Whatcott comes off as a calm, rational, reasonable individual. He is low-key, unlike his flyers.

When conservative pundits talk about Whatcott, I find they treat him like kryptonite, wanting to dissociate themselves with him.

I don't agree with Bill on everything (especially regarding the criminalization of homosexual behaviour).

But I like Bill.

Bill is a guy who has walked the walked. He has done the gay thing. He has taken care of gay people.

The idea that he's some kind of hater is absurd.

Do haters nurse the targets of their hate? Can you picture Nazis or Jihadis nursing Jews? Can you picture a white supremacist taking care of blacks?

Lefitsts have a habit of distorting words and concepts in a self-serving manner. This is what they've done with the word "hate". Hate means wishing someone ill will or committing harmful acts with malevolent intentions. But the left now describes as "hate" any idea that contradicts their ideology.

If their ideology were an absolute and universal standard of love, then perhaps they might have a point.

But as they do not believe in absolute and universal standards, their definition of hate is completely relative and emotion-based.

And therefore can be conveniently self-serving. All you have to do is stretch the notion of hate to any undesired behaviour or sentiment, and it can now be criminalized.

This is what has happened to Bill Whatcott. He is obviously not a hater. But the left needs to frame him as such to silence his dissent.

I predict one day Bill Whatcott will be a folk hero along the lines of John Brown. A footnote of history, but an important footnote.

H/T: Xanthippa's Chamberpot

Why I've never been comfortable with the conservative canonization of Ronald Reagan

Bernard Goldberg:

Also, please keep in mind that these days Ronald Reagan not only wouldn’t pass muster as a true Conservative, he would be disdained as a flip-flopper. For one thing, he was a Democrat for a great many years. Then, as governor, he raised taxes twice here in California and signed the most liberal abortion bill in America, although he later said he regretted it. Finally, as president, he signed the amnesty bill that opened the floodgates to millions and millions of illegals. I don’t recall if he ever said he regretted it, but, speaking as a resident of a border state, I certainly do. In other words, any complaint that a Republican feels like leveling at Romney or Perry could, with equal justification, be lodged against The Gipper.

He also racked up ridiculous deficits.

It's not that Reagan didn't do good things.

But I find sometimes conservatives treat him as some kind of gold standard for conservatism (along with Barry Goldwater).

I don't agree that Republicans should be thankful for their RINOs. RINOs are part of the problem, not the solution.

And also:

I may not see eye-to-eye with Romney on all the issues, but opposing a good family man who is clearly decent and honest because of his religion strikes me as vile and decidedly un-American. I would urge you all to keep in mind that he’s not running to be your pastor, priest or rabbi.

I agree. What matters more than his faith is his policy positions.

Survey: Employers favour English-sounding names

Quote:

"It should not be overlooked that many recruiters are clearly concerned that immigrants may lack critical language skills for performing well on the job," concluded Oreopoulos and Decheif

You don't say.

Anti-abortion attitudes, not laws, are a greater incentive to contraceptive use

Says one study abstract:

This study empirically examines the public and social policy question: Do state restrictive abortion laws affect the likelihood that women use more highly effective contraceptive methods? Using contraceptive use data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System 2002 survey, the empirical results show that Medicaid Funding Restrictions, Informed Consent Laws, and Two-Visit Laws have no significant impact on adult women’s (ages 18-44, 18-24, 25-34, 35-44) use of highly effective contraceptive methods.

I wouldn't imagine that these laws would have any effect on contraception use.

What would be even more interesting is if they examined abortion access and its affect on contraception use. If you know that you can't get an abortion easily, will you be more careful?

A state’s antiabortion attitudes, which likely contribute to the enactment of restrictive abortion laws in a state, are a major factor in inducing greater use of highly effective contraceptive methods by adult women at-risk of an unintended pregnancy. The empirical findings remain robust for various population subgroups of adult women (i.e., married, single, employed, unemployed, with children, no children and college educated).

And how does this affect actual rates of pregnancy and abortion? That would be an interesting question.

Fr. Raymond Gravel rides again -- his surprising comments on Church sex abuse

Yesterday, Fr. Raymond Gravel gave an interview on a CHOI-FM, a Quebec City radio station regarding the Church and sex abuse.

I wish I could transcribe and translate the whole interview, but with me breastfeeding, that's just not going to happen. It would take many days to finish.

But I'll bring to you some highlights.

The interview starts at about 1:55, if you want to skip the commercials.

In sum, Fr. Gravel tries to set things straight with regards to the sex abuse crisis. Here is some of what he had to say:

* At the time of the abuse, many of the clergy did the best they could to deal with it, considering that it was very much a taboo subject at the time.

* After the Congregation of Ste. Croix reached a settlement of 18 million dollars, he said that many victims called up to say that they had been abused. By that he implied that the victims were looking for a payday. It's not by offering them a settlement that these victims will be truly helped through their trauma. He says they need to be supported and treated. Not paid off.

And here's the really outrageous part--

* By paying them off the victims, we're giving them money for "services rendered"-- in effect, prostituting them.

(Is this a case of it takes one to know one?)

* The Pope doing all that is possible to deal with the pedophilia crisis.

* The radio host was rather taken aback by Fr. Gravel's comments and said: but the Church is sorry because it got caught and it takes time to settle. Gravel replies: many times relatives were abusing their children and there was no media coverage back in the day. That's the way society was in those times. Sexuality was taboo and secretive. He implies that since relatives were doing this and it was never reported, it was only natural that priestly pedophilia was not reported on or dealt with.

* The subject then turns to priestly celibacy. There is a well-known sister in Quebec, Sister Marie-Paule Ross, who also happens to be a sexologist who estimates that 80% of priests do not practice celibacy. The interview continues that it is a given that large numbers of priests don't observe celibacy.

The radio host asks Fr. Gravel: what has been your experience with this?

After explaining the secular priests do not make vows of chastity, Fr. Gravel says that he knew priests who had romantic relationships that were quite "okay", implying that it was proper, and he has nothing against those relationships. He said that he knew priests who observed celibacy properly, and he knew priests who lived a promiscuous lifestyle, hanging out in bars and saunas.

Then Fr. Gravel pleads for priestly marriage.

Then the subject turns against to compensation for sex abuse victims:

* When relatives get caught abusing their family members, the victims don't get monetary settlements. He gives the example of his relatives who are in the religious life who worked very hard for their orders and turned their money over to these orders and now these orders must pay settlements, money that would otherwise be used to pay out pensions for the retired religious. They're paying for this sex abuse crisis.

The female radio host says that whether you pay in settlements or in psych services, it's money that has to be paid out anyway. Fr. Gravel replies: but at least it will be real victims who will be healed. He says that when he went to school, people knew which teachers were pedophiles and some of the students tried to get some action from them. He says those are not real victims. He implies that some people do get over their sexual experiences and that some of these people are really looking for a payday from the Church, not actual healing.

* Later on, Fr. Gravel relates his experience of having lived with five priests in a rectory, one of whom was known to sexually assault women. He says that the priests made every effort to get this man treatment. They even got him three months of rehab.

So the radio host asks him: did you call the police?

And Fr. Gravel says: before you call the police, you try to help the person.

The host says: but it's a crime! Sexual assault on a child is a crime.

And Fr. Gravel says: twenty-five years ago, it was not a crime. (I suspect he means longer than that, but anyhow...) It was not perceived as a crime, so we tried to help the abusers. Then he says: check out your own family. There are some in every family, implying that no one dealt with it the way people are demanding it be dealt with today. His point is that the secretive culture was everywhere, not just the Church.

* He concludes that the Church did the best it could under the circumstances. He said that bishops shuffled abusive priests around in good faith. He says that the criticism of bishops and clergy on this file is an attempt to destroy the Church.

But the legalization of abortion had *nothing* to do with eugenics...

The Abortion Review reports that British abortion activist Madeleine Simms has died. Here is an excerpt of an interview she gave in 1997:

I became really active when the Thalidomide tragedy occurred. I have always been particularly concerned about the prevention of handicap, and it struck me as so appalling that there were people around who were actually prepared to compel women to have handicapped babies when this could be avoided. A friend of my parents had a brain-damaged son who grew far too big for her to handle; he was quite violent. It devastated her life. Seeing this at close quarters affected me. Until people have experienced the devastating affect on their own or a friend’s life of having a handicapped child, they do not always understand what the implications are for the mother and the whole family. There is a lot of sentimental talk about the joys of a lifetime’s caring, particularly on the part of those who do not have to do it themselves. If people choose to have a baby with Down’s Syndrome, that is their right. But the notion that you have the moral right to inflict your preferences on other people who are much less able to cope is monstrous.

You have no moral right to impose your personal preferences.

But if you want to impose death, that's fine!

I note that Simms is so concerned about how it affects the mother, but not how disability affects the person who has it.

Eliminate the suffering. Not the sufferer. If people are unable to cope then help them cope.

Killing is the easy solution.

Why Social Conservatives Never Gain Any Traction

John Pacheco has the answer:

As conservatives, every time we vote “strategically” for the establishment parties, we reinforce their conduct of not holding firm to absolutes, but tragically give them tacit permission to concede the moral spectrum, inch by inch, until we all arrive at a point where there are no more inches to concede and the open air, rather than solid ground, is what society is standing on. (Believe me, if FCP candidates were to receive even a mere 20% of socially conservative voters alone during the last election, the political establishment would take notice and things would begin to change drastically.)

So, why is this important to know? For the simple reason that preaching to the converted on issues which they already know to be sound and true should not be our only, or even principle, focus. Our focus should be to convince “strategic voters” that their voting conduct is actually hastening the demise of our society because if we

a) don’t recognize that there are non-negotiable issues

and

b) don’t stand on them when the time comes and call upon politicians to take notice,

in due time we won’t be standing at all. And it takes one voter at a time to concern themselves about their own fundamental beliefs about themselves and about how they believe society should be run instead of worrying what the herd is doing.


Voting with the herd only means hastening the stampede off of the cliff.

There is a time and a place for strategic voting.

The problem is when you vote strategically in every election, always for the lesser of two evils rather than demanding what you really want from politicians.

Your "lesser evil" vote has an opportunity cost: that of not advancing the greater good.

Has voting for the lesser evil really stopped moral evil in Canada? Maybe it's delayed it by five or ten years. Remember the Liberal government voted in favour of marriage in 1999. That didn't last long.

If evil is not abated by your strategic voting, you might as well vote for what you actually want. Otherwise what's the point of voting? What's the point of democracy?

VIDEO: Michael Coren interview with man who regrets sex change

" The gender issue is a symptom of a deeper problem."

H/T: FFF

Birth Announcement and Update

Hello Readers

As you may have guessed from the lack of activity on this blog, I have given birth. Here are a few pics of my newborn girl:

She was born on October 1st at 3:03 pm and weighed in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces.

The recovery from my c-section has been slow and a little rougher than my last three. Your comments are all on hold because I don't know when I'll have the energy to moderate the ensuing discussions. But rest assured none have been deleted.

US Study concludes most abortion clients not upset by abortion protesters

Just in time for 40 Days for Life.

Title: Effect of Clinic Protesters on Women's Emotional Response to Abortion. (Right column, second last abstract.)


A study of 725 abortion clients conducted at 25 U.S. sites between 2008 and 2010 reveals:

49% reported having seen a protester.

29% reported being spoken to.

17% said protester tried to stop them from entering.

Of all those who had seen a protester, nearly half said that they were not at all upset.

25% said they were a little upset.

15% said that they were "a lot" or "extremely upset".

Women who had difficulty with the abortion decision were most likely to report being upset by protesters.

CONCLUSION: "Protesters do upset some women seeking abortion services. However, the effect of exposure to protesters does not seem to have an effect on emotions toward the abortion 1 week later."

Source: Foster, D. Barar R., Gould H., Weitz, T.
University of San Francisco

This is a scheduled post.

Canadian Study Sheds Light on Contraceptive Failure and Abortion

A study of 108 of abortion clients in a clinic in the BC Interior reveals that at the time of conception:

42% did not use contraception.

Contraception was not used by 25% of women presenting for repeat abortion.

31% of women used oral contraceptives.

24% used condoms.

3% used a copper IUD.

15% used two or more methods of contraception.

34% reported satisfaction with their method of contraception at the time of conception.

Source:


Norman, WV, Chiles, J, Turner, C
University of British Columbia Abortion Research Team
Contraception Vol. 84 issue 3, p. 22

So, if you get your teen daughter on The Pill, you'll never have to worry about her getting pregnant -- ever. #sarcasm


This has been a scheduled post.

Proving once again that men and women are different

(As if there was any need of more evidence.)

I formatted the abstract differently than the original website to make my point:

The purpose of the study was to test four predictions derived from evolutionary (sexual strategies) theory. The central hypothesis was that men and women possess different emotional mechanisms that motivate and evaluate sexual activities.

Consequently, even when women express indifference to emotional involvement and commitment and voluntarily engage in casual sexual relations, their goals, their feelings about the experience, and the associations between their sexual behavior and prospects for long-term investment differ significantly from those of men.

Women's sexual behavior is associated with their perception of investment potential: long-term, short-term, and partners' ability and willingness to invest. For men, these associations are weaker or inversed.

Regression analyses of survey data from 333 male and 363 female college students revealed the following:

Greater permissiveness of sexual attitudes was positively associated with number of sex partners; this association was not moderated by sex of subject (Prediction 1);

Even when women deliberately engaged in casual sexual relations, thoughts that expressed worry and vulnerability crossed their minds; for females, greater number of partners was associated with increased worry-vulnerability whereas for males the trend was the opposite (Prediction 2);

With increasing numbers of sex partners, marital thoughts decreased; this finding was not moderated by sex of subject; this finding did not support (Prediction 3);

For both males and females, greater number of partners was related to larger numbers of one-night stands, partners foreseen in the next 5 years, and deliberately casual sexual relations. This trend was significantly stronger for males than for females (Prediction 4).

Source:


Arch Sex Behav. 2011 Oct 6. [Epub ahead of print]
Sexual Hookups Among College Students: Sex Differences in Emotional Reactions.
Townsend JM, Wasserman TH.
Source


Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 13244-1090, USA, jmtsu44@aol.com.

This has been a scheduled post.

British Study Examines Prevalence of Homosexual Orientation

Posted purely FYI. According to the abstract of a recent British study:

Overall, 5.3% of men and 5.6% of women reported they were not entirely heterosexual.

Once again, debunking the myth that ten per cent of the population is gay.




(This has been a scheduled post).

Study: Birth Control Pill linked to higher incidence of abortion, chlamydia

A quick post during my post-childbirth recovery in order to bring you this interesting abstract:

AIMS:

The aim of this study is to examine the association between the prescription of oral contraceptives and the incidence of chlamydia, and between the prescription of oral contraceptives and the number of abortions in a population-based ecological study.

METHODS:

For this study we used register data from the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (chlamydia incidence), the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (number of abortions), Statistics Sweden (population data), and Apoteket (Swedish pharmacy) (prescriptions for oral contraceptives). We conducted ordinary least squares regression analysis of the association between chlamydia or abortions and the prescription of oral contraceptives.

RESULTS:

The prescription of oral contraceptives has a positive association on both the incidence of chlamydia and the numbers of abortion. Our best model predicts that prescription of 100 yearly doses of oral contraceptives increase the abortions by 3.3 cases among 16-year-old women and 0.7 cases among 29-year-old women, while cases of chlamydia increase by 6.7 among 16-year-old women and 1.5 among 29-year-old women.

CONCLUSIONS:

Our findings indicate that the use of oral contraceptives among young people and young adults is positively associated with the chlamydia incidence and the abortion rate in these populations in Sweden.

Source:

Scand J Public Health. 2011 Oct 3. [Epub ahead of print]
The prescription of oral contraceptives and its relation to the incidence of chlamydia and abortion in Sweden 1997-2005.
Halvarsson V, Ström S, Liljeros F.
Source


Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.