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40 Days and 40 Nights (and Women's Rights)
Today marks the beginning of 40 Days for Life, a pro-life event bringing prayer, fasting, peaceful vigil and community outreach. At least 130 cities in Canada (including Toronto), Australia, Northern Ireland and the USA are participating in the events that run until April 5th.
By using Lent in this way, pro-lifers are trying to mobilize an effort to end the practice of abortion. Personally, I don't support their cause; women (and men) have fought hard for reproductive rights for women and if our politicians ever got close to removing them, I think pro-choice supporters would come out in huge numbers, dwarfing whatever crowds 40 Days For Life may see.
But the benefits of living in our country includes the right for people to speak their mind, organize around whatever cause they like, and in this case, rally around their cause against abortion by outreaching at the Women's Care Clinic at Dufferin & Lawrence (note their use of quotations about the clinic's name).
Perhaps this Easter we will know just how many people are mobilized, and if a noteworthy clash over abortion is in our future. Hopefully they're not as morbid in their ways as previous anti-abortion protesters have been in this city.
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As some sort of journalist, I guess it's a matter of integrity to post things like this. After all, while you (or I) may disagree with the pro-life movement, it's happening in Toronto and others may want to know. I appreciate the fact that you posted it regardless.
- There is NO abortion law in Canada - abortion is legal, and practiced, for the full 9 months of pregnancy in our country.
- There are over 100,000 abortions in Canada, every year (Statistic Canada only goes until 2005, by my last check, but it hovers around this mark)
Despite people's personal views, there are many issues surrounding this matter that people are unaware of, or do not want to discuss.
Believe it or not, abortion is NOT a 'closed matter' in Canada.
I am signing up for several hours for the 40 Days For Life in Toronto - for more information about the Toronto witness, please visit:
www.40daysforlife.com/toronto
It is a difficult topic, and unfortunately a silent one; if abortion has touched you or anyone you know, you owe it to yourself to look 'beyond the veil', as they say...
jonathan@blogto.com
I'd like to respond to the article you posted on the '40 Days for Life'. I think you did a fair job of presenting the campaign. I was pleased to see it on this Blog. I'm involved in the 40 Days. I'm pro-Life. I stand up for the unborn's right to life. I believe that abortion is murder.
A couple of notes in your post I wanted to comment on:
You mentioned that people have fought hard for women's reproductive rights. I find this to be a strange term. The reproductive rights you are speaking about...are you not taking about an unborn child here? So in other words, you've fought hard for women to have the right to kill their unborn child? That doesn't sound right does it?
Another thing you mentioned was your hope that those involved were not as morbid as anti-abortion protestors have been in the past. Just to clarify, the 40 Days for Life Campaign Life doesn't use picture of aborted babies if that is what you mean. Something to consider is this. The morbid pictures are photographs of the reality. Some people call them 'Show the Truth' etc... Therefore, wouldn't that make the reality of abortion morbid? Please don't put the blame on pro-life people for the brutality of those pictures. The question I have for you is this. Shouldn't the responsibility go to those involved in the abortions? The doctors, the boyfriend or parents who cohearsed the girl into having the abortion, the rich couple who thought the baby was inconvenient etc.
And finally. In response to your comment on the 'pro-choice' supports coming in in huge numnbers....Something to consider is this. One of the largest, if not THE largest gatherings on parliament Hill in Ottawa each year is a pro-life March. It's called the National March for Life.
Check it out on youTube.
Peace.
Thanks for posting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkyLgXe1AyM
Jason.
As to the first point you raise, no, I don't see a problem. There are many, many reasons why I see it beneficial to the woman, society and even the fetus to have abortion as an option. Nobody is pro-abortion, but it is an invaluable and important option to have available to women. People are pro-choice for this reason, even though many people may not personally choose to have an abortion.
And so I maintain that if that right were seriously threatened, you'd see bigger protests than the anti-choice folks stage each year.
I see it's easier to deny options to people when they're stereotyped as a homogenous group of monied privilege and oppression. You forgot "freewheeling slut who uses abortion as a form of surgical birth control", though.