Weekly Reader

It's a little bit lighter this week:

Margaret Somerville is still the least effective ethicist ever

The Montreal Gazette weighs in on sex-selective abortion, and how Harper's government is ignoring reality

Joyce Arthur warns us to beware of Crisis Pregnancy Centres

And the National Post continues to harp on about this new poll data

What have you been reading about?

Why Poll Data Doesn't Matter

So, I guess there's been an Angus Reid poll that found that 51% of Canadians favour some restrictions on abortion - and 60% favour restricting sex-selective abortion. I have some thoughts.

First of all, who are these people who don't think there should be any restrictions, but then do think that, oh yeah, if it's for sex selection then we should really clamp down. What? I have so many questions for them. Like: how do we determine someone's reason for aborting? How hard do you think it would be to get around such a restriction? What do you think it says about our society that sex selective abortion even exists? What other reasons are good enough to say no, you can't have this?

But mostly I just think, who cares? I wouldn't give a shit if 99% of the population thought abortion should be illegal, all the time, forever. Majority opinion =/= justice.

I don't know what polls like this are supposed to prove. People's right to have a say over their own bodies is not changeable with the whims of the populace, or at least it shouldn't be. I'm sure there was a time when a lot of shitty things were 51% approved by the population of this or another country. You know the shit I'm talking about, don't make me Godwin this.

I also wouldn't really care that much if the poll said 99% of people were for no limits on abortion law/access, unless it actually made a practical difference in people's lives. Look at PEI - even if everyone on the island agreed that abortion was a-ok, that doesn't build a clinic, or the political will to make it happen. Reproductive rights are looking more and more like something to add to our list of things we will need to take back (as opposed to waiting for them to be handed to us).

I guess it doesn't really matter what polls we do, I don't really feel that they are reflective of folks' lived experiences, which tend to get undervalued.

Weekly Reader

There was A LOT of stuff going on this week! Super size reader! Watch out!

Abortion rights are queer rights

The Liberal Party has decided it will penalize provinces for restricting abortion access; which obviously has implications for PEI.

And speaking of abortion on PEI, the premier is co-chairing a working group on healthcare innovation, which seems a little hypocritical.

The CTV did a sting "hidden camera" operation on a CPC in Surrey - here's my take

Barbara Kay is an idiot

And.....sex selective abortion!! Here are a whole bunch of articles on possibly not telling women their medical information and how that will help solve the problem. Coverage on Jezebel!

The doctor who did the study defends it.

Here are some op-eds about it!

Here are some letters in the Star, and here's some discussion of the Orientalist tone of the debate. And here's why I think it's a waste of time.

Of course the idiots at the National Post had a field day with it.

What have you been reading about?

Why the Sex Selective Abortion Debate is Bullshit

So the old sex selective abortion topic is coming up again in Canada; you might have seen it in the news (I have lots more links for Sunday's round up, don't worry). Can I just say, I can't believe this is being dragged out again as if there is a legislative solution. I mean really.

It seems fairly obvious from where I'm sitting that sex selective abortion, and infanticide, is a symptom of a much larger problem: the value we place on gender in our society. Obviously it varies in form and degree between cultures (and don't think I haven't noticed the racist undertones of some of these discussions), but what it comes down to is that women are not valued as highly as men, and are not as desirable to have as children. Obviously this is further complicated by ethnicity and class and all manner of other factors. But the point is, the problem of sex selection will not be solved by removing the means of sex selection. Haven't I written about this before?

Many people counter the "making it illegal won't make the problem go away" argument (one that applies to many other issues such as non-sex selective abortion, or sex work) with the "that same thing could be said about murder", rebuttal, as though decriminalizing something implies total moral acceptance. Or as if the always-correct reaction to things we think are morally wrong is to legislate against it. As if our legislative process, our whole judicial system, wasn't itself irreversibly corrupt. I think that even if we could all agree 100% on a law that should be in place, there is no guarantee that the legal system will serve the interests of our society as opposed to the interests of the - dare I say it - 1%. I am wary of ever advocating further legislation to solve any problem, because I have my own ideas of who the criminal class are.

I think sex selective abortion and infanticide are symptoms of a problem that is in itself part and parcel of a kyriarchy in which our judicial system also operates. I think that in the long run, the same people are benefiting from both. I think sex selective abortion will never go away until the kyriarchy does. And I am absolutely fed up with the fact that reasonable people are still arguing about it; as if taking away a woman's right to choose whether to continue a pregnancy can help her in a world that is going to slap her daughter down in the same way it just did to her.

/rant