Don't Feed The Crazies

While Suzie All-Crap and the Fetusmania tour are steaming down the road, playing to sell outs and promoting their Do As your Told, Slut agenda at least someone is paying attention. Quebec doctors are looking past the smoke and mirrors and speaking truth.

Gaetan Barrette, who heads the province's association of specialist doctors, criticized Bill C-484 for opening the door to recognizing the rights of a fetus...

Barrette, whose association rarely weighs in on policy debates, pointed out that the bill's supporters are already eyeing a court challenge to Canada's abortion laws.

He says the association wants to protect abortion doctors from possible lawsuits and avoid a return to back-alley abortions.

Sadly, this sensible approach to dishonest legislation will be falling upon deaf ears. The proponents of the legislation are busy rending their clothes in outrage and practicing their photography.

Bethany, a moderator at Jill Stanek's blog posted some pictures of her 6 week-old miscarried unborn child.

Because that is a sure sign of a balanced mind. Unfortunately someone took it in their head to take the photos and prank them. Putting aside how deeply fucked up it is go rooting through the discharge of a miscarriage to take pictures of an embryo (evidently named Blessing), it is pretty damned wrong to alter the photos for the purpose of hurtful comedy or politics.

That sort of thing is no different that plastering trucks with gory shots of aborted fetuses or harassing women with gore porn posters and flyers at clinics. Frankly, I'd prefer if we didn't sink to the level of ignorance that the anti-choice side employs. I know that the loss of a wanted pregnancy is a devastating emotional blow. We should not exploit that loss or the pain it causes, no matter how crazy the individual's attempts to deal with it might seem.

It is also counter productive as a political statement as we on the pro-choice side of the fence will forever be branded as the cruel devils that mock a crazy woman's pain. The hundreds of prayers and inarticulate protestations at Stanek's blog are testament to that. Strange that they do not share their rabid pro-life sentiments when it comes to the lives of physicians or clinic workers. I will condemn the prankster that messed with the photo (and I'll put aside the nagging suspicion that it was an inside job, perpetrated to rouse sympathy and political fervor). However the best we ever see from the anti-choice zealots is a disavowal of the clinic bombers, doctor killers and other terrorists in their own ranks, it isn't us, they say. And while they might not individually be involved in those acts of terror, they are not loud in condemning such acts, as the chill on the medical profession serves their ends.