(no subject)

For English Canadians, Québec is sometimes a political twilight zone... In this instance, it is a place where a right-wing shock-jock is the one siding with the Palestinians and unsurprisingly, being a shock jock, comparing Israel to the Nazis (d'un blogue sur cyberpresse.ca to cite the source, although not really worth reading). Aijjaz Ahmad has allies in unlikely places ;]

Blog for Abortion

This year's topic is a simple one: tell us, and your readers, why you're pro-choice.

I'm pro-choice abortion* because women should do what they want with their bodies, not all pregnancies are wanted, and every child that is born should be desired.

I think life begins in the womb. Humans can't do parthenogenesis, so life begins with the fecunded egg. Thus abortion is murder, and that is one of the few forms of murder I endorse. If we can go to war, I don't know why we can't abort children. Once we have stopped all wars, maybe we can reconsider the matter!

What's the matter with this supposed "every life is sacred" thing anyway? With all the wars, famine, disease and hunger that go unchecked? There are plenty of "sacred" lives that we let become miserable due to our avarice and self-centeredness, our (passive or not) support for capitalism and its bastard children, imperialism, patriarchy, white supremacy and ecological devastation? Do the God-fearing, Chevy Yukon-driving, soccer moms and hockey dads of the industrialized world care for the sacred lives of HIV-positive Africans, the hungry slum-dwellers of Sao Paolo, Mumbai, Mexico City, Beijing, the post-soviet Russian elderly dying of cold and their evaporating pensions, heck, what about creeping third-worldization in the industrial world? Is nothing sacred?

Most men produce millions of spermatozoids every day and most women produce a good and healthy ovula every month. It's not like the meeting of those two items is a rarity; we're already one of the most populous animal species on earth. We have more or less stopped Darwinian evolution (at least at the macroscopic level) and we dominate the earth. When women want to bear children, they can make that choice and go on with it.

*: yes, I'm pro-choice, I understand that this term is broader than pro-abortion. But pro-choice sounds like a kind of consumerist credo, whereas there is little ambiguity in pro-abortion, and much reluctance to utter the "abortion" word or talk about the process. Who do you know talks openly about having had an abortion? Discussion of it should not be shameful. Abortion is still a dirty secret that we keep to ourselves. My cousin Manon had an abortion, and she's the only person I know who discussed it freely. I'm sure many more of the women I know have had abortions, but I don't know which ones. Not that I need to know, I'm just saying that it's not talked about. I'm sure that anyone undergoing an abortion would like some moral support before and after the fact. We sign cards for people who get sick and we send them gifts and flowers, wishing them a good recovery. We should be able to do the same for abortions.

The NDP's strategic voting conundrum in the next election

Dilemna for the NDP in the next election:
On one hand, asking Canadians on the left not to vote strategically for the Liberals
On the other hand, asking environmentally conscious Canadians to vote strategically for the NDP rather than for the Greens. mrputter even caught me thinking that way recently.

It's quite clear that the Greens will have a strong chance of picking up more votes in the next election. culpster was surprised recently that the NDP hadn't jumped on Elizabeth May regarding her ambiguous comments on abortion, and I theorized that the NDP right now has decided not to pick any fights with the Greens, lest the Greens get more media attention. I'm sure the corporate media out there would feast on and feed a Green/NDP feud. Avoidance is a safe strategy for now, since Layton doesn't want to commit to an environmental vision anyway and would rather play the tactician instead. But I think the NDP will have to bring out the artillery and figure out how they will deal with the Greens in the next election, or else the Greens might tip some NDP seats in BC to the Conservatives and the Liberals, and maybe reinforce some Liberal seats in Toronto at the expense of the NDP. May could even win a riding.

Layton's lack of clear demands on the environment (other than "Kyoto", which doesn't particularly distinguish the NDP from the pack) will more and more drive the NDP to ask potential Green voters to vote strategically, which will lead the NDP nowhere, except in ridings where the NDP is the incumbent, maybe.