Monday, July 02, 2007

The Wish List

My good friend Kirsten, was the organizer of the second most popular wish on the CBC/Facebook Great Canadian Wish List.

Here's a news clip about the campaign. It features Kirsten, as well as the controversy surrounding certain wishes.



The Hek

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Outlaw abortion? Return to spirituality? A return to the traditional definition of marriage? Ouch.

- Mr. Wood

Blake said...

Interesting piece. WTG Kirsten for standing up for pro-choice in a such a public way and initiating the "counter-vote" on the GCWL. Very courageous!

Besides, is that young man naive enough to really think a government ban or abolition of abortion will ever stop abortions from happening? History says otherwise - before it was legalized in both Canada and the USA, secret abortions were fairly widespread (at least, from what the limited data suggests - so many more were undoubtedly unreported/unrecorded, I'm sure.)

Did we learn nothing from things like Prohibition (different "vice", same principle)? You simply cannot impose morality and personal responsibility through legislation. Far from ending the practice, banning abortion again will only drive it underground once more, away from government/professional oversight and regulation - to the detriment of the women & children's safety and health. Before legalization, far too many women suffered serious injury or indeed died outright because of botched illegal abortions, notwithstanding the loss of the child of course. Thus, recriminalization would only serve to put the lives of countless women and children both in danger once again. In trying to fix the problem, you just might make it even worse...

It's called pro-CHOICE for a reason: it's about women having the freedom to make their own decisions when it comes to themselves and their bodies. It's not about supporting abortion itself - plenty of pro-choicers disapprove of the practice. In an ideal world, abortion wouldn't be necessary. But, as we all know, our world is far from ideal...

Anyway, rant over. You may resume normal programming :-)

Eric Rosenhek said...

I'm a huge fan of your rants, Blake!

Mr wood: It kind of reminds me of Blue States and Red States. We're looking at 50/50. Scary but true.