Choice Canada

Never going back

2005-11-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

288, originally uploaded by alexandralee.

The movement is afoot!

The day Canadian women became things

2005-11-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

The day Canadian women became things, originally uploaded by Sheila Steele.

We have a fight on our hands, demonstrating for our very personhood! Let's use every tool at our disposal, including the internet, to educate the lost generations and preserve what rights we still have.

We do not need men who seek to subjugate women.

Letter to StarPhoenix

2005-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

Anti abortion pamphlet lacks logical argument

The StarPhoenix, September 13, 2005

Bill Whatcott's latest sensational flyer, delivered to many Saskatoon homes following a recent anti-abortion rally, is an obscene and subversive attempt to generate support. Using a picture of a decapitated fetus to solicit anti-abortion support is akin to using a photograph of a rotting corpse to solicit donations for famine relief or a graphic depiction of a murder victim to argue for longer sentences for violent criminals.

Irrespective of a campaign's merit, such actions should be easily recognized as a petty use of horrific pictures to illicit an emotional response. Hopefully the good people of Saskatoon have the sense to dismiss such an obvious attempt to subvert their cognitive faculties.

Also, irrespective of one's intent, it is inappropriate to distribute disturbing images to private mailboxes in an unsolicited flyer.

As for the grammatically incoherent text of the leaflet, it can only be described as incredible. Whatcott compares Planned Parenthood Regina to (presumably neo) Nazis, himself to a Sudanese refugee, states that "Planned Parenthood will give you AIDS," and claims to speak for "millions of Christians" all over the world.

Accordingly, the flyer appears to be more of an attempt to affect his own fiscal and legal situation, than to influence public opinion. In fact, it does nothing but perpetuate the Christian fanatic stereotype.

If Whatcott, or anyone else for that matter, would like to convince Saskatoon's residents that abortion is evil, could they kindly do so using logically formatted written arguments!

Patrick Thomson

Saskatoon
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005

Foetus fanatics at it again

2005-09-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

Protesters jostle for position over abortion issue

Lana Haight, The StarPhoenix, September 3, 2005

Drivers heading along College Drive Friday afternoon were confronted with graphic images of aborted remains and people yelling pro-choice chants.

As the demonstration began, pro-life and pro-choice groups jostled for position along College near Preston Avenue. In the process, they inched their way from the shoulder of College to the outside driving lane.

When pro-choice protesters stepped in front of the large posters of the remains, Bill Whatcott, who organized the pro-life protest, moved in front of them. They blocked his signs again, prompting Whatcott to step farther onto the street. At one point, they stood blocking one lane. Finally, the pro-choice group moved away from pro-life group and set up its demonstration several metres away.

About 20 pro-choice supporters, many of them university students chanted, "Not the church. Not the state. Women will control their fate."

"Baby-killing's got to go," responded Whatcott, who calls himself a Christian truth activist.

While the pro-choice supporters carried signs that said, "My body, my choice," and "Against abortion? Don't have one," the half-dozen pro-life supporters held signs that showed aborted remains.

One of the posters that Whatcott displayed included a black and white photo of dead bodies with the caption "Hitler's holocaust" and a colour photo of remains with "Canada's holocaust" written above it. He defends the graphic depiction.

"The pictures are true and they tell the truth in a way that words can't," he said.

But Deanna Ogle, a second-year student at the University of Saskatchewan who organized Friday's pro-choice protest, is offended by the posters.

"Those pictures are very graphic and insulting to the groups he makes allegations with such as the Jewish community by comparing the Holocaust, which is a horrible atrocity, to a legal medical procedure," she said.

Friday's protest was the start of a weekend campaign by Whatcott, who used to live in Saskatchewan but now lives in Edmonton. He and his supporters will deliver to random Saskatoon neighbourhoods 6,500 flyers denouncing the pro-choice movement.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005

Sol Gordon: Targeted by Right to Life

2005-03-14T10:53:00.000-08:00

Sol Gordon, originally uploaded by Sheila Steele.

As outlined in the post below this one, Sol Gordon visited Saskatchewan during the late 1970s.

Fortunately he did not have to stay here. This disgraceful province defamed him, beginning a string of defamations against those who support choice and others targetted by the Justice system.

Mr. Gordon continues his good work thirty years later. Just google his name.

Gay Caswell: Mischief in Northern Saskatchewan

2005-03-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

A skewed view of Saskatchewan history is up on an MSN message board.

Gay Caswell was part of Grant Devine's government for one term during the 1980s.

Now she lives in Brabent Lake in northern Saskatchewan and, along with her family, is building a following around the apparitions of the Virgin Mary which have been spotted in frost on a greenhouse window in Ile a la Cross and other far north sightings.

I first met Gay in 1971. Her views on fetus rights were extreme.

During the late 70s she wrote actionable material about Sol Gordon, who sued her. For those who do not know him, Gordon was active in promoting sex education through comic books in New York. These comics were accurate, funny and educational. Planned Parenthood in Saskatoon invited him to come and speak. They booked a free room at the Public Library and Caswell wrote to City Council claiming they should not allow him to speak there because he was a "known pornographer." She published even more defamatory statements about him in The Catholic Messenger. She attributed to him statements that he had not made.

Gordon hired Barry Singer (now a provincial court judge) to file a civil claim against Caswell. This claim was lost after a trial which lasted several weeks. The judge, from Humboldt, ruled that Caswell's remarks about Gordon did not offend community standards and that her placing of quotation marks around statements which Gordon had not made did not constitute defamation.

It was a sad day for Saskatchewan justice.

Caswell has felt free ever since to say anything she pleases about anyone she targets. The article on MSN is particularly offensive because it revives the old red-baiting tactics of the 50s. By slight of phrase she has linked the NDP, communists, Trotskyists and terrorism, eerily bringing Joe McCarthy's tactics into the 21st century.

I was a Trotskyist at the time I first met Gay White. So was John Caswell. I know and they know that Trotsky did not advocate terrorism; Trotsky clearly outlined the elements of fascism and pointed how to resist it through mass mobilizations of people and the deepening of democratic institutions.

Okay -- I'll go first.

2005-02-22T22:06:00.000-08:00

Sheila, originally uploaded by Sheila Steele.

I went looking for a blog to contribute to but couldn't find any.

This blog is open to anyone who knows how to blog. If you don't know how, get in touch with me and I'll walk you through it and get you to send me your picture so I can include it, too.

In Saskatoon we had a wonderful movement for many years in the early seventies called Saskatoon Women for Abortion Law Repeal. We worked very hard and spoke to many people. I hope the women who were part of that will post their comments and stories.

We might have known that the anti-choice forces would make a come-back.

I once thought this was the most important, defining issue for the human race. I'm not that dogmatic any more but I certainly think it is important. Controlling our lives must begin with controlling our bodies!

How odd to expect a life without regret!

2005-02-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

This blog is for Canadians who support women's right to choose abortion to vent.

Tonight, I saw on The National (CBC) a piece on the women who are trying to take that right away. Many are claiming to be so racked with regret about having had abortions that they blame their present problems on abortions they had years ago.

One, who had three abortions, was articulate with her pain. Does she really expect anyone to believe that her life would be improved if she now had a 30 year old child whose father was her rapist?

I have been a public spokesperson for choice for many years of my life. I stopped speaking publicly when a woman who claimed to be pro-life (how dare they appropriate that sentimen!) physically attacked me in the washroom of a public building and called me a murderer.

In many ways, these anti-choice people won their round in the legalization battle. While the choice to end a pregnancy is available to educated women in the larger centres, women in other parts of the country often have to battle poverty, lack of support and no access to services.

Young women in poverty have no choices. Many are talked into thinking they have made the choice to have the children which are later taken into government care because they fail to jump through the firey hoops placed in their way by human resources, social services or whatever these heartless agencies are now calling themselves.

We are living in a world where the President of the United States claims to put his interpretation of the Bible above democratically legislated laws. Some say he had a direct pipeline to Jesus! With such madness all around us many of us are likely to have done many things (made many choices?) which we later regret.

We were probably doing the best we could do at the time and if things didn't work out, well, we try something else.

As we muddle through this great social experiment which is being a member of the human race in the 21st century, the one thing we can count on for sure is regret: a little six letter word which will crop up from time to time. Turning this into major grief is a choice made by those who are overly self-absorbe.