No justification

While it is proper that Ignatieff is accepting responsibility for the Liberal mess concerning the vote on Rae's motion to include a broader range of family planning programs, including contraception, in a maternal health initiative for developing countries, there is no excuse for the handful of Liberals who voted against it, or for those who abstained.

According to some of these Liberals, they did so because they are opposed to abortion.

First of all, Rae's motion does not promote abortion, and speeches made in the House explain that it would be supported, only as a health issue, and only in countries where it is legal:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government’s G8 maternal and child health initiative for the world’s poorest regions must include the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception, consistent with the policy of previous Liberal and Conservative governments, and all other G8 governments last year in L’Aquila, Italy;


that the approach of the Government of Canada must be based on scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths; and


that the Canadian government should refrain from advancing the failed right-wing ideologies previously imposed by the George W. Bush administration in the United States, which made humanitarian assistance conditional upon a “global gag rule” that required all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to refrain from promoting medically-sound family planning.

This line is key to what is so objectionable about the opposition to the motion:

the approach of the Government of Canada must be based on scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths

By voting according to their own moral beliefs, likely based on religious views whether the members are currently believers in a god or not, those MPs are mixing church and state, something that must not be done. They know this, and failed to consider the science and facts above their own nebulous beliefs. In so doing, they are subjecting women and children to their personal narrow ideology.

It is insane (and fanatical) that anyone would not support family planning in a world where over-population has become a huge problem, one which is increasing exponentially. It is madness not to see that family planning is critical in a world where resources are becoming more scarce, where access to clean, safe water is an issue for many, where wars are being fought over arrable land, where sexually transmitted diseases ravage developing countries, where women are still suppressed through their inability to manage their reproductive rights due to lack of access to contraceptives.

By voting against Rae's motion, those Liberals have placed their own personal ideology before the rights and welfare of others while using their position to affect women and children globally. They have failed to separate church and state. They have also gone against their own party's stance on contraception.

While this motion wasn't binding, it was meant to send a strong message that Canada stands for women's reproductive rights and understands that those rights are essential to the health and welfare of women and children. Such a motion, had it passed, would have helped Canada at the G8 by showing that the country, while currently lead by a party of mysoginistic dinosaurs, is not made up of such.

As for the impact of the vote politically - the Liberals ended up looking weak (again), disorganized (again), with a leader who does not have the support of his party (again). Those few opposed could have made their personal views known, yet still have supported the motion for the positive aspects it offered. Hell, the Liberal party has compromised often enough over the past few years on Harper Bills because they didn't want to incur the wrath of voters by voting down Bills that contained some good despite crappy sections wedged in.

Passing this motion would also have shown how the opposition can work together, can agree on issues that stand to improve lives. It would have kept the focus on how dismally neanderthal the CONs are on women's and children's rights. Instead, the story is about what fuck-ups the Liberals are. Even among the left, focus is heavily on the Liberal failure and those few idiots who failed to see how beneficial passing this motion would have been.

To say, oh well, it wasn't binding anyway is no excuse. This was a chance to show some backbone, some solidarity, some strength of unity in the party, and to make a strong, public stand for women's and children's rights. It was also a good opportunity to call the CONs out on their atavistic policies in regards to women, children, and developing countries.

But the Liberals blew it.

And how many pregnancies have you had, Lawrence Cannon?

The Conservative government has offered an explanation for why it will exclude contraception from its initiative to improve the health of mothers in poor countries: Birth control doesn't fit with saving lives.

"It does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives," Mr. Cannon told the Foreign Affairs committee.

Riiiiight.

I wonder if Cannon has ever been to a puppy mill. 

Here is a 12-years-old dog in very frail condition (after she was been rescued and treated), a Athrowaway mom@ from a puppy mill. Her front feet are permanently crippled and she is unable to walk properly . Too many pregnancies and no exercise leached the calcium out of her bones.  

It stands to reason that if the mother suffers from deficiencies, her pups will not fare well resulting in health issues, and even early death in some cases.

Now consider a human female deprived of birth control.  Her body has no chance to recover from one pregnancy as she faces the possibility of getting pregnant again.  She may be breast feeding a baby while pregnant.  Give her a few years, she could end up, pregnant while breastfeeding and caring for a half dozen or so kids under the age of twelve.

Think of this woman living in poverty - belonging to the group Cannon wants to deny birth control to so that the Harper party of Canada doesn=t alienate its base - and think how her and her children=s health will be affected as she exhausts herself caring for her brood and cannot come up with enough healthy food for her kids and herself.

Look at this woman as she gets pregnant yet again, and see how she suffers a miscarriage because her body is just too unhealthy to spare anything for a foetus.  Watch as she dies far younger her sisters in Canada who have access to birth control and can work on their health between planned pregnancies, can take the time needed to raise their children, can feed them quality food so that they are not as likely to catch whatever illness is travelling the neighbourhood that week.. 

Now, Cannon, you pompous, self-righteous bastard - tell us again how birth control doesn't fit with saving lives.  Or better yet, get a woman living in extreme poverty with 8 kids and preggers with #9 to tell us.  If she has the energy.

(photo)

Does anyone not see death's shadow here?

You have blood on your hands for that, Larry.