Chinese Tragedy a Result of Devaluing Life.

If you want to know how low the human race can go, go to youtube and watch the soul-shaking video of the little Chinese toddler Wang Yue being run over and then ignored as she lie bleeding the street. If you want answers as to how human beings can become so calous, so indifferent, so oblivious to the value of human life, you will need to do more than just click on a few websites. Some observers have been positing that China's growing economy and "transition to capitalism" are to blame. They argue that people care only about products and things now, not human life.

I'm not buying it.

I believe the real reason that person after person can see a small, badly mangled, bleeding but obviously living child lying in the street and casually continue on their way as if it is nothing more than spilled produce they are seeing is the direct result of China's brutal one-child policy. For 40 years Chinese officials have gone out into the country side looking for pregnant women who already have a child and used whatever means necessary, including blunt force, to get her to abort her "illegal" child in utero. Often times, the women are then forcilbly sterilized against their will.

Further, if a Chinese woman discovers that the child she is carrying is female, that unborn child is much more likely to be killed by abortion than if she were a boy. You see, boys are culturally preferred in China, especially in rural areas. The practice of unborn girl killing has led to a huge gender imbalance in China (and other places) that only now the rest of the world is taking notice of.

So here we have a nation that has for decades condoned, even forced, the elimination of millions upon millions of (mostly) girls by the most brutal means imaginable. Then, that unbelievable surveillance video of little Wang Yue comes out and the world is in shock. Honestly, I don't think we should be that surprised. China's one-child policy has cultivated a nation with absolutely no regard for the value of human life and that, my friend, is what you are witnessing in that unforgettable 4 minute video.

Life Unworthy of Life?

Recently, a Kelowna radio show host discussed (or more accurately, strenuously advocated for) the effort on the part of the BC Liberties Association to challenge Canada’s legal restrictions on physician assisted suicide (PAS). During his show, he made a comment that was truly unsettling.

After he described those who would qualify as candidates for assisted suicide, a caller mentioned the recently deceased Reverend Albert Baldeo and his long battle with Parkinson’s. In response, the host forthrightly suggested that the beloved Reverend was exempt from being assisted to die because his life was “more special” and he had “more to offer us” than most. Wow. Where to begin?

At the heart of this position lies the notion that some lives are worth preserving while others are not. For those old enough to recall, the idea of “life unworthy of life” was a fundamental tenet of the racial policy of the German Third Reich. Of course, in that instance the events unleashed by the acceptance of the notion that some lives are worth living while others are not was rapid, pernicious, and devastating (Interestingly, among the first to go were those experiencing “incurable suffering,” such as Parkinson’s).

Today, the idea is more subtle, insidiously creeping around in our collective psyche and manifesting itself in issues such as assisted suicide, euthanasia, abortion, IVF and embryonic stem cell research. Legitimate concerns over such things as “quality of life,” suffering, medical costs, individual rights, etc lead many well-intentioned people to consider if and when some lives really are not worth living.

I’m sure the Reverend Baldeo would agree that we are all special; that we all possess equal and immeasurable worth no matter our age, physical condition, contribution to society, or any other consideration. The teachings of the Christian faith make it clear, and Reverend Baldeo was undoubtedly intimately familiar with the Christian faith.

The discussion around PAS usually centers on individual rights. Proponents argue that people have a “right to die” and in the manner they so choose. But is there really such a right? Or is death simply a reality that all of us will experience eventually? I just checked the Charter of Rights, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and the U.S. Constitution for this “right to die.” Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I didn’t see it anywhere in any of those documents.

Moreover, do we really want to be a society that condones, tolerates, and even encourages the killing of weak and defenseless human beings (Nevermind that the 3,000,000 + unborn babies killed since 1969 in Canada would say that we already are)? Is being purposely injected with a state-approved killing agent while family and friends stand by and watch dying with dignity? Or is being cared for, loved, and respected right up to the end of our natural lives the real dignified death?

No Philadelphia Freedom for These Babies

The grisly events that were uncovered with the arrest of a Philadelphia “doctor” and 9 others (including his wife) ought to serve as a stark wake up call for all of us. Dr. Kermit Gosnell was arrested and charged with 8 counts of murder for practicing his rather unique method of abortion.

Gosnell would induce labour in women who were 6-8 months pregnant, deliver their babies alive, and then proceed to sever their spinal cords by jamming a pair of surgical scissors into the back of their skulls and begin cutting away. Gosnell calmly termed his technique “snipping.”

Puts one in the mind of Joseph Mengele who also carried out horrific procedures on living human beings, all for a good cause you see. I suspect what Mengele and Gosnell hold in common is that they both rationalized that their victims – Jews for Mengele and unborn babies for Gosnell - were not really “persons” and so what they were doing was no different than operating on a tonsil or tumour. Boy are they in for a rude awakening.

For someone who works daily to educate on abortion, graphic stories of unwanted babies being brutalized to death are par for the course. Nothing new or shocking here; it happens every day.

Every day in Canada some 350 unborn babies are sliced and snipped to pieces by abortionists in our local hospitals and so-called clinics. Granted most of them are smaller and younger than the ones Gosnell is being charged with murdering, but does that really make it any less horrific? How can it be that simply because a baby is younger, or smaller, or in a different location it is acceptable chop them into little pieces and discard them like medical waste?

Some philosophers believe there is a little bit of Mengele in all of us. Don’t look now but there’s a lot of Gosnell in hospitals and clinics across Canada.

Are Churches Losing Relevancy?

A letter to the editor that appeared in our local paper asked whether or not churches are relevant in today's social/political landscape. You can read the letter here and I offer my response below:

By Marlon Bartram
I'm sure religion and church still play very important roles in lives of many people on an individual level, but as a force in society I would have to say it has indeed lost relevance. A perfect example can be found in their non-response to the issue of abortion.

There’s a story that has become known as “Sing a Little Louder” in which pro life activist Penny Lea tells of what an old man tearfully told her after a pro life presentation she gave some years ago. The man lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust and attended a small church situated near a set of railroad tracks.

After the extermination of the Jews began, the tracks behind the church were used to transport loads of moaning, screaming Jewish people to their horrific destiny. Church members, disturbed by the sounds coming from the train but unsure of how to react, learned that if they just sang a little louder the disturbing cries would be drowned out, and their consciences eased.

Today, church leaders avoid speaking about abortion so that no one sitting in the pews donating dollars is disturbed or offended. Their bands play loud praise and worship music and much singing and clapping ensues.

Meanwhile just a few blocks away, tiny unborn babies and the deceived women who carry them meet their own horrific destiny. In a few brief moments of suction-powered violence, babies are dismembered to death and women are sentenced to live forever with the fact that their own child has been lost.

Only a small handful of our 99 churches dare to get involved and speak out against the taking of innocent human life in our community. The rest turn a blind eye, refusing to acknowledge the tragedy in our midst. It seems they would rather just sing a little louder.

Harper, Oh Harper What Have You Done?

How many times can one man be let down before you call him a fool?

For years, social conservatives across Canada have supported Prime Minister Harper, all the while hoping that the other side is right and he does have a “hidden agenda” to advance pro life legislation and restrict the practice of child-killing in Canada. Well if he does have such an agenda, he is doing a great job of keeping it hidden.

The fact that our Parliament failed to enact legislation protecting vulnerable women who choose to give life to their babies is one thing, watching Stephen Harper turn his back on these women and vote against the legislation is quite another.

You know, we can accept defeats. We have become accustomed to losing political battles. We reason that it took a couple of centuries and countless lost battles before the abolitionist movement brought full legal protection to black human beings, so surely we will lose many battles before we are successful in bringing full legal protection to unborn human beings.

Losses such as the defeat of Roxanne’s Law, although very disappointing, don’t deter us. We take them in stride. We take the hit, feel the sting, and get right back up to fight another day. No matter how many times we get knocked down, we won’t turn our backs on our unborn brothers and sisters, nor the mothers duped and coerced into killing them, ever.

We should learn, however, to turn our backs on politicians who string us along. Politicians who give us just enough scraps to keep us interested, but who will never deliver on what we really want.

I have supported and defended Harper through it all - his continual insistence that he will never “reopen” (as if it is closed) the abortion debate, his weak-kneed and avoidant responses to inquiries about his position on abortion, and his ever-present eagerness to appease the centre and centre-left – but voting against such common-sense, pro-woman legislation like Roxanne’s Law? Sorry Mr. Harper, but that is something I just can’t stomach right now.

I know this government has done some good things, and I acknowledge and appreciate them. I know the alternatives are much worse. I know we vote for our M.P. and not our P.M., but this changes things. Before the vote on Roxanne’s Law, I strongly believed Stephen Harper was the best person to lead the Conservative Party and Canada.

Now, not so much.

Lessons from The Chilean Miners

There they were. Huddled away in the darkness, invisible to the rest of the world, completely dependent on another for survival. They relied on a long cord to provide them food and other necessities for life. Contrasted against the immenseness of the universe, even the Earth itself, they could be described as tiny, very tiny, even just small "masses of cells" or "clumps of tissue." Some of them could quite possibly be unwanted, unloved. All of them there by no choice of their own.

No, I don't speak of unborn babies in the womb. I speak of the 33 Chilean miners trapped deep within the darkness of the Earth for 69 days.

Of course, the entire world recognizes that those miners, despite their location, size, or complete dependency on others for survival, are people - people with immeasurable value and worth. Their dignity and value is sensed by the world. Hence the desperate attempts to save them.

Indeed, I would suggest that onlookers saw their own value mirrored in theirs. That is why the whole world celebrated as the miners emerged triumphantly one at a time from the confines of that dark space.

That is also why we (although perhaps not all) celebrate when a baby emerges from her dark world. We welcome the new life with immense joy and are made acutely aware of the dignity, value, and worth that all of us possess.

Sadly, much of the world currently fails to recognize the personhood of the child before birth. We argue that because she is so small or so dependent, she is not really a person and thus does not possess an inalienable right to life. To many, she is simply a mass of tissue with little or no worth that can be destroyed at will.

The fact is whether a trapped miner or an unborn baby waiting to make that journey through the dark, confined canal toward the light of day, we are all human persons who have been created equal and deserve to have our inherent rights to life, liberty, and security of the person recognized and protected in law.

Movie Review: Killing Girls

Killing Girls
A Harrowing Look at Abortion in Russia.

Marlon Bartram

After viewing Killing Girls, an 80 minute documentary on abortion in Russia that follows the pregnancy experiences of 3 young women, one comes away with the sense that they have just witnessed an important film indeed. Director David Kinsella and the rest of his crew display obvious talent for film-making, presenting a dark subject – abortion – in a very intense an accurate way.

A whole host of adjectives comes to mind when trying to describe the mood of the film, including haunting, unsettling, disturbing, even shocking, but I do suspect it will elicit different feelings from different viewers, quite possibly disgust and revulsion included. Killing Girls contains much disturbing imagery and nudity, likely to turn off a sizeable segment of the viewing population. The one undeniable fact, however, is that this is a quality, even unique, production that has the potential to become a sort of underground, or cult, classic.

The film is presented entirely in black and white, save for the iris of the model who garnishes the poster and the introduction to the several chapters of the film (I assume she is one of the women followed in the movie). It very effectively alternates still imagery with video, bringing the viewer right into the halls and rooms of the monstrous abortuary in St. Petersburg, Russia and into the lives of the women who find themselves there. The suffering of the masses of women undergoing abortion – most of them late-term – are made excruciatingly real for the viewer with the assistance of timely, but not overly exaggerative, visual effects and music. To top it off, script writer Anna Sirota's narration throughout the film is nothing short of perfect.

The film purports to be neither “pro life” nor “pro choice,” and I would interpret this intention as largely achieved. However, considerable more time is allotted espousing the virtues of “safe sex” education as the cure for the abortion problem in Russia as opposed to promoting abstinence or chaste as a solution. Also, while the film shows many vivid images (one could argue too many) of women suffering through the abortion procedure, it fails to show a single clear shot of one of the many babies who have just been aborted. Claims of “balance” could have been much more easily justified had the smaller victims of abortion – the dead babies – been more thoroughly represented through images. Nonetheless, two or three brief and vague images of nurses holding aborted fetuses/babies (both terms are used) and disposing of them into medical bags are shown. In addition, the unborn are referred to as “live persons” on at least one occasion, and an abortionist does admit that what she is doing is in fact “legalized murder.”

A collegue asked me if Killing Girls is a “pro life” film. I responded yes, and no. While the movie does indeed convey the reality that abortion is a traumatic experience for women (and even abortionists) and a deadly one for their unborn children, it implies at the same time that it is a “necessary evil” in Russia – at least for now – and that things there would be much worse were it criminalized. It also advances the notion that abortion is saving children from lives of misery and women from lives of poverty.

Abortion has been legal and used as birth control in Russia for so long, it has become firmly entrenched in cultural norms, social mores, and in the everyday lives of its citizens. According to the film makers, 80% of Russian women have abortions, each having on average 2 to 10 during their lives. Some research shows that some Russian women have as many as 20 – 30 abortions in their lifetimes. A poor economy is one factor that keeps the abortion mills churning out dead children, a fact highlighted in the film.

So if you want to see the personal and social impact of abortion in one of the most heavily aborted nations in the world, you can either go there to try and meet the women and make your way into one of the asylum-like buildings they call “clinics,” or you can stay here and watch Killing Girls. It’s that well-done.

Is the BCTF Aborting Itself?

We have all heard of schools closing around BC (176 in the past 9 years according to the BC Teachers’ Federation) and school districts having to slash jobs and services in order to meet their budgets. Most recently, our own SD 23 announced that as many as 45 jobs will need to be trimmed in order to balance the books. The blame has been pinned on various things including insufficient budgets, rising costs, and even the 2010 Olympic Games. But few dare speak of the even more fundamental, politically incorrect dynamic at work here: BC’s dramatically low birth rate.

As is the case in most of the Western world, BC’s birth rate has been declining steadily over the past several decades. Today, the birth rate in the province is a dangerously low 1.4 births per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. At the same time, about 15,000 future students are aborted each year in BC abortion “clinics.”

According to Reg Rawa at the Ministry of Education, there are 541,000 students in BC this year, down from 597,000 in 1999. Rawa also confirmed that budgets are based on the number of students in the district, and that the amount provided per student has risen quite dramatically over the past 10 years (nearly $1 billion in total).

So simply put, the more students in a particular district, the greater the budget for that district; conversely, the fewer students, the smaller the budget. Thus, it can be logically concluded that a low birth rate (along with a high abortion rate) has a direct and devastating impact on education budgets across BC. It is a mystery, then, that the BCTF would advocate for causes, in particular abortion, that drive birth rates down.

The BCTF website reads like an advocacy portal for all things left-wing, including abortion and other radical feminist causes that always seem to discourage children and parenting. One wonders if they have any clue that they are encouraging the killing of their future students and, by extension, their own livelihood.

A teacher’s union advocating for abortion is like a forestry union promoting zero replanting, or a daycare centre promoting childless marriages. The difference is that the latter have the sense to know they would be killing their own future in the process.

FAS and Abortion: Hello!

While in the Government Liquor Store at Mission Park, Kelowna I came across the publication entitled Pregnant? Did you know that alcohol can hurt your baby? With interest, I helped myself to a copy. I took note that the pamphlet is endorsed by “[t]he doctors, nurses, and midwives of BC”; more specifically, the BC Women’s Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children. After reading through the information, I am compelled to express my thoughts to all of these individuals and groups.

I have a heavy heart for those living with FAS, largely because the condition is so easily preventable. We know its exact cause and how to prevent it. It is a debilitating yet completely avoidable condition that so many are so needlessly afflicted with their entire lives.

Your publication demonstrates that you have an understanding and empathy for those at risk of FAS. Further, you are willing to take action and invest tax-payer money to produce and distribute educational materials, conduct research, set up hotlines, and create bureaucratic agencies to confront the problem. This initiative is consistent with the core purpose of government: to protect the rights and physical well-being of all citizens, particularly the most vulnerable and defenseless among us.

Back to the brochure; in just the first 100 words of your publication, you very correctly refer to the child in the womb as a “baby” or “child” no less than 7 times, including in the title and sub-section headlines. Further, on both the front and back panels you display drawings of a pregnant woman clearly depicting the child in her womb as a baby. On the first drawing, the child is speaking, refusing an alcoholic beverage on behalf of his/her mother, and on the second the child is consuming the same foods as his/her mother.

It is abundantly clear that the makers and supporters of this publication possess an a priori understanding that the unborn baby is indeed a small person vulnerable to the effects of the alcohol, food, tobacco, and drugs his/her mother ingests. Which leads me to ask the “elephant in the room” question: if you recognize that the health of an unborn baby is at risk when a pregnant woman chooses alcohol, why do you fail to see that the very life of an unborn baby is at risk when a pregnant woman chooses abortion?

According to your 1998 publication , Community Action Guide: Working together for the prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome there is no “safe” time to drink during pregnancy, but the unborn baby does appear to be most susceptible to alcohol and other teratogens between 7 and 12 weeks gestation. Interestingly, this is the same time period during which 90% of all abortions take place (Stats Canada, 2003).

Why does our government invest valuable resources to persuade women not to drink during pregnancy because it “hurt[s] the unborn baby” (your words in the pamphlet), but at the same time funds women to hire abortionists who use sharp instruments and powerful suction machines to slice that exact same unborn baby into little pieces? Why does the government claim that “women have the right to do want they want with their bodies without government interference” when it comes to the killing of unborn babies, but then takes quite a different position when it comes to harming them with alcohol?

I can only speculate as to the answer to these questions, and I have deduced that there are 4 possibilities: First, you have bought the dehumanizing rhetoric of the pro-abortion movement and are in denial of the truth that abortion kills a baby. This has resulted in the paradoxical situation wherein when speaking of FAS you have full awareness that the unborn baby being subjected to alcohol is a person at risk, while when speaking of abortion you believe that same baby is only a simple mass of tissue that is a part of the woman’s body and can therefore be amorally extracted and disposed of for any or no reason at all.

Second, you look at the two circumstances strictly from a cost analysis point of view. FAS children are expensive. They are a drain on an already strained health budget and therefore it is worth investing in the prevention of the condition. At the same time, “unwanted” children born to single mothers are expensive as well. They too are a drain on the system and therefore it is worth investing in their elimination. It is a wonder why you don't pursue killing two birds with one stone and develop a prenatal test for FAS with the intent of encouraging abortion whenever it is detected.

Third, you think and act according to the political currents of the day, with little regard for logic or morality. You are aware that actively opposing the infliction of alcohol onto unborn babies is not going to elicit public backlash or controversy nor hurt your chances of winning the next election. On the other hand, you believe that opposing the infliction of death onto unborn babies will do those things, so you refuse to act.

Fourth, all of the above scenarios are true to some extent. They all play out to some degree as you rightfully stand up for the unborn in the case of FAS and woefully turn your backs on them in the case of abortion.

I will end by pleading you to consider this: If you know that alcohol consumption during pregnancy hurts unborn babies, surely you must know that obtaining an abortion during pregnancy kills unborn babies. Please, set aside the language and the deception of the pro-abortion mentality for a few moments, face the truth of abortion, and take action to protect fully the most vulnerable and defenseless among us: the unborn baby in the womb.