Full transcript of Elizabeth May's remarks on abortion

[sandpiper]

You know, I would love to be your token Greeny, but I'm so disappointed in Elizabeth May and the dark green party, that I don't qualify anymore. It was nice to have two parties to choose from, even if it was just during the 90's.

I knew May was religious, I knew she doesn't know how to relate to people very well, I knew she has a habit of saying all the wrong things... but I still wanted her to do well, and I was excited to have a woman lead a national party, or a party that is likely to be national in a couple elections.

 :cry:

[skdadl]

's'okay, sandpiper.  

A lot of people here know how you feel. A lot of us have been kneedeeps for years, and you know how we get our hearts broken regularly by the backroom boys of our party.

[anne cameron]

You've got lots of company, sandpiper.

Disillusionment hurts, though.

[GDKitty]

Wow...May has dug quite the hole for herself. I had aucune idee Honestly, I didn't really know much about her (aside from Sierra club stuff) before, so I was mildly chuffed to see her beat Haskett in my old riding--but this does not augur well for the greenies!  "Frivolous"?!?  :evil: and this monstrosity...

To encourage women to have children when they want them, and not to be deterred by considerations of poverty

 : Yeah, we wouldn't want a frivolous thing like poverty to get in the way.

I did my grad research at St. Joe's hospital in London. The picket-teers were out in force ~5 times/yr, replete with gruesome placards of non-descript blood'n'guts. And the requisite call to fire Dr. Whosits for being an OBGyn. Can't says'I missya crazy characters.

[kuri]

Y'see this is what I meant by making women either tragic or "bad". I chose abortion when I wasn't in extreme poverty. When although it would have been an huge struggle, it wouldn't have been impossible for me to raise a child (although having a child at that time would've severely limited my opportunities, thus severely limiting the opportunities of the child as well). However, I knew very, very strongly that I did not want to raise a child, that I was not ready, and that I absolutely could not accept such a thing happening to my body.

I think, from May's remarks that she would classify this choice as "frivolous". Now, if she were just a private person, I'd either ignore her - or, if she insisted on getting in my face about it tell her to fuck off - but she isn't just a private person. She's choosen public life and with that comes certain responsibilities. The Green's August resolution essentially expressing the same thing also carries certain responsibilities. Whether they realize it or not, by opening up a "friendly debate" on my personal liberty to my body, they are doing something that as a feminist and as a woman I find deeply, personally threatening. So I want honesty, I want Ms. May to state exactly what she thinks to should happen to "frivolous" women like myself. No more side-stepping.

(Actually, I'm thinking - if I can get ahold of them - of blogging a comparison of all parties positions on choice. Ideally, all I want to see from any of them is a single sentence affirmation of the bodily liberty of women. Another sentence on increasing access and fining provinces who fail to provide access for bonus point.)

[anne cameron]

If Liz May wants a "friendly" debate she should find some other topic around which to have it.

I've never had an abortion and I never will.  I don't remember the aunt who died because of a botched one and so have no private sorrow or ... anything at all, really... about the operation which cost her life.  But I'm a mom, and I'm a grandma, and if Liz May or any other sad bitch or bastard thinks they are going to dismiss any of mine as frivolous or in any other way interfere with their choice, the shite is going to hit the ventilation system big time.

If Liz May or anybody else wants to choose not to have an abortion, FINE'EN.  Don't have the bugger.

If any woman decides she is going to choose to have one, the whole mad pack can go to the beach with a tablespoon and a balpeen hammer and use the spoon to lift the sand and the ball peen hammer to pound that sand up their ass because it is none of their business.

Easypeasy.

And there isn't going to be any polite debate, twit.  Nor will we have a polite debate on reinstating slavery, or on votes for women, or on the validity or otherwise of the Magna freakin Carta.

I've had it with polite on this matter.

Fuck off, Liz.  If you'd let this be known all along you wouldn't be leading the Green party.  This is the same damned mentality thinks women have to ask their husbands permission before they get a job.

Jesus, it's got all the ramifications of getting a tooth pulled.  Or are we to have to beg for that right, too?

[GDKitty]

Liz May: meet Bill Napoli.  He's a South Dakota republican who campaigned to ban all abortions in his State (thankfully he failed to do that, this election-cycle). Here's ol' Bill enumerating his gruesome criteria for 'legitimate' abortions:

A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

:explode: (Video available at Crooks & Liars):explode:

Has anyone read Katha Pollitt's Virginity or Death?  I was thinking of asking Santa (or my sister) to bring it for me.

[skdadl]

My, my. What an ... imagination ... that man has.

That is quite frightening and also pretty sickening to read. You can hear the guy warming up to his own seamy steamy visions as he elaborates further and further. It makes me nervous to be on the same planet, frankly.

[fern hill]

There are more not so pro-May comments on David Akin's blog. http://politicsblog.ctv.ca/blog/_archiv ... 66201.html

[skdadl]

I just delurked and posted a link at babble, since I joined a discussion on Bound by Gravity and wrote my li'l heart out there this morning.

But that's not going to go anywhere. It turns out that Andrew at BBG is fixed on the question of "when life begins," so skdadl is out of that one.

[lagatta]

Oh dear, the last time I did that (in response to a historically untrue accusation against "second-wave feminists" (all corporate fembots - the last thing we were back then) I got inundated with pleas to return to babble... I answered some, from old friends, but there would be no point in returning, as babble simply isn't what it used to be.

I'm lurking here - I doubt most people in Québec even know who Elizabeth May is, but there are people who vote Green simply because of their name, so it will be important to be able to provide short, cogent explanations that it is not a progressive party or the most advanced in terms of environmental policy.

[fern hill]

Brilliant post on BBG, skdadl. How can they not geddit? It's sad, yeah, and it also makes me want to quit arguing.

[skdadl]

I dunno. Maybe some people still need to have the "when does life begin?" discussion, but I rilly rilly don't.

I simply do not believe that Canadian MDs are aborting viable children. I don't. I think that whole discussion is something like getting involved in day-time TV. Melodrama really makes me feel icky -- people who get into it heavily seem to want agony.

As important as the defence of women's autonomy is, it also bothers me that so many people seem to have no notion that there are very basic democratic principles being endangered here. Separation of church and state? Defence of individual liberty? Hello out there?

[kuri]

Sometimes I think those people who like those "where does life begin" conversations in abstract just cannot personalize that. Some of them want melodrama, but I think for others it's seriously not dramatic at all. They simply do not understand why these fascinating discussions are threatening. I similarly was having a conversation with Olaf of the Prairie Wrangler (on his post about the CUSA motion - doing my best ignore she of the capital letters commenting on the same post) and he seemed somewhat humbled by the end of it. I don't presume to think I changed his mind, but I think he might have realized why this is so personal for us.

[anne cameron]

I tried to find even a hint of meeting ground somewhere with she of the capitol letters but finally gave up because I couldn't figure out what she was really trying to say.  To demand "equal rights" for a few dividing cells just seems to me, somehow , absurd.  Obviously, it can't even apply for a credit card, how can it be "equal".

As to when life begins...spare me until such time they're putting as much energy and froth into trying to protect the ones already here because too many of them are finding out the hard way when life ends!

I think, after spending a couple of days trying to understand the point of view of a few of "them", that much of the diatribe comes from a need to have a diatribe.  Makes the adrenilin pump, perhaps.

Anyway, I'm glad I'm not pre-school and stuck in a house with she whose name is in capitols because I"m afraid she is also she who must be obeyed.