laws
Language and the Law
Last fall, the wives and girlfriends of the Senators* decided to raffle off a christmas tree covered in Sens shit paraphernalia and give the money to charity. 'Sall good right? Semi-fame, money, charities, what could go wrong?
One of the charities they chose was First Place Pregnancy Centre. FPPC offers counselling to young girls who are pregnant. It was known in the field as an anti-choice organization - i.e. one that offered pregnancy counselling that excluded abortion.
Planned Parenthood Ottawa thought that people buying raffle tickets should know this. If those people still wanted to buy a ticket, well, 'sall good, right? They would be making a fully informed choice. During the rounds of interviews that followed, FPPC was referred to as an anti-choice organization.
Planned Parenthood Ottawa is now being sued by FPPC for defamation. Two PPO staff members are named.
I won't say more than that. I was on the PPO board until quite recently, and I know quite well that the staff there are perfectly capable of handling this. The way they handle teaching youth about healthy sexuality; the way they handle providing pregnant women and their partners with non-judgemental information about the full spectrum of their options; the way they do all this on a shoestring budget.
But I will leave you with some links in case you would like to know more and/or offer your support to PPO (which, by the by, is also a registered charity). And, perhaps, express some righteous indignation on my behalf.
- Citizen: Charity Sues Planned Parenthood
- National Post: Ottawa Charity Sues Planned Parenthood
- Planned Parenthood Ottawa
*Called the Sens Better Halves, and don't even get me started on that. How cutesy! How grammatically incorrect! Mutual, I'm sure.
Splat
I nearly blew a gasket listening to CBC radio last night. So near was my brain to splatting out my ears in rage, in fact, that I'm not sure I'll even be able to write about this and make any sense.
Part of the problem is that it's about the Conservatives bid to raise the age of consent from 14 to 16. It's a complicated law, before and after the proposed changes. Simply, under the new law, teenagers would still be able to have sex with each other, but if someone were sixteen and were having sex with an adult (defined as someone in a position of power or more than 5 years older), that adult could be arrested.
The age of consent for anal sex would still stand at 18, no matter your sex or orientation.
On the radio last night, Poilievre* was all over how raising the age of consent to 16 was going to prevent Internet predators. He said this ad nauseum. Like if he said it just a touch more ardently each time, we would all understand just how true it was.
"Adrian!" I yelled at the radio. "Ask him exactly how the fuck is it gonna do that?"
And also: "All Canadians agree with this law." Bullshit. This proposed change has been hotly contested amongst the sexual health advocates I know. And I mean contested, heated argument from both sides. I've been back and forth on it myself, because, damn, it's hard to argue against protecting youth from sexual predation. But in the end, no, I don't agree with raising the age of consent.
That does not mean, however, Mr. Pierre "Think of the Children!" Poilievre, that I do agree with predation of youth via the Internet. I just don't think this law is going to prevent what you say it is going to prevent. So why meddle with laws around sexuality?
That the conservatives want to do this makes me viscerally uneasy.
And also: "This will engage youth in the democratic process." Wha? Offering youth money to forage for names to put on a petition and write a 500 word essay about something they may or may not believe in, but serves your purpose neatly, is going to stimulate interest in the democratic process?
It has somehow escaped him that the more democratic action might be asking students to read the law, develop a position, distill that position into 500 clear words, write a petition outlining their position, find supporters, and present it to government in order to have their voice heard and sway some parliamentary machinations.
Faugh.
Links:
MP offers prize to teens who peddle his petition
ageofconsent.ca : stop the criminalization of youth sexuality
*And a big thank you to Duff, who pointed out that Pierre Pettigrew is a former cabinet minister with nice hair and that Pierre Poilievre is the local MP eager to bribe teenagers into making his case for him.
