Shout-out

for my homegirls at Birth Pangs, still not getting picked up by the Progressive Bloggers feed. Why not go give them a read.

Your Daily Birth Pangs

Go Read.

Ooops. Another technical error! That was webdings for "Go read".

Birth Pangs alert

Progressive Bloggers is constipated and Birth Pangs isn't getting picked up. So go read!

Bill C-484 Challenge

This might be my lastest ever pain-in-the-arse post on Bill C-484, the bill that's supposedly about protecting pregnant women but does nothing to protect, about stopping violence against pregnant women but does nothing to deter the violence, and has nothing to do with abortion despite having the feverish support of every anti-choicer in Canada (who refer to it as "Kicking Abortion's Ass" for some reason, but never mind that).

There's an easy way to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that this thing really is about protecting pregnant women: find a reputable, legitimate "anti-violence against women" group that endorses it.

Fern Hill lays it out in a shout-out to C-484 supporters:

"You supporters of Bill C-484, ‘An Act to Amend to Amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offense)’, insist that the bill has nothing to do with women’s rights (i.e. zip zero nada nuttin’ to do with abortion). You keep carping repeating that it is all about PROTECTING pregnant women.

OK. So. Here’s the challenge. Find one reputatable, established organization working against violence against women that publicly endorses this bill and we’ll shut up."

If C-484 is the holy grail of legal protection for pregnant women that its supporters claim it is ("Protect a woman's choice to give birth!" goes their refrain), then anti-violence groups should be falling all over each other to support it. If they're not... why not?

Is it is or is it ain't?

Has Amanda been reading Birth Pangs?

The wry sense of humour in Amanda Marcotte's recent post at RH Reality Check sounds to me almost like it could be Birth Pangs material:

"The "abortion is icky" argument is such that the anti-choice crowd could easily start agitating for a ban on menstruation without skipping a beat. The fact that menstruation is incredibly common shouldn't slow them down; after all, the anti-choice position demands that you believe that more than 1/3 of American women are murderers. Menstruation is, except maybe to a handful of insistent earth mother crunchy feminists, generally regarded as pretty icky. I throw a bloody tampon at you, you'll probably do your best to avoid it. Getting the camera out for some gruesome and shocking close-ups of the macabre used tampon just carefully thrown out in the trash or heartlessly flushed down the toilet would be simpler than getting pictures of aborted fetuses. Blow up the bloody tampon pictures, put them on some placards and you're ready to start convincing people that this is so disgusting that someone needs to ban something to make it stop."

Heh. Of course, not EVERYBODY gets it.

Russia braces for baby boom

Never mind the van! If Russia's rockin', don't bother knockin'!

In the Russian province of Ulyanovsk, this coming (ha) Wednesday is "Conception Day", a government-sanctioned day off work for the express purpose of gettin' down and doing the horizontal bop:

"A Russian province is readying for "Family Contact" day -- unofficially being called "Conception Day" -- in an effort to boost flagging birth rates, officials said on Monday.

The special day for encouraging procreation was dreamt up by the governor of Ulyanovsk province, Sergei Morozov, who this year awarded prizes ranging from a television to a Russian-made all-terrain vehicle for giving birth on Russia's Constitution Day on June 12.

President Vladimir Putin has made fixing Russia's ongoing population slump a national priority.

This Wednesday's event is timed precisely nine months ahead of next year's Constitution Day so that mothers "ideally should give birth on June 12," said a spokeswoman for the administration, speaking by telephone to AFP."

Procreate for the State! Hoho, can government-imposed pregnancy be far away? Good times, good times! And with bigbig prizes, who could resist!? At least it doesn't look like anyone who fails to conceive will be punished. (Yet!!!) Still, I think with "Conception Day" Russia has reached that reproductive heart of darkness where it might be time for their own version of "Birth Pangs", "Родовые схватки".