Wrath

It was a hot, cloudy, humid day today. The kind of day that makes me feel like the sky itself is pushing down on me and the whole world is under pressure. Days like this put me on edge and shorten my fuse, so I was hoping against hope that the idiots of the world called in sick today and that nobody "got up in my grill" as they say in the west.

Unfortunately, some idiots did get up in my grill. Approximately two thousand of them, in the form of a pro-life rally on the front lawn of Center Block, with propaganda spreading tentacles that snaked throughout the streets of downtown Ottawa.

Pro-life rally, all that I wanted to do today was go to the hill and take some pictures of the tulips so I could prove to my mother that they were, in fact, blooming. Unfortunately, this wonderful photo opportunity was obscured by a couple thousand walking examples of the reason a woman should have the right to choose, all shouting slogans and singing songs about banning abortion and other neolithic activities. Safe to say, this brought me down.

If you're a new reader to the blog, a warning: anger is coming.

Pro-life rally, you have incurred my Wrath. Yes, it is worthy of capitalization. To punish you for ruining my day, I will pour out my venegance upon you in the best method I can think of: Pithy Criticism.

Point One
The rally spread out into the streets of Ottawa, and in my particular case four blocks down Bank Street with people of all generations holding giant full-colour pictures of the most graphic images of abortion that they could locate and handing out pamphlets to any who did (or didn't) wish to take them. I'm pretty sure that the restaurants of Bank didn't do very good business today, because those four-foot-tall pictures of bloody aborted fetuses were enough to put anybody off their lunch. The irony of it all is that if images of equal graphic content were shown on prime-time television the very same God-fearing christians standing on the street would take it upon themselves to write strongly worded letters to the network for their lack of shame and morals. They might even organize a rally. Of course, when these images can be used to their benefit, they'll print them off with their own money and stand on the street personally thrusting them in the face of passers-by, adult and child alike. I could taste the hypocracy in the air, and it was bitter.

Point Two
Lets forget for a second that the tactics of the rally were hypocritical. I was put off more by how stupid they were. Bear in mind, I don't enjoy using a term such as "stupid" to discribe anything when I'm trying to level well thought-out criticism at an object of my hatred, but this time it sadly applies. The people on the street were very specifically attacking the Morgentaller decision of the Supreme Court, the decision that legalized abortion. Unfortunately, it appears that very few of the protestors have read or even understood the Morgentaller decision. The Supreme Court legalized abortion based on the fact that once something exists, you cannot make it un-exist. If abortion is outlawed, it does not stop it, it just forces it underground, and you know that it's not going to be licensed professionals performing these underground abortions. Johnny Malpractice is going to set up shop in the basement of a crackhouse and stock up on coat-hangers. If he has a 50% success rate, the other 50% can just get tossed in the river and he can keep on doing business. He will keep doing business too, because once people know that abortions exist they will try to get them, and poor teenage mothers-to-be are going to wind up getting thrown in rivers a lot more than they do now. Long story short, Morgentaller was decided on the basis of public health. Keep that in mind: on the basis of public health.

The pro-life crowd can get on their high horse, thrust bloody billboards into the face of the public, and invoke the name of God until the cows come home, and it will always, always be a stupid course of action. It's stupid because making moralistic arguments against something that was decided for pragmatic reasons is not an effective way to make a point. If I own a particular car because it's good on gas, I'm not going to trade it in because you don't like the colour. If you want me to get a new car, find me one with better mileage. If you want to end abortions, give us a better option. If you want to educate the public about contraception, I'm right behind you. If you want to provide better single mother support services, great. If you want to hurl scripture at the problem then you're accomplishing nothing. Don't get up in my business with holier-than-thou bullshit, because it's a waste of your time and mine. You're not contributing anything to the debate, you're simply whining as loud as possible. It's embarrassing your children.

Point Three
When 2000 people from (apparently) all parts of the country can afford to take a thursday off work and school to come down and make a meaningless protest on Parliament Hill, it only serves to prove that we are already overpopulated. We do not need extra babies!

Point Four
Imagine for a second that you do succeed and abortion is outlawed. As previously mentioned, this will result in a lot of unfortunate young mothers dying in botched illegal abortions. It will also result in a lot of young mothers having children that they don't want and can't take care of. It will also result in further burdening an already strained child welfare system. Of course, none of that will matter, because those poor helpless babies aren't getting killed anymore and you can sleep comfortably in your suburban home. I'm pretty sure that the pro-life supporters wouldn't work half as hard to help support single mothers as the're working to make more of them.

Point Five
Songs about abortion suck. They are really, really bad. Not much rhymes with abortion, and if you could sing or play your instrument well, your gig this month wouldn't be the pro-life rally. Do our fair city a favour and leave the guitar at home. Please. We didn't do anything to you, so don't hurt us any more.