Courageous Mothers Thanked

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May 21, London Free Press letter to the editor.

"UWO decision backed

I may not be chairperson of the board of governors but I am a woman, which in itself offers some credibility in this ongoing debate about the University of Western Ontario’s decision to award an honorary degree to Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

I am also an alumna, as are my three daughters, and I still have strong and rewarding links to the university. I’m proud that Western continues to honour such noteworthy humanitarians as Morgentaler. This man has done so much in the past to help women assert their basic right to human dignity and control over their own decision-making, as well as their own bodies."

Helen MacKenzie of London, Ontario
 
An email letter yesterday from Barbara McAdorey, the administrator of Canadian Physicians for Life said that the president of CP4L, Dr. William Johnston has written an article about the nomination of Dr. Henry Morgentaler for an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and they have had no success in finding a newspaper willing to publish it.
She said, “We need to all do whatever we can to try to have our voices heard and to let Canadians know the truth about abortion.” The good news is she is encouraging doctors who support life to contact the London Free Press and reply to the Dr. Mary McKim’s letter “Level headed views on abortion issue” of May 16. (posted above) Please pray the voice of this community will be heard. They see the results of the harm abortion does to women in their practices and they can speak with the voice of experience and authority.
I recommend their website is an excellent resource.

www.physiciansforlife.ca

She also urged doctors to sign the protest petition online

www.uwoprotest.com

and to send a copy of their letters to the editor to: mediarelations@uwoprotest.com
 
London Free Press, Tuesday, May24. Letters to the Editor

When does the soul enter the body?

**As a teacher of reincarnation, I support Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s upcoming honour. **

**Reincarnation research shows that a soul does not enter a fetus until shortly before birth, or at the moment of birth. Until that meeting occurs, a fetus is not a person. It is a potential cocoon for the soul. **

**The late Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one of Time magazines 100 best thinkers of the last century, once said, “Would a soul, which is of God, even think of entering a fetus that it knew would be swept away?” **

Morgentaler has had the wisdom to think beyond the confines of western science and religion in order to help women in distress. His humanity must be honoured. Helping our fellow humans is the main purpose of living. When we help each other, we serve God.

Pamela Evans

London
 
This is the LFP idea of balanced coverage? The second letter for May 24 is neutral at best and at worse is certainly not the defense of innocent human life.

"Focus should be on the convocation

**I have read with interest the conflicting opinions regarding the honorary degree being bestowed on Dr. Henry Morgentaler at Western’s upcoming convocation. I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone’s point of view, but it seems that the whole intent of this day is being lost. **

**We have participated in such events with our children, one graduating from Western in 2003. At that time, each student was also granted two tickets to the convocation, and while our daughter was disappointed that her brother could not watch her receive her diploma, we understood the necessity due to space constraints. Our family celebrated afterwards. **

**Those who decide to protest Morgentaler’s award on this very special day for students and families need to think twice about the consequences. **

**Instead of focusing on the success of the graduating class, many of whom may have overcome great obstacles to get there, the attention will undoubtedly be on the protest, no matter how peaceful. **

**We are all entitled to our personal opinion on issues such as abortion, but these students are entitled to their day in the spotlight. **

Please don’t spoil it for them."

Judie Havers

London
 
The Free Press put this on the Opinion Page from Gayle Kirshenbaum of Brooklyn, NY. distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group. This is another mindless musing in the gender of A.K. Riley and Rev. Leaf Seligman which have been posted already here and in the Rally against abortionist thread.

"During the first ultrasound of my first pregnancy, as the lubricated scope glided across my abdomen in search of its target, my husband and I scanned the mottled darkness and waited. Somewhere in this moonscape, said the technician was a baby.

Some appeared. A discernible spine. Suggestive of the human but, with its oversize head and flipperlike appendages, closer to the amphibious. Then again, it looked like nothing at all but itself.

Visit the household of any expectant parent, and you are likely to see a printout of a sonogram on the fridge. You may even be offered the chance to watch a live action video of a three-dimensional fetus, the newest ultrasound option. I expected to feel as excited about my first ultrasound as my friends had been about theirs. We were given our own picture of the squidlike creature we’d seen, magnified to fill the screen but in reality no bigger than a thumb. I stared at it and waited for a surge of maternal affection. What I felt was embarrassment at seeing what I might never have been meant to see – at having caught this entity in the act of becoming…"
 
Gayle Kirshenbaum continues…

"With the new clarity of fetal images, we are now tugged beyond the borders that marked the emotional terrain of pregnant women of another time. In the past few years, there’s been a boom in commercial ultrasound centres with names like A Peek in the Pod, which send images home via CD-ROM or DVD. In addition, increasing numbers of “Crisis pregnancy centres,” run by abortion opponents, are now offering songograms in hopes of dissuading women who arrive seeking to end unplanned pregnancies.

When we brought our ultrasound picture home, we put it in a filing cabinet. I wondered if I would ever develop the maternal sensibility that seemed expected of me. When I’d gone to the doctor to confirm my three week old pregnancy, a nurse handed my a copy of Parenting magazine. I left the office with my head spinning but with the rest of my body humming its own tune of indifference; I knew it had not yet decided whether it was willing to follow the arduous protocols of pregnancy. Our culture’s romance with motherhood can mean lack of interest in women’s individual experience…"
 
Gayle Kirshenbaum continues…

"We annoint a barely pregnant woman a mother, yet remain silent about the frequency of miscarriage-- a silence that often received as a message of failure. Numerous friends discovered how common miscarriage is only after they’d had one – a loss informed by their sonograms, framed with names, dates and measurements, identified as boys and girls, all creating the Illusion of arrival.

While this astonishing technology provides invaluable medical information, reassurance and joy to many pregnant women, it has the capacity to alter our experience of ourselves. When our sonograms are called "Baby’s first picture, " the turbulent dream that is pregnancy begins to fade. We strive to feel as clear as the high-resolution image on the screen. When my pre-natal yoga teacher asked the women in the class to “send messages of love to your babies, " I dutifully conjured my latest sonogram image. But the message immediately bounced back: there is no one here by that name. Only the other words – zygote, blastocyst, fetus – approximated my deepest sense of the **precarious **and still-mysterious reality of gestation.”
 
Gayle Kirshenbaum continues with her article
"Fetal Imaging con be downright weird."
"And then there was the deeper secret, harboured there on my blue mat: I was in a state of ambivalence about my impending motherhood. When I’d first heard what turned out to be my son’s heartbeat on the monitor, I wasn’t convinced of the inevitability of his birth; what I heard was a new, anonymous heart testing itself – and me – demanding to know whether I had the will and the means to sustain it through a life-time.

Throughout my pregnancy, I felt that the growing entity in my body and I were travelling on our own trajectories, tracing two separate lines through space that would gradually converge and, I hoped, one day meet.

Now, as the mother of a young son, I recognize my reluctance to leave the prenatal fugue state for what it was: a premonitory sense that pregnancy is the beginning of a slow walk from one self to another. Three years into parenthood, while I’m now comfortable with having my son’s picture taken, as a mother I’m still not camera - ready."
 
Yesterday there was no posting here as there was not a single letter or article in the LFP about the contested award to Canada’s most infamous abortionist. Finally, today, after a long dry spell, VOXPOP which is a forum for readers to comment on topical issues featured an opposing viewpoint. This one “Morgentaler degree highlights decline in standards” was submitted by James B. Phipps, emeritus professor in biology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. May 26, Thursday.

"After a 40 year academic career at my university, and continued involvement as a still active researcher, I have to record my dismay at the University of Western Ontario’s proposed granting of an honorary degree to Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

I see this in the context of a general degrading of honorary degrees.

In the 19th.century and for much of the 20th., when universities were much smaller, two main classes of people were recognized: genuine scholars who had achieved acclaim in their field of research, and distinguished creators. For instance, Johannes Brahms, a musician of little formal education, was awarded an honorary philosophy degree by the University of Breslau.

Although such persons are still recognized, the net has become much more widely cast to include film stars, writers, sports celebrities, astronauts, leaders of the business world and others."
 
Professor James Phipps continues…

"It seems at times as if self-advertisement and self-promotion have become important components. Many in the above categories are, of course, worthy persons, and some of them do deserve scholarly acclaim.

But another strand creeps in, which I might call the “liberal thesis.” This is to award degress to individuals who are deemed to have significantly promoted social progress.

The honorary degrees awarded to Nelson Mandela are a case in point. It is around here that the university begins to lose sight of its academic mission and persons such as Mandela become the thin edge of the wedge of the promotion of political ideals.

Personally, I regard Mandela as a great and admirable man (though following all his political views as if they are gospel is not so wise).

continues on next post
 
"However, it is emphatically not the role of the university to promote political and social philosophies, but to critique and analyse them. It is this political, rather than academic thinking that has led to the controversial choice of Morgentaler.

If an award to Mandela, an almost universally respected person, was unwise, that to Morgentaler, roundly disliked, even detested by some for both his views and his life’s activity, was stupid and improper. Indeed it may be perceived as an act of arrogance and hubris.

In this context, I would like to comment on the UWO faculty association president’s recent call for the resignation of the UWO board of governors chairperson on the grounds that his remarks opposing the Morgentaler degree represented an intrusion of academic freedom."

continued on following post
 
"This is the kettle calling the pot black Clearly, the UWO senate’s recommendation for this honorary degree itself usurped a circumscribed function and is, in any case, without academic merit.

I recognize that this situation has gradually evolved by a process of "mission creep."

Nevertheless, this politicizatiion of the honorary degree process – its results in some cases so offensive to many – is a natural result of the move away from purely academic criteria in awarding these degress and has created a situation from which my own alma mater cannot easily extricate itself with grace and which shoucl never be attempted again." by JAMES B. PHIPPS
 
Friday, May 27, London Free Press, Letters to the Editor

UWO Morgentaler decision lauded

I write to commend UWO president Paul Davenport and the honorary degrees committee for their choice of Dr. Henry Morgentaler as the recipient of an honorary degree in this year’s convocation ceremony at the UWO.

As a tenured faculty member, I fully support their decision, and hope to attend the ceremony at which the degree will be conferred.

Morgentaler has been at the centre of the struggle for reproductive freedom for Canadian women for many years.

Whatever individuals’ private and deeply held views may be on the matter of abortion, which can never be a decision taken lightly, one cannot deny that Morgentaler has saved the livesof many women who have had access to safe and legal means of terminating pregnancies they might otherwise have sought to end on kitchen tables.

Moreover, he has helped to ensure that the children women choose to have are wanted.

As a saviour of lives and one who has improved the socially conscious practice of medicine in Canada, Morgentaler is entirely deserving of this honorary degree.

The university, the committee and Davenport personally are to be commended for having had the strength of purpose to maintain t he offer in the face of public criticism.

Let us remember that the vocal opposition to reproductive freedom is actually in the minority in this country. Let us hope that the convocation ceremony will not be unduly compromised by their behaviour.
by Sandra Mangsen, Associate professor, Department of music performance studies, Don Wright Faculty of Music.
 
Featured in the same window with Sandra Mangsen’s letter is this one by Sandy Tauschek of Strathroy.

Couldn’t Western find a real hero?

The UWO’s decision to honour Dr. Morgentaler at this year’s convocation ceremony is not only an affront to students, faculty and alumni alike, it is an affront to all of humanity.

Has our society declined so much that the only “hero” we can find to honour is one who has made his careeer out of aborting unborn children for money? Surely, in this day and age, we can offer women in an unplanned pregnancy situation a better solution than the death of their children.

Morgentaler has done nothing to advance the status of humanity in this world. He has been hailed by many as a champion of women’s rights, but I must protest. Morgentaler has been quick to judge the value of a person’s life based on whether they are wanted.

Women are neither wanted nor respected in many parts of the world; should their lives all be terminated? How many female babies are aborted every year because they are not valued in their societies? I am utterly appalled that UWO would support such a low view of human life.

The only question now is what to do with my purple leather jacket. As an alumni, I once sported it proudly. Never again. Neither will I be giving a red cent in alumni financial support.
 
Academic Freedom key to UWO Debate by Jim Turk executive director of the Ottawa-based Canadian Association of University Teachers. London Free Press, opinion page, May 27.

"Universities are supposed to be centres of controversy. Their purpose is to examine, challenge, test, criticize, evaluate and analyse all kinds of ideas, theories, perspectives, conclusions, previous research, conventional wisdom, and taken-for-granted knowledge.

In doing that job, universities have frequently run afoul of those who can feel threatened by this critical scrutiny, including, at various times, religious aurthorities, governments, corporations, benefactors, trustees, political parties and special interest groups.

The UWO is in the midst of such a controversy. It threatens to test the limits of Western’t commitment ot the principles that lie at the very core of the university – academic freedom and autonomy.

How Western responds to this controversy will have important repercussions for all universities in Canada.

Earlier this year, Western’t honorary degrees committee, established by the university senate, reached a decision to award an honorary degree to Dr. Morgentaler, an outspoken defender of abortion rights."…
 
Jim Turk continues…

The committee’s decision, based on academic judgments, was made after careful consideration and followed the normal process. Morgentaler is one of 10 people to be so honoured at the spring convocation.

Very quickly, the decision to recognize Morg. came under fire by various interests.

Some religious groups have condemned the decision.

Donald McDougall, chair of the university’s board of governors, suggested in an open letter that the committee’s recommendation be overturned. Some members of the board worried the recognition of Morg. would hurt fundraising efforts.

There are people who find Morg.'s views on abortion controversial and even distasteful because they may challenge strongly held beliefs.

The worst outcome of this case would be to prevent Morg. from receiving his honorary degree. This would send a chill through the academic community, calling into question the right to hear and debate opinions about religion, culture and social issues that are relevant to central debates of today. It would also send a signal that academic freedom and collegial governances are not respected at Western…
 
The Free Press hasn’t printed one of my letters yet but l plan to be a thorn in their side regardless. Here is my latest missive in response to the music professor at UWO.
**"So Sandra Mangsen in her letter May 27 thinks the decision to abort a baby can never be taken lightly. What is the difference between that line of reasoning and the abusive husband who justifies the murder of his wife on the basis he did not make the decision lightly? Has he not just confessed to an act of premeditated murder?

If the life form existing within a pregnant woman is not a human being with the natural right to live of any person than why all the soul searching? It should be no different than yanking a tooth. The very fact abortion supporters still feel the need to excuse their actions speaks to the existence of a conscience they still cannot shake loose."**
 
Now to continue with Jim Turk who keeps making the same point about academic freedom over and over.

Academic freedom key to UWO debate

**"Academic freedom **lies at the very heart of the modern university. It is the right ot teach, learn, study, discuss and publish free fo orthodoxy or institutional censorship, reprisal and discrimination.

Academic freedom was born out of a long and difficult struggle to secure the integrity of the university from inappropriate influence that attempted to restrict academic decision-making if it challenged accepted doctrine or offended powerful interests.

Academic freedom and autonomy are related. The authority of professors to control their curriculum and their research and to make educational decisions withen the university, is the heart of academic freedom.

And that is precisely what is at issue at UWO – the right of the honorary degrees committee to make an academic decision and to have that decision respected"…
 
Jim Turk continues…

Western president Paul Davenport and his administrative colleagues have made it clear the decision of the honorary degrees committee must be respected.

For this clear and unequivocal stance in defence of academic freedom and collegial decision making, Davenport must be commended and supported.

We will pay a terrible price if we allow our universities to slip back to the days when powerful vested interests controlled the academy.

The debate about Morgentaler receiving an honorary degree is not a debate about the merits of abortion, it is about academic freedom and the integrity of our universities."

And so ends the blustering of this academic who kept his focus on his own navel rather than dare to scrutinze abortion as a “human right”. I would welcome the evaluation and analysis Turk defends as an academic freedom but there has been almost no debate about abortion after two months of controversy. This thread evidences how unbalanced the selection has been.
 
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