I couldn’t not post this one when I found it. This was my JAM.
Archive for March 3, 2008
And now for a flash back video
Why aren’t there love songs like this anymore? Shit is cheesy as hell but you still end up thinking “I wish a dude would say that to me.” *sniffle*
And can I say I didn’t even know they had a video for this?
Summer time and the livin’s easy
Ok…it’s not summer. Far from it in fact. But today was unusually warm for the beginning of March.
Last month was one of the coldest February’s on record. It’d snow for days and be mild. Then it’d warm a bit and melt, and then, over night, the temp would drop and it’d snow again, this time with icy, bitter winds that made the snow feel like tiny razors shredding you millimeter by millimeter. And just under that hard snow would be a thick layer of ice from the previous day’s thaw. This was pretty much the way all of February went. Week after week.
So imagine my surprise when I stepped outside to take my daughter to school and it was warm. Not just warm, but really warm. Warm enough to melt the nearly three feet of snow piled up on my lawn turning it into something resembling a marsh. Because we live in a pretty hilly area, all this melting snow made long rivers flowing from one end of our complex to the other. For all the dirt and grime associated with city life, it was actually kind of pretty.
The breeze was the best part of all of it. It was a warm, silken breeze. The kind that just nudged against you and made you want to just walk and walk and walk…It was the kind of breeze that heralded the coming of Spring (PLEASE GOD LET IT BE HERALDING THE COMING OF SPRING!), tinted with the slightly damp, musty smell that comes after the earth has thawed and softened and is getting ready to release its new life. I walked slowly on my way back home, not really wanting to go into the house and leave the beautiful day behind closed doors.
The oddest part of today wasn’t the fact that it topped out at 52ºF, but the fact that, on our way to school, my daughter and I saw a fat opossum waddle across someone’s lawn. Possums are pretty common around here (like raccoons and skunks and squirrels), however seeing one in the middle of the day isn’t. Possums, for those that don’t know, are nocturnal. Initially I mistook it for a stray cat, not really wanting to believe that there was a possum out in the open at noon. But there it was, plain as day, ambling across a lawn and under someone’s car where it watched us pass cautiously.
I have to admit, I have never seen a living possum. Around here they end up as roadkill pretty often, especially when the weather warms and mating season starts. But that possum was sort of cute. In a weird, rat-like, disease carrying scavenger sort of way. They’re somewhat attractive little beasties when they aren’t smushed and lying prone near a curb.
Just when I think I’ve seen it all…
Someone comes along and proves me dead wrong.
(I have no idea how to categorise this beyond “WTF”…if you have a better idea, let me know because I’m just sort of…yeah…I’m at a loss right now)
Single, sexually active women in Canada screwed (in more ways than one)
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2008/02/06/abnormal-paps-pap-smears-doctors-refusing-canada
While attending a recent event honoring the twentieth anniversary of the all-important Morgentaler decision here in Canada, I came upon some disturbing news: doctors in Canada are denying pap smears to women citing religious objections. You read it right: doctors are using their personal morality to further restrict a women’s right to equal health care. I came across this fact in an essay written by Peggy Cooke, the recent winner of Canadians for Choice’s essay submission contest that answered the question “Why is a pro-choice Canada so important?”
In her essay detailing her experience as an abortion clinic patient escort, she writes, “I have two close friends whose doctors will not even give them pap tests because it goes against the doctor’s religious beliefs.” Peggy lives in New Brunswick, one of the most repressive provinces in terms of reproductive policy. The provincial government continues to violate the Canada Health Act, by requiring women to seek approval from a doctor and a gynecologist in order to access publicly funded abortions. Abortions done at the private Morgentaler clinic are not funded.
I contacted Peggy to learn more about what was going on with the doctors refusing to perform pap smears and she responded by saying that in one case it is actually the doctor’s receptionist who won’t allow her young unmarried friend to make an appointment for a pap smear saying that she is too young and doesn’t need one (she was 19 at the time of the incident). The second instance deals with a couple who are doctors, who run a practice together. Known for their religious and anti-choice beliefs, these doctors will not prescribe contraception. The doctor who refused to perform the pap smear works in the same practice.
So when did a test that is used to screen for disease and cancer suddenly become a procedure which doctors can “object” to do? Am I naïve in thinking that pap smears are a medically necessary part of a women’s yearly physical? I wonder if the same doctors refuse men prostate exams on religious grounds, or does morality only apply to women?
To look for answers, I turned to Patricia LaRue, Executive Director at Canadians for Choice, to see what she could tell me if doctors have the right to refuse ANY procedure that they see as going against their religion. She reminded me that doctors have a “conscience clause,” allowing them to refuse prescriptions for birth control, abortion, and now pap smears. The conscience clause is put in place by the Canadian Medical Association so that physicians are not forced to act in any way that goes against their personal beliefs.
However, doctors are also bound by a Code of Ethics to “inform your patient when your personal values would influence the recommendation or practice of any medical procedure that the patient needs or wants.” In New Brunswick, the doctor shortage means that young unmarried women simply cannot find a doctor who would give them the services that they request, because there are no other doctors to choose from.
Legally, doctors who use the conscience clause are required to give a referral to a doctor that will perform the procedure that they themselves refuse to do. In real life, however, this seldom transpires. Many doctors feel a “conscientious objection” not only to the procedure but to the referral, and do not refer, claiming they can not in good conscience refer a patient for a procedure that they object to. Many women never report these doctors because they are already in a vulnerable position and fear the stigma attached to reporting doctors for refusing sexual and reproductive health procedures.
So it seems that religious objections and morality policing have moved beyond the realm of abortion and contraception, and have moved into regulating the kind of tests that women can access that may in fact save her from cancer. In Canada we pride ourselves on “universal healthcare,” but to access that health care, it seems that you must fit into your doctor’s classification of the “normal.”
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You want to object to doing an integral part of your job? QUIT! Don’t put ME and MY HEALTH at risk because you want to impose YOUR morals on me. I don’t go to a doctor to save my soul anymore than I go to an Priest/Reverend/Rabbi/Imam to check my blood pressure. What I do in my bedroom and with whom ain’t nobodies damn business but MINE.
*flips these docs the bird*
(Thanks to newcherrybomb.com for the heads up, and thanks to feministing.com for dropping a note on them)
