Tuesday, April 1, 2008

If MEN were the victims, it would be a hate crime

It's April Fool's Day. I wish this was a joke, but it's not.

The current inquiry going on in Newfoundland and Labrador about the botched biopsy tests that cost a lot of women in the province their lives because they actually had cancer and missed out on chemotherapy; as well as women who had to have mastectomies or breast reconstruction when they were told they had cancer when they really didn't, should be enough to make most people's blood boil. Yesterday's news, that the government of Danny Williams knew what was going on but did nothing to inform the public, brought the war against the women in Canada to an all time low. The 20 second silence when a key question was asked yesterday is as infamous as the 18 1/2 minute erasure on one of the Nixon tapes.

Yet it raises a question that is outside of the terms of reference of the investigation but really should not be. Let's suppose that the issue was reversed, and dozens or even hundreds of men who went in for PSA tests were told they had prostate cancer (wrongly) or didn't (also wrongly) and the truth later came out.

People would be bringing out their pitchforks and torches, wanting to burn down the houses of any and all physicians, lab technicians and politicians who were in on it -- whether by negligence or by criminal intent.

But because it's women with breast cancer ... oh, they're dispensible, because -- well, because they're women.

Old habits die hard. At the cost of lives. It's time to see this for what it really is -- a hate crime, an attempt to commit genocide against the women of the East Coast, and the Mounties should prosecute it as such.

Danny Williams was out of the office yesterday and couldn't comment. How convenient.

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