'Pro-choice'
dam is springing some leaks
By Paul Schratz
Dams are amazing structures, but one has to wonder
how much longer the dam against pro-life opinions can hold out in
Canada.
The dam until now has typically been built on a number of
pro-abortion foundations, including the courts, government, media,
and academia.
In several of those areas, we’re starting to see cracks form,
forcing a rethinking of the popular belief that the vast majority of
people support abortion rights, as well as the fallacy that the
abortion debate is closed for good.
For the second time in a month, a Canadian politician has
introduced legislation aimed at recognizing the fetus as more than a
piece of tissue with absolutely no legal standing until he or she
takes her first breath.
Last month Conservative MP Leon Benoit introduced Bill C-291,
which would amend the Criminal Code to provide some measure of
protection for unborn children, particularly when it concerns
violence against their mother.
Although it appears some particularly Machiavellian manoeuvres on
the part of some politicians led to its quick death, Benoit promises
to redraft and reintroduce the legislation.
Now another MP, a Liberal in opposition, has announced his own
private members bill to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
The legislation, by Liberal MP Paul Steckle (Huron-Bruce, Ont.)
aims to prohibit the deliberate provocation of a miscarriage after
20 weeks.
The Catholic Organization for Life and Family urged MPs to take
advantage of this opportunity to "limit the damage" caused to
Canadian society by abortion.
Two attempts at legislation don’t sound the death knell of the
abortion industry in Canada, which claims more than 110,000 little
lives a year. It might not even be the beginning of the end, but it
does indicate the days are numbered for the suppression of any views
contrary to the "pro-choice" position.
In the world of academia, Ryerson University recently honoured
ethicist Margaret Somerville, who regards all abortion as "raising
serious ethical issues." Although hardly a fervent pro-lifer – she
would permit early abortion – Somerville draws the line at later
stages, and even the pro-abortion Globe and Mail acknowledges her
writings are "carefully argued."
The fact that Ryerson considered withdrawing the honorary PhD
after receiving intense flak doesn’t negate the fact that it stood
by her in the end, recognizing that her work raises legitimate
issues.
Among media too, the once impenetrable wall against all things
pro-life is showing signs of cracking. An increasing number of
pro-life views are managing to find their way onto the editorial
pages, usually in the form of columns, opinion pieces, and sometimes
letters to the editor.
The National Post has shown almost wilful disregard for the
conformity pledge many newspaper editors seem to take when it comes
to the abortion question. While editorially pro-abortion, it allows
pro-life views to be presented more often than most papers. Its own
columnists have called for an abortion law for Canada. In March,
Father Raymond de Souza praised the fact that the abortion debate is
finally turning into a real debate, instead of the "ruthlessly
effective propaganda exercise" most Canadian media have enforced
until now.
That same month, Jonathan Kay, the National Post’s comment pages
editor and columnist, writing the nearest thing you can get to an
editorial without being an editorial, wrote that in all civilized
nations except ours, abortion and when it is permitted is a "live
issue" – presumably no pun intended.
"Liberated from the taboos imposed on us by pro-choice activists
and timid politicians, Canada could create an abortion law that
aligns itself with the nation’s collective moral sense."
Other papers too are rethinking their rigid "pro-choice" stance.
In February, the Calgary Herald published an editorial calling for
"reasonable limitations" on access to abortion, an astonishing
turnaround for a paper whose editorial position was stridently
pro-abortion.
As its editor said at the time, the paper was taking into account
medical advances on viability and fetal pain. It also, he admitted,
wanted to be more "reflective of our citizenry," which polls show
are moving further all the time in support of restricting abortion.
Roughly two-thirds of Canadians say there should be an abortion
law in this country, one of the extremely few nations in the world
where there is absolutely no legal limit on abortion right up to
birth for any reason whatsoever.
Pro-lifers have traditionally been painted as extremists who want
to ram their views down others’ throats and are intolerant of anyone
else’s views.
The reality is quite the opposite. It is the abortion rights
proponents who until now have attempted to control the debate and
shut down opposing views.
There is finally reason to hope Canada will one day be a place
where pro-life views are not only tolerated, but popularly embraced.
