Editorial

By Paul Schratz

The thing to keep in mind when entering the world of Henry Morgentaler - and abortion in general - is that to enter it is to crawl down a rabbit hole.

Like Alice's Wonderland, words and concepts in Morgentalerland can mean anything you want them to. Right can be wrong, up is down, life is death, and heaven is hell, with everything curiouser and infinitely more macabre than anything Lewis Carroll could dream up.

Just as marriage had to be redefined to let men marry men, an abundance of redefinition has to take place to justify an abortion doctor receiving an Order of Canada.

First off, the Order itself has to be redefined. Once awarded to those who, in the words of Hebrews 11:16, "desire a better country," the award now goes to someone who interprets "better" as meaning "fewer by 3 million babies."

That, however, requires reinventing Order of Canada procedures, because the award council usually gives it unanimously. Since there's no way you'd get unanimity on a recipient like Morgentaler, the criterion is now apparently a simple majority vote. Expect the calibre of future recipients to reflect that.

Next, the awards process could only have been reinvented if someone of stature on the council drove the process forward. Thanks to Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, the process was thus driven.

Except, for Justice McLachlin to do that would require that she remove herself from the discussion due to possible conflict of interest. After all, it's not inconceivable that abortion could be back before the Supreme Court one day. She failed to do so. So much for justice being blind.

With so much redefining going on, let's just continue with Morgentaler's curriculum vitae. As everyone knows, Morgentaler is portrayed with a heroism, nobility and selflessness unseen since Macbeth.

Too bad reality is quite different. According to the Quebec physicians disciplinary committee, which suspended him from practising medicine in the 1970s, Morgentaler was more concerned with "protecting his fees" than with any humanitarian concern.

The committee even faulted him for failing to interview patients before abortions, a behaviour they said "confers a mercenary character on the doctor-patient relationship."

With that chapter of history redrafted, the whole book is up for rewrite, including the accounts of women dying by the thousands from botched abortions in the days before legalization. We've been fed these stories so often, right up to Morgentaler's press conference after the award was announced, that they now form part of our cultural consciousness.

Trouble is, it's all false. As Morgentaler's U.S. counterpart, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, confessed after becoming pro-life and Catholic, he and his supporters concocted the numbers of women dying from illegal abortions. They also fabricated polling data to support their cause.

Once history is rewritten, it opens the door to rewriting the present, by reinterpreting in a very liberal fashion what the public opinion polls are saying. So instead of learning from last week's polling numbers that most Canadians want abortion restricted (with the highest numbers in Quebec!), we are told that two-thirds of Canadians support Morgentaler's award.

The list of rewrites goes on and on: life begins at birth; ending a healthy pregnancy is an essential health service; killing an unborn child is a fundamental women's right....

To clear our heads, let's climb out of this rabbit hole and consider a much different Order of Canada - one that conforms to logic, common sense, and respect for the English language.

If the award is to go to someone who is committed to women's health care, someone who has been resolute in influencing public policy, someone willing to be jailed for their beliefs, might I suggest the many pro-lifers who have gone to jail for protesting abortion?

Like Morgentaler they're strongly interested in women's health. Like Morgentaler and his "humanism," they're deeply committed to their fellow man. Like Morgentaler, they're willing to surrender their freedom for a cause, sometimes for merely praying or holding a rose in front of an abortion clinic.

In their case, however, they were arrested not for taking life, but for defending it. That's something that can't be rewritten.