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DiManno: Dropping the A-word
Read the article / show / issue that provoked me to write a letter and my response below that or go straight to my response
Date Posted on this Site
May 22, 2010
Publication
Toronto Star
Publication Date
May 17, 2010
Published Content
Rosie DiManno
It is wildly ironic that the A-word no Canadian prime minister has wanted to utter since 1989 is now roaring in Stephen Harper’s ears, with little indication the cacophony will quieten.
That’s A for Abortion, an issue that had dropped out of political discourse for decades, just as the procedure itself disappeared from Canada’s Criminal Code following a Supreme Court ruling that, in effect, left a legislative vacuum most people apparently prefer to the choler incited by any proposed regulations.
Make no mistake. On the subject of abortion there are evangelicals on either end of the spectrum: Those who worship at the altar of a religious faith that infuses their activism and those who worship at the altar of a woman’s right to control her own body.
To be clear, I am pro-choice so this column starts there. It doesn’t end there, however.
As endless polling has shown, that’s not the termination point for a majority of Canadians either when asked to ponder the issue. While generally in favour of choice, a queasy moral anxiety sets in over late-pregnancy abortion. One needn’t look to religion or science for leadership here. Most of us, I dare say, instinctively differentiate between a three-month fetus and a seven month fetus that can, if delivered at that stage, survive outside the womb. Even if the number of third trimester abortions is tiny – and presumably performed for reasons of acute health risk to the mother or because the fetus has developed severe congenital problems – the fact these do occur, exclusively decided by doctor and patient, me as is a cause for some concern, at least with me, and just about every reasonable woman I know.
I do not for a moment believe that any pregnant woman would make the decision for a late-trimester abortion casually. But I’m not convinced the reasons are always good enough and, yes, when a fetus is that close to becoming a living human being, there is a place for Canadian society to say: Stop, show us why this is necessary. At the risk of giving ammunition to the absolutist pro-life forces, I will state what I honestly feel: That seems too much like killing an unwanted baby.
This is the conundrum, the elephant in the room, for pro-choice Canadians. We fear nuance in the abortion debate and often allow the other absolutist constituency – no laws, no restrictions, no criminality – to carry the day. In my estimation, their zealotry is just as infuriating as religious extremists at the other end.
If a nine-month pregnant woman is murdered, I see two homicide victims. But Canada doesn’t have the legal framework for making that criminal charge. The Supreme Court left it for Parliament to determine whether the “unborn” should be included – at some stage of in utero growth – under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”
Since Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s failed attempt to introduce a bill in 1989 restricting abortions – it died on a tie vote in the Senate – after the Supreme Court had a decade earlier struck down the previous law (complicated and unequally applied legislation that permitted abortions only in accredited hospitals, with “health” risk determined by an abortion committee), no government has dared resurrect the matter.
That it’s come up again now is due entirely to the hubris of both Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff putting forth a clumsily handled motion (brutally written by Bob Rae) and Harper’s morally indefensible position to deny funding for abortions in poor countries under his trumpeted maternal health initiative at the upcoming G8 Summit.
All of it has put abortion back on the front page, with pro-life disciples gleefully envisioning complete criminalization of abortion in Canada somewhere down the road and pro-choice fanatics in fits of paranoia over a creeping cultural reversal that would erode hard-won reproductive rights.
I do not expect Evangelicals and the Catholic Church to ever modify their opposition to abortion. I entirely understand their position on the sanctity of life from the moment of conception. It is a core belief, as fundamental and passionately held as faith-driven opposition to the death penalty. Catholic politicians who vote pro-choice, regardless of personal belief, run the real risk of excommunication and that is a very big deal.
But a secular society like Canada is healthy enough to withstand pressure from the religious right, so-called. There’s not much to fear, really, from the fundamentalist rump of Harper’s minority government on the issue of abortion in this country. It’s his unnecessary obstinacy against abortion funding in the Third World – where rape is a tool of war and tens of thousands of women die annually from botched abortions – that is so difficult to fathom. For a man who claims he doesn’t want to reopen the abortion debate, he’s tossed an ideological grenade that has cracked open old fissures.
While the anti-choice thumpers have been energized by this development, the pro-abortion radicals have been verging on hysteria. This outrage is legitimate in the context of Canada yanking funds for foreign abortions. It is execrable policy. But I part company with those who insist abortion should be a closed book in Canada, period, leaving us among the handful of nations that have no restrictions on the procedure at all, no law.
I’m not a fetus-hugger. I do, however, grasp the difference between a fetus and an unborn near-term baby. Most rational Canadians, I suspect, do as well.
After two decades of parliamentary silence, that strangled debate has a heartbeat.
My Response Letter
Thank you Ms. DiManno for acknowledging that many, if not most, Canadians would like some restrictions on abortion in this country.
It is also encouraging to read your honest opinion: that late term abortions seem "too much like killing an unwanted baby". I agree.
It is important to note, though, that the unwanted baby did not suddenly morph into a child because it survived 24 weeks in utero. The difference "between a fetus and an unborn near-term baby" that you wish to establish is really the difference between you at 12 years old and you at 24 years old, simply a matter of development.
Jason Gennaro
Was my response published?
No