And so marks the end of the shortest love affair in the history of the Canadian left;
… There’s been a moral dimension to this debate that’s quite complex, and I think deserves respect. So I respect people who say, “I’m against abortion because there is a right to life, and the fetus is sacred.”
I respect that, because I think all life is sacred. So, where do I come to thinking we should be able to have – and must have – access to therapeutic abortions in Canada?
It’s the other side of a moral dilemma: If we make them illegal, women will die. We know this. It happened for hundreds and hundreds of years, that women would seek out whatever butcher they could find to cause an abortion to happen, and they would die horrible deaths, and the baby would die too.
So I see it as a moral dilemma, and I don’t see it as a clear-cut black-and-white.
And I think one of the things I would like to bring to Canadian politics is to show enough respect to the other view, that we could actually have a dialogue about it. Because one of the things that is wrong about polarization is the language becomes a barrier to understanding.
So if one group of people say, “A woman has a right to choose,” I get queasy, because I’m against abortion. I don’t think a woman has a frivolous right to choose.
What I don’t want is a desperate woman to die in an illegal abortion. But I also don’t think it’s right to say – Well, you see, you end up having this conflict.
What I’d like to do in politics – and I’ve talked about this in some other settings besides here today, because this is the first time it’s come up in London North Centre – what I’d like to do in politics is to be able to create the space to say, “Abortions are legal because they must be to avoid women dying. But nobody in their right mind is for abortions.”
I’ve talked women out of having abortions. I would never have an abortion myself, not in a million years. I cannot imagine the circumstances that would ever reduce me to it.
So can’t we then have a different kind of conversation? What kind of programs and strategies do we need to have to reduce the number of legal abortions that take place? Instead of having this rather polarized and, you know, really, futile debate that only fuels divisions and makes both sides feel as they’re, you know, in some form of battle …
h/t to reader Diane.
Let the games begin!
Leaving aside my views on this issue,…
I grew up out in the country and learned consequences early. ie) if you drop a hammer on your foot you can expect it to hurt.
So I say to this person. IF YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID, YOU ARE GOING TO (and prolly deserve to) GET HURT.
Paraphrase: “Because people are going to try to do it anyway and in so doing might hurt/kill themselves.” – Is not a valid argument.
It is not our responsibility to legislate against stupidity. Stupidity is population control. And preventing stupid people from hurting themselves only creates more stupid people.
Wow. Shakes head. Well at least she was intelligent about the issue, you know, not just a knee jeerk reaction.
Of course trying to have intelligent dialogue on this issue is a big fat no-no in this country. She’s lucky she is a relative no-body because:…
Imagine if Stephen Harper said that? I think it would actually have made bigger news than this media love in this weekend on the Lieberals convention. It might actually have taken their minds of their lieberal love-in for a couple of minutes.
Excellent point Barcs. Let evolution take its course.When you screw with Mother Nature,she bites back,quite harshly in fact.
Justthinkin: Unfortunately, when Mother Nature bites back, she bites indiscriminately.
re: Abortions are legal because they must be to avoid women dying. But nobody in their right mind is for abortions”
I completely agree with May on this one. Of course, the statement is such plain common sense that it also outlines why a legislative approach favouring either “side” of this issue is useless.
There are some issues where there is no point to a legislative solution; or: every “should” doesn’t need a law attached to it. Regarding this issue–as with the issue of marriage–the state oughtta just stay out of it and let folks make their own decisions, one-by-one, as individuals.
Ron says: “Regarding this issue–as with the issue of marriage–the state oughtta just stay out of it”
Ron, we regulate the production temperature of cheese curds used in poutine here in Canada, and you expect the government to stay out of marriage, the most fundamental aspect of society? What planet are you from?
Let’s just skip to the part where you, unlike 90% of Canadians, think polygamy should be legal, OK? Enter the world’s premier scientist on the matter, Steve Sailer:
“Monogamy is a cartel formed by males to reduce male vs. male competition for wives to more of a matter of quality than of quantity. The ability of a culture’s males to cooperate with each other is correlated with the overall quality of life in that culture.”
So, Ron, if you want polygamy, go live in the forest with the rest of the Ted Kazyniski wannabe anarcho-tards. Because in higher functioning societies a measure of co-operation (the electrical grid, indoor plumbing, discouraging the abortion lifestyle) is sometimes necessary to achieve a higher state of living. I’ll also note that you – a self-proclaimed libertarian – have no problem with paying for other peoples’ abortions; you could have chosen to argue against “free” taxpayer paid abortion on demand. Instead, like the statist that you are, you chose to argue for abortion “rights”. Very, very typical of today’s libertarians to give the statist left a free pass and taking the more politically correct route of attacking the conservative right.
Ron Good thinks taxpayers should pay for any and all abortions, no questions asked. Ron Good thinks abortion is OK for a woman’s physical and mental health. Ron Good thinks women should be able to use abortion as birth control.
Abortion is solely a woman’s issue.
As it should be, for a man could not handle such an issue, as we never have had to, or would want to.
As you were…
Just read some of the comments…
Deciding life/or not life is not a right…it is your responsibility…
I think that the premise that “all life is sacred” is suspect. Do you use disinfectant to kill bacteria? Do you eat meat? Do you allow medical experimentation on monkeys? Etc.
It may be that you think that only human life is sacred? But on what basis do you distinguish humans from other animals? How do you deal with the high natural level of abortion or are you worried only about third trimester abortions?
I think that there are some additional unnoted assumptions here.
Can I ask the question? Nobody else has ever asked it, so I think I might be the first on the planet. But I’ve always wondered it, so perhaps its time:
What is so wrong about women dying during illegal abortions?
There, I said it. Why on earth should we be worried about this? Basically this boils down to “if we don’t keep abortion legal, some women will be so anxious to murder their unborn child that they will risk their lives to commit murder, and may themselves be killed during the process of taking a life”. Is this a particularly bad thing? Are we that horrifically against it? It sounds like the baby is going to die anyways. I just can’t get too much energy worked up over the mother also dying…sounds like we’re not exactly losing a woman who deserves a “#1 Mom” coffee mug. A person trying to commit murder dies during the attempt. I might feel bad (as will occur in this case) when the murder is successful, but I certainly don’t feel that we should take any efforts to reduce the risk to the mother’s life. If she’s that anxious to kill her own baby, then I WANT HER DEAD. Simple and vicious as that.
Some man hating feminist said: “Abortion is solely a woman’s issue.”
Not if it’s being paid for with men’s tax dollars.
Men pay the vast majority of taxes in Canada; if women want the abortion lifestyle then they can raise the money to do so and pay for their own abortions or, far more likely, make their boyfriends pay for it like they did only 15 years ago. In the vast majority of cases abortion is a lifestyle choice and is as far as you can get from a medically necessary procedure.
One of the byproducts our modern Liberal Canadian Society is the normalization of pregnancy outside of he traditional family unit. As a kids growing up almost 40 years ago teenage pregnancy was very rare and the individuals and families involved were shamed by the community . This feedback mechanism kept many kids on the straight and narrow. They actually had a bond with their parents and did not want to do things that reflected badly on their parents.
This family bond is being erroded by increasing interferance from the nanny state. How many children today have the luxury of being raised by their own parents? Paid child care workers are working to make a living or to use the word the lefties are terrified of ” for a profit”.
This condition leads to children who are raising themselves totally disconnected from their parents. Teenagers need a stong moral compass to keep them from doing stupid thing because their frontal lobes are still developing and their ability to calculate the consequences of their action is not very well developed. A strong family bond can overide raging hormones.
The other situation I am seeing is that with these very small families many children grow up not being exposed to babies and have no clue how much work they actually are.This is again tied to Liberal tax policies. In families that pay taxes children are a liabily .
Then there is our beloved welfare system that pays these immature little girls to go out and have babies. This ensures job security for the Social Services Industry.
Most of the deterrents that were in place 40 years ago have disappeared but PMSH is trying to put the jenie back in the bottle.
Anyone who was lucky enough to grow up in a functional nuclear family with stable loving parent know the gift our parents gave us. By making it easier for parents to raise their own children and letting them bond with their children we will have a healthier society. Children who are loved grow up with a respect for themselves and all other forms of life.
You will never eliminate abortion but by allowing loving parents to raise their own children the need for it is greatly reduced.
She makes a bunch of inane statements. Exactly what is a “frivolous right” anyway, a right either exsists or it doesn’t. The abortion debate has been done to death, nothing new has been said on the matter for nearly 20 years.
“Anyone who was lucky enough to grow up in a functional nuclear family with stable loving parent know the gift our parents gave us. By making it easier for parents to raise their own children and letting them bond with their children we will have a healthier society.”
Ergo, PMSH’s efforts to stabilize and support the family unit. This could be accomplished even more with income-splitting, but of course it would be disasterous for day-care unions and advocates.
Anyway, kudos to Elizabeth May for even daring to discuss this subject. I have new respect for her.
BTW, why should this be an “all or nothing” argument anyway? Why can’t we at least put a limit on how late abortions of convenience can be performed and funded by the taxpayer? I’m not talking about abortions where the woman’s life is in jeopardy.
When Hitlery Clinton gets wind of this she will have a ‘spontaneous abortion’ no doubt.
The crux of the probelm with discussing this issue is not about gender or religion, it’s about the effects on society versus the effects on individuals.
If the individual’s rights (legal abortion) win the day, society will suffer. It’s about demographics, stupid. Look at Eurabia.
If society wins the day on the issue, naturally some idividuals will suffer. Well then, you are free to move to Russia or France where you can die along side the rest of their culture and watch Islam take over. If you live long enough, THEIR children will impose Sharia law on you through the democratic process through sheer numbers simply because they do not believe in abortion. But because it was your ‘right’ they have offspring, and you don’t. It’s that simple.
Vis a vis Lew’s comment that “Abortion is solely a woman’s issue”:
That’s nonsense. It takes a man and a woman to create new life, so how come this new life and whether to nuture it to birth or abort it is the woman’s choice alone?
Daniel Berrigan once made the comment that saying abortion is a woman’s issue is like saying that poverty is only an issue for the poor or that war is only an issue for soldiers.
Truncated thinking here. Radical feminist thinking, to shut up anyone who disagrees with their pro-abortion agenda.
I rather suspect that Elizabeth May has put this on the table to flush Prime Minister Stephen Harper out. She can safely talk about this issue, which frankly should be talked about without hysteria and partisan politics making it a taboo subject, because her party is never going to form the government.
I’m not saying that PMSH shouldn’t engage in a debate about abortion, especially an intelligent one that acknowledges the seriousness of taking the life of a growing child in the womb, but I suspect he won’t take the “bait,” if this, indeed, is what Elizabeth May’s foray into the abortion debate is.
As much as I admire much of what she has to say, I’m leary of why she’s saying it now.
I agree with your last post, Joanne. I get so frustrated with people in our society who want to obfuscate the issue and refuse to deal with it clearly and honestly:
– Abortion means you are killing a baby, NOT removing fetal cells or whatever cold medical term that they use to draw attention away from the fact.
– A viable fetus is alive (it sure isn’t dead), but it doesn’t possess “independent life”…so you’re killing something that is alive.
– A viable fetus is human (it sure isn’t a potted plant), but it is not necessarily a member of society yet…regardless, you are taking a human life.
– The question that has yet to be answered is “Does a fetus possess basic human rights?”…I don’t think this one has been adequately resolved yet, though I suspect that the answer should likely be NO.
The Pro-Choice (or Anti-Life or Pro-Convenience) side uses very weak arguments, but some of the arguments have merit. There are SOME circumstances where abortion may be the best choice, but there should be limits. A premature baby can survive birth only after a certain point…at that point, strict rules should be in place to limit the possibility of getting an abortion for only extreme cases. Prior to that point (where a fetus is potentially able to survive outside the womb), it should be left to the discretion of the mother.
Let’s bypass the religious side of the argument…that will never win. Let’s go with pragmatism and rationality.
And Jose, the issue has been done to death, but not rationally. The Anti-Lifers don’t want to discuss the facts…they refer to the baby in cold, impersonal medical terms to disguise the truth of the situation and turn any argument against abortion as being mysogynist in nature. They don’t refute with logic…they refute with intimidation. Their opponents just give up arguing and that’s how they’ve “won”. Typical of the left side of society.
If society decides, rationally and logically, that killing babies (and honestly acknowledge it for what it is) is okay…then FINE. But let’s not kid ourselves, which is what we’ve been doing for the last 20 years, Jose.
Elizabeth May a social conservative?
Uh…no!
If you’re not in favour for the right to life of unborn children, you’re not a social conservative.
She might be more conservative than some, but she’s no social conservative.
I’m not surprised,
I was speakig to a Green Party candidate from the last election who had more conservative views than I would have expected.
I have stated before that I respect a woman’s right to choose. However the time to choose is before the physical fun starts. Once a child is conceived it should be invested with certain rights and one of those is to “live”. The term that really gets me is when the feminists say ” it is a decision between the woman and her doctor”. What kind of pure crap is that? The doctor is merely the technician that performs the act of killing the child. Just where does this person become part of the decision making process?
What about the father in all this? The way the laws are written – the decision of who gets to live and who gets to die rests with not only just one half of the population but with one gender. Can you imagine a situation where some in that gender start to advocate that women start using gender selection as part of their abortion decision? The radicals could, over time, severely tilt the gender mix to where men become a subservient underling to the female population. Can’t happen? Well just look at India where the flip side is true and the female baby is viewed as less valuable and indeed a liability. There are many, shall we even say tens of thousands of female children aborted simply because they are “female”.
I agree with the term another writer used that “you bite mother nature in the ass and she will come back to bite you back and worse”. There is just something naturally just plain wrong with the whole concept of abortion. Both my heart and my head tell me that.
To those who believe that the state has no place in determining what a woman does with her own body – try offering a pair of breats implants as first prize in your tavern’s wet t-shirt contest…
According to Wikipedia there are 110,000 abortions per year in Canada and according to Mark Steyn our birthrate per women is 1.48. A society need 2.1 births per women to survive. Abortion is killing more than babies.
I’m with Suzanne on this one. Not supporting abortion doesn’t automatically make someone a social conservative. This is her opinion on one issue; does she have a socially conservative opinion on same-sex marriage or other pertinent issues?
Also, Kitchener Conservative, a number of Green Party members and supporters are either conservatives or libertarians. I was actually a quasi-supporter until May won the leadership. A number of analysts agree that the party now sits to the left of the NDP.
Kerry, the Greens “left” of the NDP? Wow! That must put them real close to the Liberals, eh?
On a slightly different note concerning May and her supposed position as a fiscal conservative.
She is actually a watermelon. (Green on the outside, red in the middle.)
Some time ago during the spruce budworm infestation of New Brunswick and Cape Breton Island, May was able to arm twist the local politicians into not spraying pesticide.
New Brunswick did spray and their spruce is healthy and productive now.
The non spray areas of Cape Breton were decimated, and still look like clearcutting in some areas.
Again political expediency as opposed to common sense.
These environmentalists are true Ludites.
Vote Green!
Why is it OK for Canada to have an American-style abortion law when this is not ok for anything else like health care or defense?
Canada and the US are amongst the few countries in the world that allow abortions right up to 1 second before the baby is born. (Thank the judges in both countries). Can we at least not have a more European law which restricts abortion to the first 3 or 4 months.
Why do I have to pay for someone elses abortion? If Bill Clinton knocks up Belinda Stronach why should I have to pay to repair the damage?
“Not supporting abortion doesn’t automatically make someone a social conservative.”
It does in the eyes of the NDP and eastern media.
Lew,
If abortion is just a woman’s issue, than abortion would be outlawed in this nation since women statistically oppose abortion more than men. Abortion is a tool of evil men that want the benefit of sex without the potential consequences. They are not only willing to see pre-born humans die but to potentially risk the lives of women that undergo the process; abortion in a legal safe environment is highly risky for women to undergo. Furthermore assuming you are correct that this is solely a woman’s issue, because it is something only women endure, one could equally argue that a man removed from the emotion of the situation could have a more objective opinion
Well with that comment then Stephen Harper should want her in the national debates. It will give him cover on this issue.
As for the debate….does anyone have some facts and stats. How many abortions take place in this country in each of the trimesters? Since there is no law currently this would be interesting to see what effect a law would have.
Personally, I dont like the lack of a law, third trimester abortions for non medical reasons are wrong. Like May I cant imagine circumstances agreeing to one in my life but I am less concerned about allowing them in the first trimester.
Society needs to draw a line somewhere, at conception, up to birth or somewhere in between. I know there are absolutists on both sides….but since this is personal choice as opposed to a coerced choice societies role is what they are willing to facilitate or punish.
On a final note, I still find it amazingly ironic that the only private clinics that are really tolerated by the left are abortion clinics. Actions speak quite loudly on that one.
Retroactive abortion once certain fetuses reach voting age is an idea I could buy into.
It just seems a little more fair that way.
I’m willing to accept that abortion is legal and will never go away. I’m not in favor of it. But, I can learn to live with it. But, one doesn’t have to look too far to see the hypocrasy of left and their position.
In the the early 90’s, a man in Florida was convicted of killing an endangered species after he was caught harvesting the eggs of some sort of sea turtle. He argued that he wasn’t destroying turtles, he was destroying eggs. The judge coldly replied, “Sir, they were going to be turtles.” The left supports treating unborn animals as though they were the animals themselves. But, such consideration is not extended to humans.
Has anyone here had a baby in the past 10-12 years? Ever have the experience of asking the sex of your un-born baby only to be told, “We’re not allowed to tell you”??? If you ask “Why not?”, you will be told that it’s because if they tell you and you go and buy a bunch of pink or blue clothes based on what they tell you and then it turns out that they were wrong, you might sue them. That’s not true.
The truth is, the policy of Canadian hosptials not wanting to tell the sex of the un-born baby comes from the leftists in BC (I was living there when this all happened). Around about 1993, the feminists in that leftist paradise started actually complaning that there too many abortions happening. Can you imagine that?
They weren’t upset about the number. They were upset about the reasons. BC has Canada’s highest concentration of immigrants from India and China and, as we all know, those cultures heavily prefer boy babies to girls. So, the huge increase in abortions had to do with parents aborting girl babies so that they could try again for a boy. The feminists went nuts and stopped referring to this kind of abortion as simply “abortion”…it became a new word in the leftist lexicon: “female feticide.”
Of course, conservative commentators had a field day with this. They started asking questions like “Aren’t you supposed to be ‘pro-choice’? What do you care what the reason for that choice is?” and “Would you be so upset if boy babies were being terminated in favor of girls?”
This made the feminists (and leftists in general) look bad. And anyone who has lived in BC can tell you that, in that province, it’s pretty much against the law to make leftists look bad.
So, the NDP government put a policy in place that the sex of the un-born baby was to not be revealed to the parents. To cover the very racist motivation behind the policy, it was extended to all expecting couples (regardless of race). I have a few friends in BC who tell me that lab technicians would find not-so-creative ways to still let you know – as long as you were caucasian…like saying, “We can’t tell you the gender of your baby…but HE’S doing well.”
Anyway, the result of the policy was that many Asian couples simply started going to Alberta to have the ultrasound done. Thus, Alberta was forced to engage in the policy as well…and it then swept like a wave throughout the country.
Just last year, when my wife was pregnant and we having the ultrasound done (we live in Montreal), I turned to the lab technician and said, “If possible, we would like to know the sex. Now, before you tell me you can’t, please understand that I lived in BC in 1993 and I know about the policy. But we are not looking to abort based on your answer.” She smiled and said, “Quebec reversed that policy a few years ago because we don’t have enough immigrants from Asia to make a big impact. It’s a girl.”
I have a buddy in New Brunswick whose wife is a nurse and she says it is still policy there to keep the child’s gender hidden.
The point of this story is to highlight the fact that the left claims to support “choice”…as long as there is only one and they control the reasoning. Kind of like Stalin claiming that he supported free elections – as long as there is only one candidate (whom he chooses).
I’m also disturbed by the new label given to people who are against abortion or who advocate reasonable limits on third-trimester abortion. They used to be called “pro-life”. Now, it’s “anti-choice.” Sounds much more scary, doesn’t it?
However the time to choose is before the physical fun starts.
A Different Bob sums it up very well. If a pregnancy will be inconvenient, choose to remain not pregnant. It’s that simple.
Once a woman has chosen to get pregnant, she is free to choose an abortion. She should also choose to pay for it herself. Abortion for the vast majority of women is as medically necessary as a boob job or tummy tuck and we have no problem allowing those patients to choose to pay for the procedure. Let’s start treating women equally.
Re langmann’s comment “…Of course trying to have intelligent dialogue on this issue is a big fat no-no in this country.”
It’s the same in EVERY country in the West. As soon as anyone tries to speak thoughtfully, the extreme pro-unlimited-abortion left goes berserk. Any attempted dialogue or debate is shut down. And that’s just a sophisticated version of the “heckler’s veto” used by the extreme left.
“does she have a socially conservative opinion on same-sex marriage or other pertinent issues?”
Calling SSM a “pertinent issue” is like saying the Liberal leadership convention is of interest to all Canadians.
And the Green Party is not “left”. Anyone saying that is trying to PUSH them out of the picture, when the results of the London byelection indicate what I’ve been saying for quite a while, and that is the party is taking voters from every other political party.
Right, and Left are inadequate descriptions for a party that is more centrist than the Liberals, and more interested in change than the NDP. The NDP are an entrenched party, poorly entrenched in most regions, but still old guard.
The speculation put out by Kate that the “left” will drop May now, is absurd. The ultra-left who don’t care to discuss anything is something that Green Party, or any party doesn’t need, just how the Conservatives don’t need the ultra-right running the show. There are a lot of problems with unlimited access to state funded abortions, and perhaps May is the first politician willing to speak up about obvious human tragedies going on around Canada every day. The politics of avoidance may win more seats, but it doesn’t win the respect of average Canadians.
I had my hair cut a couple of years ago by an anxious girl in her early twenties that told me she had been just told she was pregnant with twins. She had already had two abortions but considered not doing the procedure in this case because it would be too hard to abort twins.
The next time I got my hair cut by her I asked about the twins (she wasn’t showing). She said that the medical office made a mistake and she didn’t have twins…so she took care of the situation. The girl was quitting the salon to move to another city where some guy promised to help her buy a condo (no doubt strings attached).
The girl said she didn’t want to have “too many” more abortions because eventually she wants to be a mom. If there was any real choice in this Universe no child would want her as a mom.
Let us give thanks for the fruits of pro-choice and it’s effect on the future of our country. Merry Christmas.
“It’s the same in EVERY country in the West. As soon as anyone tries to speak thoughtfully, the extreme pro-unlimited-abortion left goes berserk. Any attempted dialogue or debate is shut down. And that’s just a sophisticated version of the “heckler’s veto” used by the extreme left.”
Dave: Now, go back on this thread and read the comments by “feynman and coulters love child”.
I may have to change my mind about Ms May. To my knowledge, the first politician that has encouaged open debate on the matter. Now if we could get her to take the same attitude towards the enviroment and health care——!!!
Oh Elizabeth May.
You have made my day! 😛
It is very refreshing to hear a party leader in Canada speak openly and honestly about this issue, as it’s been taboo for awhile.
She is causing extreme anger and condemnation on the “progressive” left. The lunatics at rabble.ca have declared her progressive credentials null and void. They also named her as a stooge of the Fraser Institute!
She is right that “no one in their right mind supports abortion”. Even if you are pro-legalized abortion, I don’t know how anyone can be pro-abortion. Here on PEI, you can’t be told the sex of your baby (although it does still happen) and you can’t receive on demand abortion anywhere in the province. You have to pay out of your own pocket to go to NB or NS and often face a council of doctors. I would assume that the extra cost and time to reflect has spared at least a few souls.
The best investigative reporting on the abortion stats that are available to the public:
http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/index.cfm?page=article&article_id=1727
I find it mildly frightening to hear common sense from the likes of Elizabeth May, Greenie Party leader and avowed Watermellon. (Green outside, red inside.)
My personal take on the issue extends to free choice for the first trimester or so, as long as Mommy Dearest pays for it. Hardship payments for rape and incest cases, of course. I don’t mind paying to fix that kind of crap if it needs fixing, and sometimes it does.
Post first trimester, tough. Yer havin’ it. Aborting the ten-celled blastocyst is an entirely different thing than aborting a viable baby. Late term abortions in particular are vile. The difference between that and shooting the baby immediately post delivery are mainly aesthetic.
On the other hand, I really don’t want there to be a Ministry of Abortion Services, where public “servants” get to decide these things for you.
Ms. May seems to have a firm grasp of the idea that we should discuss it, at least. Odd thing, that.
I think Ms. May’s comments are rather spot-on. In essence, she’s distinguishing between her personal values and the public good, laying bare her own individual pro-life stance while simultaneously reaffirming existing abortion laws.
Leaving aside the extreme elements of the pro-abortion side, this is in essence what pro-abortionists have been arguing all along: that individual couples–and more specifically, women–should be able to decide whether they support or reject abortion procedures as an option for their own unwanted pregnancies, but that the legal option should be available to those who decide they want it. That is, either choice–for or against–should be available equally.
Ms. May’s comment that “nobody in their right mind is for abortions” isn’t really controversial or ‘socially conservative’ either. It’s similar to noting that, say, “nobody in their right mind is for chemotherapy.” That is, nobody actually has abortions (or chemotherapy) because they enjoy it, but for those who find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy (or cancer), it’s certainly a relief to find that the service is available legally in Canada.
“She is causing extreme anger and condemnation on the “progressive” left. The lunatics at rabble.ca ”
Rabble is the pulse of the far left, like how SDA is the pulse of the far right online. The only anger comes from people unwilling to talk about a human issue that affects the lives of many people. progressives as a whole are not up in arms.
Also, the provided transcription isn’t complete. Here are additional passages that situate Ms. May’s comments within her broader moral framework:
Let me explain what our party position is, and then I’ll tell you as a Christian how I deal with it, OK? First of all, the party position is that we must maintain access to therapeutic abortions for women in Canada, and the party position is that this must not open the debate on same-sex marriage. It’s a closed debate, it’s a human rights issue, it’s under the Charter–case closed. My personal views–and this is tricky, and I wandered into some terrain here–um, I actually agree with the party’s positions, but not necessarily for the reasons you think…
[…] And on the issue of SSM, which both she personally and the Green Party officially support:
I find no records as to Jesus speaking to us to stop homosexual relationships, but He was pretty clear that we should be doing everything we can to stop poverty, and so I think we need to change the political idea that there are so-called ‘moral questions’–and they are same-sex marriage and abortion, and they never are ‘Do we have a right to destroy God’s creation?’ ‘Do we have a right to leave so many people in poverty?’ You know, what are the other, bigger moral questions? And I’d like to see that happen, so that the discussion can be more respectful. And [we] may not win on this–it’s a pretty polarized issue–but I’d like to try.
Saskboy, rabble.ca runs ads from the federal NDP and is associated with a number of large unions from across the country. If they are simply the far-left, why do so many mainstream “progressives” support their site?
Anyhow, as a university student, I encountered the same refusal to even discuss any aspect of abortion. Unless you said a woman can choose to abort and have it paid for until the minute before her due date, you were referred to as a misogynist anti-feminist. Until the duedate, a fetus isn’t even considered human, it is a parasite. I appreciate the fact that you and some of the “progressives” you know are willing to discuss this issue.
“If they are simply the far-left, why do so many mainstream “progressives” support their site?”
Because it’s THE place to talk on the left side up to this point as far as I can gather. That may be changing with sites like The Next Agenda, and Progressivebloggers.ca up and coming. SDA is kinda the defacto place to get conservative talk, even though it’s farther right than most Canadian conservatives.
Bryceman: “And anyone who has lived in BC can tell you that, in that province, it’s pretty much against the law to make leftists look bad.”
Only in BC?
Having worked in the health care field for a long time, the reality of when doctors will agree to the abortion is the question here that people are not taking into consideration. It may be true that a woman has a right to an abortion up to natural childbirth, but no doctor would perform it. The vast majority will only perform abortions in the 1st trimester, and generally within the first 2 months. Beyond this time period, it may be performed due to health risks to the mother, problems with the fetus, and related risk factors. Women have abortions for a variety of reasons, and not just because they do not want to be pregnant. Moreover, more young women are accessing the morning after pill if they have had unprotected sex.
Kate, you helped me fulfill a lifelong dream today. After learning about this from your blog, I wrote about it on my blog, and now I’ve been bashed as someone who “wants to see women turned into breeding machines” on Rabble. Hilarious, given that I’m a libertarian who doesn’t think she’ll ever have kids.
Thank you (without a tinge of sarcasm; I really am delighted) — this made my day. 🙂