Blue Like You

Can Ken Epp’s private member’s bill co-exist with Rob Nicholson’s proposed toughened legislation concerning violence against pregnant women?

It’s probably a moot question, because there will likely be an election in the near future anyway, and Epp’s bill will be lost in the scuffle.

However, in a political sense they both serve a purpose. As I mentioned at Raphael’s , Nicholson’s announcement was probably made to clearly differentiate the Conservative government’s position from any private member’s bill. (Read my lips - No discussion on abortion!)

The government’s position focuses on the safety of the pregnant woman, whereas Ken Epp’s bill tends to focus on both the woman and her unborn child to whom she has chosen to give birth. Epp’s bill would make the penalty more severe and less open to judicial interpretation.

The Government has therefore made a preemptive strike to counter the tedious ‘hidden agenda’ ploy that gets dragged out every election.

If the government doesn’t fall, then Ken Epp can continue with his bill which has the support of many Liberal MP’s including Tom Wappel. Thus, it can be seen as a fairly non-partisan issue.

Yesterday’s discussion was fascinating but somewhat draining, so I’m going to let this one go for a while now. I just want to add that I’m pleased with the Government’s proposal, as well as the fact that Ken Epp isn’t backing down.

Any extra protection for vulnerable pregnant women is a good thing. Too often they and their unborn children are the targets of attack by their partners. If this legislation prevents one death, it is worthwhile.

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Update: SPECIAL REQUEST!

Before reading the comments would you please answer the survey/quiz on abortion laws in Canada which can be found at the top of the poll page? Thanks so much!

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Wednesday Update: Abortion: Staying clear on steering clear - National Post editorial.

Standing up for my bill - Ken Epp (Special to the National Post.) I really admire Ken Epp for not backing down here.

Mindelle Jacobs - Dion’s focus on abortion is just absurd. (Yes, well. You can add that to a long list of absurdities, Mindelle.)

Hot on the heels of my recent poll, "Does Canada need some kind of abortion law? ", I see that Henry Morgentaler is in the news again.

First the poll results (and I know it isn’t scientific) : 70% of the respondents felt that Canada should have some kind of law regarding abortion. I was watching this poll closely the last few days and the percentages didn’t move much. Frankly, I thought the ‘yes’ side would have a higher margin. 33 respondents is a pitifully small sample though, so I’m not sure how much use that poll really is.

Anyway, now we find out that getting the Order of Canada and having unlimited access to abortion isn’t enough for Morgentaler. He wants the Province of New Brunswick to pay for abortions performed at his Fredericton clinic. This seems to be the last holdout and he is going after it.

Oh, the taxpayers already cover abortions in hospitals right across the country, but Morgentaler wants it all and has now been granted the right to challenge the Liberal government in NB:

New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench Judge Paulette Garnett granted Morgentaler "public interest standing" to represent the interests of women in relation to abortion funding.

The article by CP finishes with the following statement:

This is more good news for 84-year-old Morgentaler who was recently awarded the Order of Canada for his years of service in caring for the needs of women.

- The needs of women who manage to get born, that is.

I’d love to hear from New Brunswick residents on this one.

And does anyone know what Morgentaler gets back from his clinics?

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Update: NB Tory Lady : Oh my gawd - Morgentaler strikes my province!

Interesting tidbit here by Paul Schratz from the B.C. Catholic Newspaper:

…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."

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Links to legal background of abortion in Canada :

- Duhaime: Abortion law in Canada "…A legislative vacuum of sorts was created…"

Jonathan Kay: A cheat sheet with Ben-Ami’s arguments on why Canada needs an abortion policy:

4. Contrary to popular belief, the Supreme Court of Canada never declared that the government had no right to regulate abortion — nor did it claim that a fetus had no rights (though it has claimed that a fetus is not a "person"). All the Supreme Court did, in its 1988 Morgentaler decision, was strike down a regulation system that was unpredictable, badly administered, fragmented and out of date. Nothing in Canadian constitutional law or supreme court jurisprudence would prevent Parliament from creating a new law that outlawed abortions after, say, 14, or 16, or 18 weeks of gestation.

One last post about the Morgentaler OC award, and then I promise you I’ll move on.

This really is separate-post worthy though - From Crime to Virtue by George Jonas, which is featured in today’s National Post as his entry in the discussion series for this week. I love reading Jonas’ columns. They’re not just opinion pieces - they’re works of literary art.

And so I will quote some of my favourite parts:

…Perhaps it’s salutary for an abortion doctor’s name to crop up among the recipients, just to put the Order of Canada into perspective. His inclusion doesn’t debase the honour, only illuminates it for the self-congratulatory establishment celebration that it is. Most awards and decorations are a ritual of pack members sniffing each other for the elite scent of recognition, routinely confusing a whiff of posterity with a whiff of posterior. ..

Oh, that is brilliant!

…Amazonian feminists felt they deserved a licence to kill. The high court issued one to James "Henry 007" Morgentaler, who sallied forth to fight the fetal menace. The Order of Canada celebrates the 20th anniversary of this joyful event…

Fetal menace. Exactly.

Or fetal tumour, because of course the fetus is only an appendage. A ‘menace’ would imply a separate being - unless it is a parasite. But then the DNA would be different anyway, right? Oh well, I digress.

Here is his most intriguing observation:

"It’s difficult not to write satire," remarked the Roman author, Juvenal, nearly 2,000 years ago. It still is. Take Canada honouring someone for exactly the same thing it jailed him for 32 years earlier. What turned a 1975 crime into a 2008 virtue? Public opinion? Hardly. Abortion is as divisive as ever. Has God said something new? If so, I missed it.

What changed indeed?

In our previous discussion, Mary T. mentioned a segment last night with Ben Stein on the Situation Room, where he was asked, what do you blame the decline of America on, and the answer was taking God out of the schools, public life, etc.

That’s right. The left-wing agenda has promoted a creeping new religion of cultural relativism which we have been seduced into accepting over the years, and made to feel guilty if we rebelled against it.

Years of Liberal governments placing Liberal judges and Senators into positions of authority and influence.

Liberal Fascism. Read the book and you’ll start to see the big picture.

And now the Liberals are doing anything and everything they can to try to claw their way back into power.

Be warned.

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Related: Jonathan Kay addresses Jonas’ piece here - The order of Canada is ridiculous. It seems that Kay is a big Jonas fan too:

…In my early days as a National Post editorial board member, my colleagues and I would marvel — "snicker" was often a more appropriate description — about how Jonas could take any subject and bring it back to Joseph Stalin in four paragraphs. His archenemy, then as now, has always been the creeping tendrils of the busybody, bureaucratic state — and the Soviet-style oppression that can result if free individuals do not beat those tendrils back. Over time, I’ve learned to stop snickering, because so many of his warnings have come true…

Here’s what I found most interesting in Kay’s article though:

…One of my relatives has the Order of Canada (richly deserved, according to the prevailing standards, I should add), and I have always found it slightly ridiculous to see her wear the lapel pin at parties and such. Her extraordinary accomplishments speak for themselves. Yet the pin sends the message that the respect she is owed is a matter of government-mandated duty — to be given or taken away by the state, like a teacher’s happy-face sticker on a schoolboy’s test paper. The fact that she is quite literally forced to wear that pin, according to the rules of the Order, only amplifies this infantilizing effect …

What??? They are forced to wear the pin?

How pretentious! What snobbery!

Let’s axe the OC . It has no place in my Canada.

Update: Jack’s Newswatch has more discussion on this topic at Daily Blogger.

The National Post is providing a whole week’s presentation of various views on the topic of Morgentaler being named to the Order of Canada on July 1.

The debate also continues on other MSM venues and blogs. Letters to the editor poured in at the time, and are still trickling in two weeks later. Many editorials have been published on both sides.

OC Medals started being returned since some of the recipients or present medal holders felt that the significance had been diminished if not entirely tarnished.

NB Tory Lady has compiled a list on the right sidebar of her blog. Returnees include:

Former Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick Gilbert Finn
Monsignor A.J. Goski
Madonna House foundress Catherine Doherty
Father Lucien Larre
Frank Chauvin
Three anonymous recipients

Was there an underlying reason for initiating this firestorm beyond the alleged recognition of an aging Canadian who made so many ’sacrifices’ to make sure women had access to um, so-called necessary health care?

To have the announcement made on Canada Day, which is usually a time for building bridges and promoting national unity seems a bit puzzling unless it was deliberately intended to provoke a reaction. Which it certainly did.

Or perhaps it was intended to shove a politically-correct edict from the Left down our throats at the taxpayer’s expense.

I think the latter. I believe this was a not so subtle move to try to say that just like gay marriage, the debate is over folks! Get over it.

Well, some people like myself have learned to live with gay marriage. In fact, I certainly see the encouragement of monogamy as being beneficial to society.

As for Morgentaler debacle and the future of the OC itself, do what you want with it. Keep it or get rid of it. I really don’t care.

It’s meaningless to me.

In fact, I’m fine with letting an old man have his moment in the limelight before he meets his maker.

But I will never, ever accept the status quo regarding abortion in Canada, which is a pathetic state of limbo with no law at all; enabled by gutless politicians too weak to even say the word.

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Recommended reading : This is an absolute must read by David Warren - Nation of Noodles.

H/T to The Great Pumpkin.

Margaret Somerville’s Letter to the National Post is also worth checking out - Do Canadians really support abortion?

Jonathan Kay - The Order of Canada is ridiculous.

Great letters in today’s National Post about Morgentaler’s appointment to the Order of Canada, including one from our own Dr. Roy.

Please check them out.

This one by Michael Bliss is especially worth the read:

As a Member of the Order of Canada, I am deeply saddened by the way that our honours system is apparently being debased and cheapened by appointments such as the Henry Morgentaler one. Those of us who occasionally nominate worthy people for consideration for the Order have been told repeatedly that if they have been considered and rejected on an earlier occasion, the files are not normally reopened. I cannot understand why the Morgentaler file was apparently reopened on several occasions.

If the Order of Canada’s advisory committee, meeting behind closed doors, continues to make divisive, apparently political recommendations, it will undermine the integrity of the Order and further discourage those of us who tried to help make the system work. I am particularly distressed that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada is involved in a process the trustworthiness of which many of us now question.

And this is where the title of this post came from.

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Update: Check this out!!! Ethicist expresses empathy - Ottawa citizen:

…Dr. Morgentaler’s appointment to the order "is being trumpeted by those who agree with him" as proof that abortion is something that Canadians want to honour, Ms. Somerville said. "Obviously, people would feel the same thing about me in relation to my opposition to same-sex marriage, so it’s sort of a weird situation."

Ms. Somerville is not a member of the Order of Canada. A nomination submitted a few years ago by Anglican minister and preaching professor Carol Finlay was unsuccessful. Ms. Finlay was told it was because Ms. Somerville was too controversial.

Ms. Finlay, who disagrees with Ms. Somerville on the same-sex marriage issue, said Ms. Somerville deserved the honour because of her commitment to open debate…

…Last July, she was copied on a letter that someone had sent to the Governor General’s office expressing concerns that, if she were ever named a member, "the integrity and greatness of the Order of Canada would be undermined."

So, what do you say now, Raphael?

Kelly McParland: Opposition to Morgentaler’s Order is Wide and Deep and Intense.

From comments at McParland’s post:

by ladylawyer
Jul 03 2008
4:43 PM

I am not a church-goer, a Catholic, a fundamentalist, or a woman who opposes women’s rights. In fact, I practice family law in a small town where it is part of my job to enable women, especially immigrants and refugees, to realize the equal rights that Canada’s legal system allows them.

I used to think that having an abortion was a decision to be made between a woman and her doctor, but now I know better. My daughter was born before the end of her second trimester–an age of gestation when abortions are still routine. She is alive today because of wonderful technology and the round the clock care of the ICU doctors and nurses. She is now 29 years old, married, and has an MA in archeology.

Giving the Order of Canada to Morgentaler is an affront. If I had been awarded an Order of Canada, I wouldn’t be able renounce and return it quickly enough.

CTV - Abortion restrictions continue 20 years after ruling. (i.e. nobody wants to do it. I wonder why?)

ProWomanProLife - A callous sort of Canada.

Also please check out Joan Tintor - Bliss: Morgentaler’s OC file was reopened several times.

Saturday Update: Don Cherry for Order of Canada! - Rex Murphy.

Obviously I am not pleased that Henry Morgentaler has been awarded the Order of Canada. It is an award that is supposed to unify Canadians and generate some kind of pride among the population. The recipient’s actions should be an example of good citizenship. It is not usually bestowed on a person who has taken an active role in ending human life.

However, let’s examine the strict criteria for being nominated for the Order of Canada.

Raphael has suggested that Morgentaler deserves the award "precisely because he is controversial, not in spite of it. His lasting contribution to changing the way we look at abortion in Canada has defined the spirit of that debate ever since. "

Well, if controversy is the criteria, then I can think of lots of people who deserve the award.

The official website explains the criteria as follows:

The Order of Canada is the centrepiece of Canada’s honours system and recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation. The Order recognizes people in all sectors of Canadian society. Their contributions are varied, yet they have all enriched the lives of others and made a difference to this country.

A lifetime of outstanding achievement? - Notorious achievement perhaps.

Dedication to the community? - Well perhaps the pro-choice community.

A service to the nation? - In pragmatic terms, I suppose it could be considered a service that we don’t have millions of unwanted children. And perhaps the lives of many women have been saved and enriched because of Morgentaler. However, what about the lives of the females and males in Canada who were never given the opportunity to draw their first breath?

Judy Rebick says "millions of women owe their lives to the 85-year-old Morgentaler "because he put his life on the line, his freedom, his liberty and his health to defend women’s right to choice."

Millions owe their deaths to him too.

As the Order of Canada motto states, DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (They desire a better country.)

Well, the unborn deserve a better country. They deserve some kind of abortion law.

And that is not Morgentaler’s fault. It is yours and mine.

We’re the ones who vote in the weak-kneed politicians who are afraid to even discuss the subject.

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Update: Or maybe it’s really just all about diversity… and Lord knows we love diversity in this country:

An independent council of up to 12 Canadians who reflect the "diversity and excellence in Canadian society" advise the governor-general on who should receive the Order of Canada, sifting through at least 700 nominations for the honour each year…

I wonder how many unborn Canadians won’t be getting the Order of Canada because of Henry Morgentaler?

What great advances in medicine and technology have we lost?

How many nameless faces of "Canadian diversity and excellence" have never been given a chance to let their light shine?

Afternoon Update: A symbol of moral decay - Ian Hunter (Post)

Honouring a remorseless extremist - Barbara Kay (Post)

Besmirching the Order - Post editorial.

Abortion activist says he deserves appointment to Order of Canada - Canwest.

Morgentaler ‘proud’ to be finally recognized - CTV .

The leftist leanings of the Order of Canada are detailed here - Order carries history of rebukes (Post)

Thursday Update: Panel divided on crusader’s nomination, vote suggests - Globe.

Crusader???

And the Sun’s Connie Woodchuck won’t read your emails and doesn’t care what you think:

…I’m just sorry not all Canadian women have access to abortion even now. For those without much money, who live in isolated areas or near a church-run hospital, it’s as far away as ever.

(And skip the raging anti-abortion e-mails. I won’t read them. Been there; done that. Don’t care what you think any more.)

I wonder if her editor would read the emails.

And here’s a lovely quote from Morgentaler himself:

…He said opposition to abortion on religious grounds does not trouble him, "as long as they are not allowed to influence other people, by force or by any other means."

‘Or by any other means’? What the flick does that mean? Are we still allowed to talk about this?

In a society that focuses more and more on the wants and needs of adults, I suppose it’s not surprising that we now have situations in Canada where women are suing for ‘wrongful birth’. Today’s National Post tells several stories of such women - Seeking solace in law when a baby is a burden.

In some cases, sterilization operations failed. In others, abortions failed and the family was left with the burden of raising a healthy, beautiful child.

In a recent New Brunswick decision, a woman was awarded $80,000 to cover costs of raising her child who was born due to a botched tubal ligation:

Much was her shock, then, when, barely a year later, she became pregnant. She eventually gave birth to a healthy baby girl. But just over a month ago, a judge ruled in favour of the lawsuit she had filed over the sterilization blunder, awarding the mother $80,000 in damages.

"Sometimes the birth of a child is not a blessing. It is often a burden," Madam Justice Paulette Garnett of the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench wrote in her judgment.

"Medical science has made it possible for families to limit the number of children they have, and, in this country, the vast majority of them do … The fact that (she) now treasures her unplanned child is irrelevant. It is relevant that she has to feed, clothe and educate her."

Two questions here. One is addressed at the end of the article:

Merely calculating the impact of a child in purely financial terms could be problematic, suggests Duncan Embury, a Toronto malpractice lawyer.

"If the cost of raising a child constitutes damages, what if the child then goes on to become a professional athlete? … A child can be an economic advantage as well as disadvantage."

So, what happens if this New Brunswick child does end up being a huge economic advantage to her parents? Do they have to return the money?

This is what happens when we view children as commodities - providing either a net gain or a net loss to the couple’s bottom line.

How cold and unfeeling. Worse is the thought that this poor child could someday learn that not only was she unwanted, but that her mother actually went to court to sue for the burden that she represented.

What a selfish, self-centered society we’ve become.

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Update : Great letter in Wednesday’s National Post by Diane Wood of Newmarket:

Re: Seeking Solace In Law When Baby Is A Burden, May 17.

A child is the result of the love of a man and a woman, their love made flesh. Why would anyone consider a child to be a bad thing? My husband and I have had eight children, and we would gladly have more. We show our love for each other by having and raising our children; we have learned to be less selfish by learning to love our children and sacrifice for them. It’s not always easy, but we become better people by learning to accept the challenges life sends us.

One of our children died shortly after birth. Maybe I should have sued for I was very excited about that child, and it’s not fair that I do not have her. Any mature adult knows that life never goes the way we plan it. Yet we become mature and wise by learning to accept setbacks.

Rather than awarding damages to a mother after her "sterilization or abortion blunder," why not award the child to someone who would not consider he or she a burden?

Dianne Wood, Newmarket, Ont.

And that last sentence is exactly my point. Thank you for writing that letter, Diane.

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BTW, I hear that some folks are quite perturbed that I haven’t allowed every comment to be published. Well, you have every right to rant and rave about that on your own blogs.

And I have every right to decide which comments I allow.

Because, you see, its my blog .

Is the value of the life of the newborn the next step down the slippery slope? That is what today’s National Post editorial seems to be suggesting. (Born unto Walmart)

The fact that this woman chose a Walmart toilet cubicle as a birthing room is rather symbolic itself - discarding unwanted ’solid waste’ in a store that sells a high volume of low-priced goods in a throw-away society. Gee, I wonder if she picked up some discount toilet paper on the way out.

(Kudos, BTW to the Walmart manager that saved the baby’s life!)

As I was discussing yesterday, George Jonas reminds us of how we tend to overvalue a woman’s right to self-fulfillment at the expense of new life:

Living in an epoch that is selfish as well as matriarchal, of all the styles that we shield from being cramped, we put women’s style first. We invent euphemisms, such as “choice” for killing, and sophomoric dilemmas, such as pretending not to know when life begins, to ensure that nothing hinders Virginia’s quest for Santa Claus. No obstacle must interfere with her goal of self-fulfillment — least of all an issue (as it were) of her healthy sexual appetite. There’s plenty of babies where this one came from, eh, Ginny? And if not, we can always import some from Somalia.

What the writer of the Post editorial seems to be railing about, and with which I agree, is that society is far too compassionate or lenient towards the type of woman who commits this horrible act. Leaving a newborn face down in Walmart toilet is far different from ringing a doorbell and leaving the baby on someone’s front porch.

But here’s the paragraph that bothered me:

We have never subjected them to the same treatment as murderers. But we have never treated the drowning of infants as acceptable, either. One hopes, not so much for the sake of future babies as for ourselves, that this will not change. We have, by and large, learned to reluctantly accept a legal philosophy that endows an infant with the full human package of moral claims and entitlements to protection only at birth, and no sooner. Is the line to be pushed forward still further in the name of compassion for reckless mothers?

Who is “we”? The royal “we”? The editorial board “we”? Or are they suggesting that “we as a society” have learned to accept that an infant is only a person once they leave their mothers’ body?

Because that, I will never accept.