CBC News - Politics - Liberal contraception motion opposed by Tories
In the Commons can the Conseravitives find safety in numbers?
In the Commons can the Conseravitives find safety in numbers?
Politicians opening mouth to change feet? Goooo figure. lolWhen Rae made reference to "failed right-wing ideologies", he'd put his foot in his mouth right there. By equating a vote in favour of the availability of contraception to a vote in opposition to right-wing ideologies, he'd essentially made it difficult for self-identified right-leaning MPs to vote for it even if they agreed with his idea in principle, since voting for contraception would thus mean voting against right-wing ideologies in their mind. Clearly Rae did not really intend for the bill to pass but rather just to take a cheap shot at the Conservatives.
Oh, but of course Co-operation Minister Bev Oda was no smarter by equating contraception with abortion. One is preventative, the other reactionary. If she can't tell the difference between contraception and abortion, should she really be in her position?
And then she turns to accusations of "rash, extreme anti-American rhetoric". Yes, Rae did ask for that, but by bringing it up again, she's just keeping it alive and now equating support for contraception with opposition to the US, which implies that opposition to contraception is a sign of Americo-philia. Needless to say that people on both sides of the issue who don't want to turn this into a pro vs anti-American issue will turn against both Rae and Oda.
And as if Rae was not stupid enough with the earlier comment, he then comes up with "This is an opportunity for the government to clear the air and vote for the resolution, making it very clear, that we’re not going to allow ideology to trump science," clearly suggesting that by voting in favour of this, the Conservatives are somehow implicitly confessing to error. Does he not understand human nature? Either he never intended for this to pass in the first place and was merely trying to score political brownie points with the masses, or he' really stupid when it comes to understanding human nature.
But sure enough, Oda isn't going to let Rae drag himself lower than she can drag herself (the race to the bottom is on, and the gloves are off). So she comes up with this gem:
"transparent attempt to reopen the abortion debate that we have clearly said we have no intention to getting into."
Again, he never mentioned abortion, but rather contraception. You/d think that after a bit of time to think about it she'd have caught on. But oh no, she's still stuck in the abortion issue, an issue Rae never even brought up. She did!
I could go on, but this is clearly a schoolyard fight among grown adult politicians.
Even from a religious standpoint, no religion that I'm aware of has ever explicitly banned contraception in its sacred texts. Sure the Vatican bans it, but that's based on ex-cathedra papal rulings and not the Bible. So essentially the Vatican is the only religious body that explicitly bans contraception.
All the others that I know of leave it to their respective followers to decide for themselves.
Politicians opening mouth to change feet? Goooo figure. lol
Just to make a point here, if I were a politician in a Parliament comprising a large right-leaning segment, and wanted to get a bill passed, instead of taking political jabs at the right, I'd try instead to present the bill in such a way as to allow the right to either save or gain face, and would also point out how this bill conforms to right-leaning ideas in some way or other.
The same of course would apply in reverse if it were a significantly left-leaning Parliament. You don't get people to support your idea by insulting them.
A person who can't figure that out should be flipping burgers at McDonald's and not deciding national policy.
Come on. The motions of members of the opposition parties have always been for political show. Seldom are these motions taken seriously, even by those who propose them. Rae was simply making a political point; that being that the Harper government is as much tied to the fundamentalist Christian religion of its leader as it is to any well thought out policy.
"The motion tonight is that we were simply asking for the government of Canada to commit to the position that Canada has held for 25 years, which is to defend women's right of access to the full range of reproductive health services overseas," Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff told reporters after the vote.