Enough already. Make it law, Justin.
You know: a law ensuring that abortion is always available to Canadian women.
He can do that. But he won’t, because abortion is useful to keep around, as a political wedge. A wedge between the Trudeau Liberals and the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives.
But — you can almost set your watch by this sophistry — the Trudeau Liberals are behind the Conservatives in the polls. So they’ve trotted out the abortion issue. Again. Tweets, videos, you name it. Team Trudeau want everyone to know they favour choice, and the Poilievre gang don’t.
Sigh. Okay. Isn’t it settled, in Canada? That abortion is legal, forever and ever?
apple.news
If by “legal” you mean protected by statute, or the Constitution, or an unambiguous ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, no, it isn’t.
We don’t actually have a law protecting abortion in Canada. We have, instead, the absence of a law prohibiting it.
We used to prohibit it. It used to be a crime, in fact. It was right there in section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Back then, you could only get an abortion if you had the approval of something called a Therapeutic Abortion Committee. In a hospital.
So, Dr. Henry Morgantaler and a couple of other doctors decided to offer abortions without the approval of a Therapeutic Abortion Committee. Which was a crime.
They did it deliberately, to give them standing to challenge the anti-abortion law. Which they proceeded to do.
All cards on the table: this writer is strongly, unreservedly in favour of abortion. I’ve proudly taken women to get abortions, and I worked with Morgantaler around the time of the 2000 federal election.
His legal challenge was the right thing to do, and it worked. In 1988, Canada’s highest court struck down the country’s abortion law.
Siding with the majority, Justice Bertha Wilson wrote: “The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.”
That was important, obviously. A woman’s body belongs to her, not the government. But there was one other important part of the Morgantaler decision.
The Supreme Court’s majority also said this: “It is possible that a future enactment by Parliament … could achieve a proportionality which would be acceptable.”
See that? They emphasized the point, too: a law about abortion would be “a proper exercise of Parliament’s criminal law power.”
Acceptable. Proper.
So, where has Parliament been in the intervening decades? Why haven’t they passed an acceptable and proper new law, as no less than the highest court in the land invited them to do?
apple.news
Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper and — now — the aforementioned Justin Trudeau: all of them presided over Parliamentary majorities. Any one of them could have passed a new law. They had the explicit permission of the Supremes to do so.
They didn’t, of course. Chretien was my boss, he was smart, and he didn’t want to reopen a debate that would be divisive and dangerous.
“We have had social peace on the question of abortion,” Chretien said in 2000, opposing Stockwell Day’s stated willingness to criminalize the practice.
And so, that’s how things remained in the years that followed. Abortion, while not specifically legalized, wasn’t illegal anymore, either.
And yes, idiots in various political parties would periodically try and reopen the abortion debate with a Private Member’s’ Bill or a petition or whatever. But Messrs. Chretien, Martin and Harper would just shut them down. Sometimes, they’d even boot the troublemaker out of caucus, or eliminate them as election candidates.
Now, let Justin be really really clear, or both of them be really really really really clear I guess:
So, you ask, why is Justin Trudeau trying to scare people about abortion again, when he is the guy — he, him — who can ensure that it is never challenged again by passing a Charter-proofed law?
apple.news
Because he cares more about votes than making abortion completely legal once and for all, that’s why.
It’s cynical, it’s dishonest, it’s disgusting. It’s classic Justin Trudeau, in other words.
Enough already.
You know: a law ensuring that abortion is always available to Canadian women.
He can do that. But he won’t, because abortion is useful to keep around, as a political wedge. A wedge between the Trudeau Liberals and the Pierre Poilievre Conservatives.
But — you can almost set your watch by this sophistry — the Trudeau Liberals are behind the Conservatives in the polls. So they’ve trotted out the abortion issue. Again. Tweets, videos, you name it. Team Trudeau want everyone to know they favour choice, and the Poilievre gang don’t.
Sigh. Okay. Isn’t it settled, in Canada? That abortion is legal, forever and ever?
KINSELLA: Justin Trudeau could ensure abortion is never challenged again — Toronto Sun
But the Prime Minister cares more about votes than making abortion completely legal once and for all
We don’t actually have a law protecting abortion in Canada. We have, instead, the absence of a law prohibiting it.
We used to prohibit it. It used to be a crime, in fact. It was right there in section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada. Back then, you could only get an abortion if you had the approval of something called a Therapeutic Abortion Committee. In a hospital.
So, Dr. Henry Morgantaler and a couple of other doctors decided to offer abortions without the approval of a Therapeutic Abortion Committee. Which was a crime.
They did it deliberately, to give them standing to challenge the anti-abortion law. Which they proceeded to do.
All cards on the table: this writer is strongly, unreservedly in favour of abortion. I’ve proudly taken women to get abortions, and I worked with Morgantaler around the time of the 2000 federal election.
His legal challenge was the right thing to do, and it worked. In 1988, Canada’s highest court struck down the country’s abortion law.
Siding with the majority, Justice Bertha Wilson wrote: “The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.”
That was important, obviously. A woman’s body belongs to her, not the government. But there was one other important part of the Morgantaler decision.
The Supreme Court’s majority also said this: “It is possible that a future enactment by Parliament … could achieve a proportionality which would be acceptable.”
See that? They emphasized the point, too: a law about abortion would be “a proper exercise of Parliament’s criminal law power.”
Acceptable. Proper.
So, where has Parliament been in the intervening decades? Why haven’t they passed an acceptable and proper new law, as no less than the highest court in the land invited them to do?
KINSELLA: Justin Trudeau could ensure abortion is never challenged again — Toronto Sun
But the Prime Minister cares more about votes than making abortion completely legal once and for all
Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell, Jean Chretien, Paul Martin, Stephen Harper and — now — the aforementioned Justin Trudeau: all of them presided over Parliamentary majorities. Any one of them could have passed a new law. They had the explicit permission of the Supremes to do so.
They didn’t, of course. Chretien was my boss, he was smart, and he didn’t want to reopen a debate that would be divisive and dangerous.
“We have had social peace on the question of abortion,” Chretien said in 2000, opposing Stockwell Day’s stated willingness to criminalize the practice.
And so, that’s how things remained in the years that followed. Abortion, while not specifically legalized, wasn’t illegal anymore, either.
And yes, idiots in various political parties would periodically try and reopen the abortion debate with a Private Member’s’ Bill or a petition or whatever. But Messrs. Chretien, Martin and Harper would just shut them down. Sometimes, they’d even boot the troublemaker out of caucus, or eliminate them as election candidates.
Now, let Justin be really really clear, or both of them be really really really really clear I guess:
So, you ask, why is Justin Trudeau trying to scare people about abortion again, when he is the guy — he, him — who can ensure that it is never challenged again by passing a Charter-proofed law?
KINSELLA: Justin Trudeau could ensure abortion is never challenged again — Toronto Sun
But the Prime Minister cares more about votes than making abortion completely legal once and for all
Because he cares more about votes than making abortion completely legal once and for all, that’s why.
It’s cynical, it’s dishonest, it’s disgusting. It’s classic Justin Trudeau, in other words.
Enough already.
