Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows

This title is actually a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare. It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster. Over the years it has morphed into the more familiar phrase: "Politics makes strange bedfellows." But I'm inclined in this case to use it in its original context.

You see, the pro-life movement is really in the ascendancy according to public opinion polls, but still finds itself on the periphery in terms of the public debate. It seems here in Canada that despite the public's desire for a swing in the life v. abortion pendulum in the direction of reasonable accommodation of choice while putting certain safeguards in place with respect to the choices being made, the status quo--no abortion law, unrestricted choice, illogical argumentation when choice is not even at issue--prevails. Thus my reference to misery in the title. Like Cassandra of old, it's miserable to be always right and never believed.

[Cassandra was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy whose beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy. However, when she did not return his love, Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions, including her warnings about the Trojan horse.]

Unexpectedly, the pro-life cause is being aided and abetted to some extent by those whom one would plant squarely on the "access to abortion" side. There are a surprising number of people who label themselves as pro-choice who are arguing either for fuller information for women, greater emphasis on alternatives to abortion, or for significant restrictions on access to abortion that the majority of Canadian parliamentarians and much of the Canadian media reject at this time. I have referred to some of these 'fellows' in previous posts, but thought it useful to put them all together in the one bed.

So here's whom I have been sleeping with lately:

1. Senator Hilary Clinton, quite possibly the next president of the United States of America:

[Abortion is] a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. There is no reason why government cannot do more to educate and inform and provide assistance so that the choice guaranteed under our constitution either does not ever have to be exercised or only in very rare circumstances

Keep in mind that the abortion laws are already much more restrictive in the U.S. Though important Supreme Court rulings known as Roe, Doe and Casey limit the power of states to regulate or ban abortion, nearly every state has some sort of law limiting abortion. About 80% ban non-therapeutic abortion in the last three months of pregnancy. Many have parental notice or consent laws for minors, waiting periods, informed consent and statistical reporting requirements for all abortions.

2. Elizabeth May, leader of Canada's federal Green Party:

I think 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.
. . .
[W]hat 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 have ever induced me to.

3. Lord Steel, who as a British M.P. introduced the bill that led to the legalization of abortion in the United Kingdom. Britain limits abortions to the first 24 weeks of the pregnancy. Some are calling for a reduction to 20-22 weeks.

The former David Steel, who as a Liberal backbencher in 1967 put forward the bill legalizing abortion, said: "Everybody can agree there are too many abortions." He added: "I accept that there is a mood now which is that if things go wrong you can get an abortion, and it is irresponsible, really."

Asked whether abortion is being used as a form of contraception, the 69-year-old Liberal Democrat peer admitted in an interview with The Guardian: "I am afraid it is." He said he never anticipated "anything like" the current number of terminations - 200,000 a year...."I think people find it very repugnant to think you are getting close to the point where you are not dealing with a foetus [at 24 weeks in the womb] but with the possibility of a baby," he told BBC News.

4. Dr. Henry Morgentaler, pioneer Canadian abortionist who in 2005 received an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Western Ontario for his championing of women's rights.

"We don't abort babies, we want to abort fetuses before they become babies," Morgentaler said from his Toronto clinic. "Around 24 weeks I have ethical problems doing that." Morgentaler said the late-term abortions are mainly performed on women who have learned of severe birth defects during tests performed late in pregnancy and on teenage girls who have tried to hide their pregnancy.

"What we do at our clinics is if we have a problem like that we usually counsel the woman to continue the pregnancy and put it up for adoption if she is unable to care for it," he said.

5. Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and possible U.S. presidential candidate, who has said that he personally "abhors abortion':

I believe the best way we can have common ground in this debate that you're hearing is if we put our emphasis on reducing abortions and increasing the number of adoptions, which is something that I did as mayor of New York City.

6. Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Nancy Keenan, the president of the national NARAL group, is also stressing prevention. Her organization ran an advertisement last year explicitly inviting the "right-to-life movement" to join in an effort to "help us prevent abortions." Usually, NARAL's allies refer to abortion opponents as "anti-choice," so the conciliatory language itself was a welcome departure. At the federal level, NARAL is pushing for a bill promoting contraception introduced by Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, an opponent of abortion.

7. Al Gore, Environmentalist, Nobel Prize winner and former vice-president of the United States, who said in 1998 that abortions should be safe, legal and rare:

On the issue of partial-birth or so-called late-term abortion, I would sign a law banning that procedure, provided that doctors have the ability to save a women's life or to act if her health is severely at risk (debate in 2000 with George W. Bush).

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Let's see now...to summarize the key points of each of these individuals:

1. Abortion is a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women.
2. Nobody in their right mind is for abortion.
3. There is a mood now which is that if things go wrong you can get an abortion, and it is irresponsible, really.
4. We don't abort babies (i.e., a fetus after 24 weeks).
5. We should put our emphasis on reducing abortions and increasing adoptions.
6. We want pro-lifers to help us prevent abortions.
7. I would ban virtually all partial-birth abortions, and make all abortions rare.

Isn't that what the students' union at Capilano College called hate-speech towards women? I guess we won't be seeing these fear-mongering, women-hating, anti-choice fundamentalists like Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Henry Morgentaler, Al Gore, etc. on the Capilano campus any time soon. My heavens, a bad case of free speech and full information might break out.