A reaction to our Ottawa Citizen opinion piece, here. I especially like this bit:
What Brigitte Pellerin and Andrea Mrozek failed to take into account in their main objection to unregulated abortion is that making any sort of regulation, however seemingly harmless (such as regulating late-term abortions, which rarely happen save for medical emergencies) or even “good” (harsher penalties for criminals who kill a fetus in the process of committing a crime) will set a legal precedent that will be impossible to reverse or ignore.
As soon as there is even one regulation on abortion, more will be able to follow, and much more easily after that precedent is set, until eventually, abortion is no longer legal.
Two things: A) We do take this into account even though we are not actually trying to get legislation passed that would limit access to abortion – see here for details. But more importantly: B) Why is it that “as soon as there is even one regulation on abortion, more will be able to follow”? This letter writer is not the first one to make that point. But as far as I know nobody has explained why… Why, do you think?
Because once you start thinking about what abortion actually is, it becomes a lot harder to justify allowing (or worse, condoning) it, to the tune of 100,000 cases a year in this country alone, maybe?
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Andrea adds: What I absolutely love about this letter is it lays out what I’ve been saying for quite some time: That pro-abortion activists can’t have a debate, because debate (freedom of speech) leads to thinking–and thinking about abortion and what it does leads to curtailing the practice. Which very much means most Canadians have their hearts in the right place and are against killing our smallest–the powerful should not have indiscriminate rights over the powerless.
On a sarcastic note, I’d say this to her–sure, I’d take the good at the expense of the perfect. The good being some limitation on abortion, the perfect, the ideal being to remove all abortion from the Canadian landscape in favour of real compassionate help for women.
by 
What the author of that letter fails to understand is that in the 1988 R v. Morgentaler decision the Supreme Court clearly stated its expectation that Parliament would create legislation to restrict abortion:
“The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state’s interest in its protection becomes “compelling” I leave to the informed judgment of the legislature which is in a position to receive guidance on the subject from all the relevant disciplines.”
It also unequivocally rejected the ‘right’ to abortion:
“The proposition that women enjoy a constitutional right to have an abortion is devoid of support in either the language, structure or history of the constitutional text, in constitutional tradition, or in the history, traditions or underlying philosophies of our society.
Historically, there has always been a clear recognition of a public interest in the protection of the unborn and there is no evidence or indication of general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our society. The interpretive approach to the Charter adopted by this Court affords no support for the entrenchment of a constitutional right of abortion.”
Honestly, I think we need to start using the Morgentaler decision as tool when it comes to getting pro-life legislation passed (how would that be for irony!).
Why should the logic of that letter be only applied to abortion?
Hey, I’m against having speed limits. Having a single speed limit sets a legal precedent that will result in even lower limits until no one is able to legally drive at all.
I’m sure there’s a million examples to show how ridiculous that rationale is.