May 29, 2013 (Ottawa)—Today ProWomanProLife acknowledges the death of Dr. Henry Morgentaler and offers sincere condolences to his family and friends.
For many thousands of women across Canada, this is a day to mourn the sorrow and pain he has caused precisely because he made abortion mainstream. His life, marked by suffering itself as a survivor of the Holocaust, was one in which he “treated” a woman’s suffering with the death of her unborn child.
Morgentaler is not a hero. To the contrary: many Canadians mourn that he remained unrepentant, to the best of our knowledge, unlike the famous abortion doctor and founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League in the United States, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who became vociferously pro-life after seeing abortion for what it is: the killing of an innocent child.
Morgentaler’s death cannot pass by without remembrance for the women, who, in their hour of need faced a doctor who instead of reminding them of the humanity they carry and hope for the future, told them the unborn are merely a clump of cells.
“I never saw a woman enter or leave an abortion clinic joyfully. Morgentaler marked the creation of an era in which ‘I don’t want to do this, but I must’ became strangely, the hallmark of triumph for women’s rights,” says Andrea Mrozek, director of ProWomanProLife.
“In the public sphere, his passing will not be without mourning for those he chose not to see—first and foremost women with all their natural reproductive capabilities and second, the many thousands of lives taken before they breathed their first breath.”
Where the public actions of a man are wrong, it is impossible to speak soothing platitudes at the time of his death. Morgentaler, time will show, stood on the wrong side of history and it is for this reason that ProWomanProLife makes this statement today; that the historical record may show that many Canadian women did not admire Dr. Henry Morgentaler.
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I remember seeing Dr. Morgentaler about thirty years ago, marching down Sparks Street in Ottawa accompanied by several angry-looking women whom, I assume, were his feminist supporters. At the time, I did not know who he was, but I sensed decay and despair emanating from him. I will never forget that day, or the images that were evoked when someone subsequently mentioned his name to me.
The other disgusting image that comes to mind is that of former GG Michaelle Jean presenting Morgentaler with the Order of Canada, and later heading to Mexico City for a photo op of her venerating the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe, who is the Protector of the Unborn.
Andrea,
Thank you for posting this. I went to the Globe and Mail article linked by Faye and was saddened and frankly astonished by all the comments calling him a brave man. What is it about Canadians that they can’t or won’t see the horror of abortion, even after the Gosnell horrors were exposed?
Not only were there RIP notes – ironic in itself, isn’t it, consderig they must come from Latin prayers for the dead, Requiescat in Pace traditionally associated with religion – but so many took the time to hurl names at opponents of abortion.
Is it just the G&M, or do Canadian women truly feel that way?
Thank you for your ongoing work to prevent the truth from being buried.
I would just like to take this opportunity to stand up (again) and say that I, a Canadian woman don’t think Morgentaler was a hero, and I have only contempt for the legacy he left Canada.
I never saw a woman enter or leave an abortion clinic joyfully.
Do you always hang out around abortion clinics, Andrea?
It was not Morgentaler who “made abortion mainstream.” It was the people of this country who made Morgentaler and through him abortion mainstream.
He was duly acquitted by more than one jury. The Order of Canada was only one honor of many bestowed on him. The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs honored him.
“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.” (Luke 17:2)
RIP? No.
Never really could see how Morgentaler construed the National Socialism he suffered under as the genesis for his work for abortion. The National Socialism he witnessed was a government which promoted death. His work in Canada was to oppose governments which protected life.
Poignant words… here is ‘My Question for Morgentaler’ http://wp.me/p3jjpD-23
Henry Morgentaler did end years of oppression and hypocrisy. And by providing safe abortions, he brought choice and freedom, solace and a solutiion for the unbearable fears and torment that women who got pregnant for whatever reason in circumstances in which they believed they could not and should not bring an unwanted baby into this world. He is my hero. I come from Ireland where the oppression and hypocrisy surrounding abortion still continues. Abortion is still not allowed in the republic of Ireland and thousands of Irish women have to go to the UK to have an abortion. Ireland has the abysmal history of the Magdalene Laundries and of many, many babies taken off single mothers and sent to the US and other countries with the collusion of the Irish Catholic Church and the Irish Government…shameful, horrific. Of course women should do everything possible to avoid pregnancy and there is so much contraception available now which was not the case prior to the ’70s and ’80s.
I send my condolences to Henry’s family and friends. He was a courageous, caring, compassionate man.
Christine Collins Kelowna BC.
Henry Morgentaler was not a hero. He spent his life inserting vacuum aspirators into women’s vaginas and sucking out the contents. What a response to life. I only hope that Ireland does not go the way of the rest of the Western World.
Christine and her ilk believe that if a child is wanted it deserves to live, to get a chance to be born, and that if the born child is taken away from the mother it is shameful and horrific. But if a child is not wanted it gets no chance at all except being sucked out and thrown into the incinerator. I fail to see why removing the just born child from the mother is shameful and the other is heroic. Except of course that you assume that the single mothers all wanted their babies once born. None of it makes logical sense.
A human being does not get its intrinsic worth based on whether it is wanted or not. A child has the right to be born not be wanted. And the reality is that in this day and age, all children are wanted by somebody.
I speak as one who was raped and became pregnant and had the baby not because I wanted the baby but because I knew I was carrying a living being who was not me that I had no right to kill. To kill the baby or the fetus if you will was murder. So, I didn’t. Want has nothing to do with it because I knew thousands out there would want her.
Just think what the world would be like if Morgentaler has responded to life by fighting for the unborn child and the women who carried them, by helping the women and helping the babies be adopted.
And as for the Magdalene Laundries, perhaps no one’s finest hour, but, as usual, they have been hysterically misrepresented because the Catholic Church is always evil.
Thank you for that, Mary Ann. You shouldn’t have to say to a woman that she is brave fo bringing her baby to term, but in your case I think we do have to say it. There would have been a fair bit of pressure for you to abort, and bringing a baby conceived by rape to term is definitely not considered the default position.
As for Irish women having to travel to England for abortions–well, when you consider that the distance between Ireland and England is far less than the distance between Saskatoon and Edmonton, and plenty of Saskatchewan women have to travel to Alberta to have an abortion, you can hardly say that Canadians have better access to abortion than the Irish. Having to travel a bit for a medically unnecessary, elective surgery is not really an undue hardship, especially when you consider that it is an elective surgery that very, very few doctors are willing to perform.
And as for the Irish laundries, well, they have been seriously, seriously misrepresented. One might even say that blatant lies have been told about them. Brendan O’Neill is an atheist, and hardly sympathetic to the Catholic Church.
I’m trying not to judge Morgentaler personally, and I pray for his soul, but it makes me sick when I hear everyone canonizing him for all the “good” he’s done. Wherever the man is now, his legacy is not one to be proud of. Thank you for your honesty.
I am always saddened when someone dies and I also pray for his soul but I did not nor will I ever condone what he did and I hope and pray that the day will soon come when there won’t be anyone who will perform an abortion nor anyone who will desire one.
Morgentaler was not a hero, he was not a person to regard as a role model in his personal life (a serial adulterer) nor in his professional life which was dealing death and billing the Canadian public. Indeed his numerous affairs make his obstinate pursuit of abortions a little self serving.
He broke the laws governing abortion and whilst the laws may have been unreasonable ( I don’t think they were), his flagrant and persistent contempt for the law has left us literally lawless.
I read with horror now that some women find it onerous to see the doctor to get a prescription for the pill. For some reason, they think this dangerous cancer inducing drug should be available over the counter! Why are we at war with out bodies?