I didn’t realize until today just how angry I am at this mealy-mouthed, utterly lame, irrational excuse of an argument from someone who claims to be in favour of civil liberties. Alan Borovoy wrote this piece as general counsel emeritus of The Civil Liberties Association of Canada. This association, from what I can tell, is apparently happy that we have political prisoners in Canada in the person of Linda Gibbons, who, for no reason whatsoever, has spent close to ten years behind bars. This purported excuse of a civil liberties association has, to my knowledge made no attempt to defend Linda, who has been IN JAIL for walking on a public sidewalk. What a third-rate excuse for civil liberties this is, that lets Canadians go to jail for the simple act of totally and completely peaceful protest.
A total and utter shame.
Fortunately, my friend Faye addresses some of Mr. Borovoy’s nonsense here, as does Kelly McParland. Three cheers for both of them.
No cheers for a “civil liberties association” that isn’t worth the paper their business cards are written on.
PS. If I’m wrong and they have defended Linda Gibbons, anytime now would be a good time to let me know about that and the mea culpa post will be immediately forthcoming.
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Alan Borovoy has been Pro Choice for a long time and his writings always conform to a support of ‘freedom’ for abortion. A quote from 1989; “that person(the one determined to have life from conception) should not have the right to commandeer the coercive power of the state to keep it inside the body of someone who doesn’t want it”. I can’t find where the basis for doling out rights comes from in this thinking however it is an impassioned statement for ‘abortion rights’ regardless. Makes one wonder how strong the statement would be if the author was arguing for the rights of ‘that person .. (who) .. is inside the body’. If the basis for the discussion of this issue is ‘wants’ then shouldn’t one be considering the ‘wants’ of that other person?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the pro-abortion argument amounts to: who cares if a human being has to die in the name of female empowerment? My education, my career, my relationship, my stuff, my neediness, my everything is more important than my child’s life. Basically ,they’re trying to make a consistent argument so that prima facie abortion is rationally justified, but they don’t really believe that, because they would never accept that any other human being have to die for someone else.
Agree with you 100% Andrea. We have political prisoners here in Canada, and that is a serious civil liberities issue that ought to be some kind of priority for an organization calling itself “The Civil Liberties Association of Canada”.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association: “We defend our freedom to do whatever he hell we want to do, and you can’t tell us otherwise.” Freedom to act however you will? Sure. Freedom to speak as you will? Not so much.
On the other hand, guess which freedom is protected by the Charter?
Here’s another argument that can be used to rebut Mr. Borovoy’s opinion.
http://lti-blog.blogspot.ca/2012/10/more-thoughts-on-bodily-rights-argument.html
On the upside, that Mr. Borovoy is arguing means that the debate is now entering he legal community. That is a great development. Lawyers and doctors, that is who needs to be involved in this debate.