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21st anniversary of the Morgentaler decision

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PWPL got started just over a year ago to remember today’s anniversary and to say clearly that Morgentaler is no champion of women’s rights. Here’s a short YouTube clip to get you better acquianted with the man himself.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuQhKIgasg&eurl=]

Look, it’s not, in my opinion, particulary great poetry. So I’m not going to spend tons of time delving into inner meanings. But given what Morgentaler has spent his life doing–I think it’s worth noting that he himself seems pretty conflicted over the whole business of who women are, and his relationship to them. Still want to read the book Morgentaler, A Difficult Hero–we disagree on the “hero” part; it’s the “difficult” part I’m interested in.

h/t Flaggman’s Canada

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Brigitte is shocked, shocked: The clip ends with the host starting to explain that the book is self-published. With a straight face… The guy deserves an award.

Embarrassing

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[Morgentaler] is hailed for not hesitating to “put himself at risk in his determined drive to increase health-care options for Canadian women.” The citation also adds Morgentaler has “heightened awareness of women’s reproductive health issues among medical professionals and the Canadian public.”

“Heightened awareness“? Sure, if they want to call it that. Let me just get my definitions straight. “Choice” means death and “heightened awareness” means no one ever says anything that falls even slightly short of adulation for abortion in the public eye without being persecuted. I guess that’s a form of awareness. Albeit along more fearful, Animal Farm sort of lines.

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Tanya finds that: “reproductive health issues” is NOT a euphemism for abortion. Don’t they have enough sugar-coated words already? I dare say that Morgentaler is not likely a revered expert on things like a satisfying sex-life, enabling women to go safely through a pregnancy, and providing couples with the best chance of having a healthy infant. (These are also all aspects of the WHO’s definition of reproductive health.)

Morgentaler practiced as a general practitioner and eventually became strictly an abortion doctor. He therefore does NOT have a “heightened awareness of women’s reproductive health issues among medical professionals.”

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Rebecca adds: Putting on my healthcare policy analyst hat, there are a lot of aspects of healthcare for Canadian women that need to be improved. We need both increased access to midwifery and also lower C-section and complication rates for women treated by obstetricians; more sophisticated treatment of endometriosis, so that women with this condition can have a higher quality of life without losing their fertility by having a hysterectomy; more research into HRT and other approaches to dealing with menopause; and a better appreciation of how drugs affect women, since most are tested on groups of (middle aged, usually white) men, who metabolize drugs differently and experience different side effects than women do in general.

Blanket access to abortion, at any time, for any reason doesn’t make my healthcare wishlist. But now that Morgentaler’s achieved that, surely he’ll turn his activism to these and other priorities, since he’s so devoted to increasing “healthcare options” for women, right?

Cardinal Turcotte sends back his medal

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To protest the Morgentaler award.

Turcotte explained his decision in a written statement released Thursday.

“I had accepted this honour on behalf of all those who, because of their faith in Jesus Christ, work in the social domain to serve the most disadvantaged of our society,” he wrote.

“I must admit that I had hoped that, in light of the large number of protests, the Consultative Council for the Order of Canada would revise its decision.

“Because it has not done so up to now and because silence on my part might be misinterpreted, I feel obliged in conscience to reaffirm my convictions regarding the respect for human life, from conception to death.

“We are not the masters of human life; it rests in the hands of God,” he said.

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Andrea adds: My first thought was something along the lines of “What took you so long?” But note he was hopeful that Morgentaler’s Order would be revoked, justice restored, and he could keep his. Well, good on the Cardinal, I say. Still hoping for others to do the same.

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Tanya says: There’s the expression, “Better late than never.” Then there’s the saying, “If you are hoping for change, be the change.” I still stand by the opinion that Cardinal Turcotte should have been among the first to send his medal back.

What if Henry Morgentaler looked like this?

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Perhaps the silliest argument in favour of the old abortionist: That if only we weren’t so anti-Semitic and bent on detesting ugly people, there wouldn’t be such an uproar over his induction into the Order of Canada.

Many years ago, Montreal Gazette cartoonist Terry Mosher, aka Aislin, published a cartoon that pictured Henry Morgentaler beside a handsome, waspish doctor with an Anglo-Saxon name and posited the question: Do you think if Henry Morgentaler looked like this, there would be this fuss?

We may never know how the debate on abortion might have unfolded if its leading proponent looked like George Clooney. Aislin, also named to the Order in 2003, made his point brilliantly, tacitly alluding to an unfortunate thread of anti-Semitism that also circulates about Morgentaler and his practice.

I’m sure there are pro-lifers who harbour anti-Semitic feelings. After all, there are imbeciles everywhere – including among journalists and politicians and (why not?) pro-choicers. But really, dude, you’re pushing it. On the other charge, that of finding Henry Morgentaler less visually pleasant to look at than certain famous surfing actors I could name, well, gosh, I plead guilty. I didn’t think that was the reason I opposed abortion, but hey.

About the strategy

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About officials and others reportedly boasting about their PR strategy, and about the fact that, as far as I can tell, most of the folks who wrote or phoned or emailed have been ignored…

I’m sorry: What else were you expecting? Protests and letters and phone calls and columns and what have you will not make one bit of difference – at least not officially. The people who are convinced Henry Morgentaler deserves the Order of Canada and who are in a position to make it happen already know what you think. And they don’t care. If anything, the sight of protests and the accumulation of letters is somewhat pleasant to them – gives them the impression they are being courageous. (I know. It is silly.)

So then… what? Same as what we were doing before this whole business came up. For my part, this means writing and talking and discussing the issue, hoping to convince women at least to think twice before having an abortion. Think about what abortion is, what it does to your body (to say nothing of what it does to that other body inside yours) and please avoid it – both for your sake and that of the little innocent being trapped inside you through no fault of his or her own. Not getting pregnant in the first place helps a lot. Understanding your body, how it works and what is likely to happen when you keep having unprotected sex helps keep Plan A on track. It’s not rocket science.

I am not discouraged – by the boasts, or opinion polls, or anything else. To me, doing anything that might help reduce the number of casual abortions is what matters. If I manage to convince one young woman that avoiding abortion is at least as important as making sure she’s ready to have kids before getting pregnant, it will have been worth it.

p.s. well, OK, some poll results are discouranging…

When truth bites the dust, nobody wins

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Writing something brilliant about Morgentaler’s nomination to the Order of Canada is difficult at this point, not only because the deed is done and trying to talk anybody out of it is futile, but also because the urge to scream injustice at the top of my lungs while setting my hair on fire hasn’t quite subsided. But my posting record has been rather lackluster since the end of the school year and if anything is worth dealing with the consequences of having five unattended children roaming about the house while I write, this must be it.

What I find so unjust about Morgentaler’s nomination is, once again, the absence of intelligent debate — as opposed to rhetoric, slogans and name-calling — surrounding matters of abortion. While pro-life advocates are not blameless in that matter, I believe that the failure to engage in intelligent debate rests more heavily on the shoulders of pro-abortion advocates, as the underhanded manner in which the Morgentaler nomination was managed shows. I am offended by the nomination, but I am more deeply offended that the process was planned to avoid any meaningful contribution from pro-life advocates. “We know what they think, we’ve made our decision, what’s the point in involving them?” Abortion is controversial but what is truly divisive is the lumping of all opposing opinions as “those we don’t want to hear.” Still, it takes two to be divided and I can’t say with certitude that, had the cultural momentum been in our favour, we wouldn’t have been guilty of the same offense. Now, here’s some food for thought.

Nowhere has the failure to engage in meaningful debate been more aptly illustrated than by Morgentaler himself in the wake of his nomination. This article reads like an assignment in “spot the falsehoods, rhetoric and name-calling.” Come on! Calling people anti-choice or anti-life doesn’t help anything. We are no more anti-choice than pro-choice are anti-life. We just believe that the choice to end a pregnancy is not a legitimate one, just like the choice to kill someone in revenge or the choice to kidnap a child or the choice to use another person for sexual gratification. Similarly, all pro-choice advocates have not had an abortion nor do they think that everybody should have one (unless they are population control zealots but that’s another story). The Catholic Church is not opposed to women’s rights. It just happens to think that women’s rights are not advanced by abortion because abortion fundamentally undermines women’s dignity. You might disagree but at least admit that there is something to talk about here. In the same vein, all pro-lifers are not Catholics nor will changing the Pope end opposition to abortion. I think that what disappointed me (almost) as much as seeing Morgentaler nominated was the pettiness and small-mindedness of the man himself. I can’t even look up to him as an intelligent contributor to the debate. He really debases the institution of the Order of Canada, not so much because of his expected position on abortion but because of his unwillingness (or inability) to engage meaningfully in a debate about what matters so much to him.

Hey, I thought ‘controversial’ wasn’t an obstacle…

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From today’s Ottawa Citizen:

[Margaret] Somerville is not a member of the Order of Canada. A nomination submitted a few years ago by Anglican minister and preaching professor Carol Finlay was unsuccessful. Ms. Finlay was told it was because Ms. Somerville was too controversial.

Or, as Andrew Coyne pointed out a few days ago about the idea that controversial or divisive figures should not necessarily be banned from receiving civilian honours:

I would have more sympathy with the argument if it ever applied in the opposite direction. But it never – ever – does. A figure as controversial as Morgentaler, but of the opposite convictions would, if he were not behind bars, be shunned by all of the organs of polite society.
This is not confined only to the abortion issue. It applies across the board. The arbiters of orthodoxy are not content with perpetually skewing every debate to one side. It is necessary also to pretend, wherever possible, that only one side exists.
Thus, for example, a Rosalie Abella of the right, should one exist, would have no hope of ever being appointed to the Supreme Court. The chorus that would rise up against such a “divisive” debate would be made up of exactly the same people who burbled contentedly at her appointment, and quite unaware of the irony.
I say this as someone who subscribes to many parts of the orthodoxy. But the smugness of it, the heedless insensitivity to other points of view, can be a little hard to take.

A fence-sitter writes…

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Gazette columnist Henry Aubin should not be counted among the tiny minority of Canadians who want to make all abortions illegal. Yet he is offended by the Morgentaler award.

Columnists are supposed to have strong opinions, but on the abortion issue I’ve been on the fence. The arguments on both sides of the question have left me torn.

As I see it, it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for women, many of them in trying personal situations, who seek abortions. As well, it’s impossible to wish to outlaw abortions when that would mean returning to their back-alley substitute, with all its inherent health risks.

Still, it’s impossible to ignore that the fetus is an incipient human being. And it’s impossible to shrug off the time-honoured view that human life is sacred.

So call me confused.

On the Morgentaler’s membership in the Order of Canada. however, I feel no ambivalence whatever.

The membership of the abortion-rights crusader, announced Tuesday, is not only an affront to his pro-life adversaries, it’s also offensive to a middle-ground type like myself.

How many more like him, I wonder?

For the record…

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Listening to CFRA, where Andrea is about to be interviewed again (that’s twice this morning), and Judy Rebick is on saying that the people speaking out against the appointment of Dr. Morgentaler to the Order of Canada are the small minority who want abortion illegal in all cases. Well, just so we all know, there are some people who do NOT wish to make abortion illegal in all cases who STILL object to honouring Dr. Morgentaler. I am one of them, and so is Andrea. Anybody else?

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Tanya adds: Brigitte, I’d have to answer that 70 to 80 per cent of Canadians may feel that way, too.

If Morgentaler cared so deeply about the legality of abortion, should he not have stuck around long enough to see an actual law be enacted in our country? Here we are, the only civilized country in the world to have no law regulation abortion, and he’s being honoured for it. For Pete’s sake, a woman may legally get an abortion later on in pregnancy than he is morally willing to perform one.

70 to 80 per cent of Canadians feel we need some sort of law (in the very least, to prevent very late term abortions). I’ve never seen him lobby for a law…and he’s had 20 years to do it. Unless Canada likes to honour people who do things halfway…

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Patricia adds: I’m trying hard to fight off complete despair for my country as a result of yesterday’s news. But it’s hard work.

The best spin I can put on it is as follows: why the push to honour this man now and why bestow the “honour” in such an underhanded manner?

Now, it may be that our elites are so used to dealing with a complacent and supine population that they figure they can do pretty much anything they want, particularly on a long weekend in July. From human rights tribunals to the Advisory Board of the Order of Canada, Canada’s elites are still counting on the fact that they can tell Canadians what to think and what to say; the fact that 300,000 people voted against conferring such an “honour” on Morgentaler as recently as February, with a laughable 26,000 in favour, matters not a whit to their view. Thanks for your input, Canada, but we’ll decide who was on the side of the angels on this issue and who isn’t, who is a hero and who isn’t.

Think about that: 300,000 people participating in an online poll. I wonder what other online poll on this country has attracted such numbers and such a disproportionate response.

I’m sure that some of the cloak and dagger theatrics of this weekend will be attributed to the security issues posed by all those “radical pro-life terrorist assassins” out there.

But (and here is the meagre shred of hope that I mentioned above), I don’t really think that anyone will buys that ruse. So the questions remain: why now, why the deviation from the usual process and why the secrecy. Did they realize that this was the only way they could pull it off, even in complacent old Canada? Is it just possible that they’re feeling that their moment is over; their movement is as old as “Dr” Morgentaler himself.

And for the record, I am against abortion in all circumstances. The usual “humane” exceptions don’t make sense to me. Abortions for reasons of “serious genetic conditions” (i.e., of the disabled because they’re disabled) horrify me. And if we argue that abortion is an assault on women as well as the unborn, then how do we justify offering it to the victim of rape and incest? Is it supposed to be part of their “recovery”?

Top ten things to know if Morgentaler gets the Order of Canada

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10. Can there be any debate? Once and for all, Canada’s elite are pro-abortion.

9. Canada’s elite can teach you how to think. It’s amazing. We are all unconflicted about abortion now.

8. When said elite knows there will be a public outcry and condemnation of honoured person in question, they’ll choose to bestow that mighty honour on a day when the better part of the country has escaped all modern communication, preferring instead to sit with a beer by a lake somewhere. Heck, even I almost missed this one, and I care deeply about this issue. My fellow Canadians are smart—a beer by a lake sounds perfect. In perpetuity. (Why oh why is the per cent of voters declining?)

7. The Conservative Party of Canada doesn’t care one bit about this issue.

6. Abortion is not private. The Order of Canada takes the thing to a whole new public level.

5. Men certainly can speak out on abortion—Morgentaler has and boy, did it ever work.

4. Canada is not as tolerant as we’d like to believe. (The essence of this award is to stick it to those across Canada who remain rightly conflicted on the topic of abortion.)

3. If enough Canadians protest an award, the person in question will most certainly get it. I am going to nominate—and then vociferously protest—someone I like.

2. Getting the Order of Canada is now officially, not an honour.

1. Abortion is not a closed question. Hold on for the ride, folks—this one ain’t over til it’s over. When the pro-abortion elite in the Governor General’s office raise this issue over a Canada Day holiday, well, let’s thank them. Nothing is sacred now.

 

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