Wanted: pro-life party leader

I thought we finally had a political leader, ready willing and able, to take on the pro-abortions in this country. Someone who was actually going to stand up and take a principled stand on abortion and call for it to be defunded.

But no, Tim Hudak, who I thought was pro-life, has changed his tune.

Yet there are good reasons why we should defund abortion.

In a recent "pro-choice" editorial on this story, the Ottawa Citizen made some misleading comments on the defunding of abortion:
"Abortion will continue to be funded in Ontario for the foreseeable future; to de-list it would likely violate the Charter - as would other legislation that blocked a woman's access to abortion. Furthermore, abortion is deemed a fundamental health-care service under the Canada Health Act."

First of all, the Charter never gave a woman a constitutional right to abortion, so defunding abortion couldn't violate the Charter. The ruling only struck down the existing law as unconstitutional, and the Court left it to Parliament to bring about a new law, which of course, it has never done. Since Parliament has never come up with a new law, abortion is allowed in Canada with no restrictions right up until birth. Abortion is legal but it isn't a charter right by anybody's definition except maybe the pro-abortions'.

Second, the Canada Health Act covers services that "are medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining health, preventing disease or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or disability". Abortion isn't medically necessary in most cases, so why do we publicly fund it? Pregnancy is a perfectly natural and healthy condition, without which, humankind would become extinct. Heart bypass operations, cutting out cancerous tumours and appendectomy's are all medically necessary because they save lives. These procedures should be, and are, covered by the Canada Health Act. Abortion only takes lives.

Third, the Canada Health Act makes no such claim that abortion is a "fundamental health-care service".

Finally, what do Canadians think about funding something that isn't medically necessary and isn't a fundamental health-care service? According to a recent poll commissioned by Sun Media taken by Abacus Poll Inc., only 45% of Canadians believed that legal abortions should be covered entirely by the public health care system. Another 22% felt that the public health care system should fund them only in extreme cases while 20% believed that they should be paid for by the patient.

It's too bad that Mr. Hudak wasn't advocating to defund abortion because a lot of people would support him. Instead, he chose to rip out a page from Stephen Harper's "I won't reopen the abortion debate because I want to win the election" hand-book.

I am looking forward to the day when we have a Canadian political leader who will stand up publicly, look Canadians in the eye, and say "Hey, I'm running for leadership -- and by the way -- did I tell you I'm pro-life and I will stand up for our unborn citizens?"

The day will come when this will happen. It's just too bad that it's taking so long.