A reader of my blog sent me a copy of a letter they wrote to Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, regarding his decree that pro-life persons would be disqualified from becoming Liberal candidates. I received permission from the writer to post the letter here.
The letter is quite long, but well worth the read.
November 8, 2014
Dear
Mr. Trudeau,
First
let me say, how thankful I am that you and all our MPs are safe after
last month’s attack on Parliament Hill. The experience no doubt
must have been terrifying. Such a threat is a sombre reminder of how
precious are our lives as well as our democratic institutions in
Canada. The brave men and women who put their lives at risk in
defence of what we so often take for granted surely are beacons of
light in dark times and an inspiration to all peace-loving Canadians.
The
main purpose of my letter to you today is to express my grave
concerns over your edict that “all Liberal MPs, regardless of their
personal views, would be expected to vote pro-choice”i
and over the narrative you have chosen to attempt to justify taking
this stance.
In a nutshell, you
say that “since 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada has recognized
that a woman’s right to a choice in this matter is a Charter
right.” You make a special point of highlighting your Catholic
upbringing and then go on to say that we must put the Charter
and the defense of “people’s rights” and “fundamental rights”
before our “personal views.”ii
With respect, Mr.
Trudeau, there are five serious problems with your attempted
justification:
Firstly, the Supreme
Court did not recognize a Charter right to
abortion in the 1988 Morgentaler decision.iii
The Supreme Court has never recognized a Charter right
to abortion. The Supreme Court has, on the other hand, recognized
that the state does have an interest in the protection of the
fetus, and on numerous occasions, including in Morgentaler,
has said that it is Parliament’s responsibility to legislate fetal
protection.iv
Secondly, your
argument that in order to defend human rights (i.e. “people’s
rights”) we must defend abortion rights, is a circular argument: it
is premised on the assumption that the fetal child has no human
rights to protect and that the only human being in the equation is
the woman—this is the very thing under dispute in the abortion
controversy. Those who oppose abortion do not do so because they
oppose women’s human rights, but because they support
human rights for both the preborn child and the woman.
Thirdly, your
starting assumption that the preborn child has no human rights to
protect is itself a “personal view.” I appreciate that you may
genuinely believe that the child ought not to receive any legal
protection before birth. But it is a personal view, a belief, an
opinion. Everyone’s views about what is good for society come from
somewhere. Our beliefs are informed by some underlying philosophy or
worldview, even if we are unable to articulate exactly what that
worldview is. Beliefs (i.e. views) about the preborn child that are
informed by the Catholic/Christian faith are no more “personal”
than beliefs informed by Atheism, for example.
Ultimately, the only
beliefs we have are “personal” ones because they are our own.
Each Member of Parliament will have their own personal beliefs,
whether informed by the Judaeo-Christian tradition or some other
religious faith or Secular Humanism, or Atheism, etc. Each of these
belief systems will help to inform the MP’s understanding of the
nature of the human person, and thus, the nature of abortion.
Fourthly, by
highlighting your Catholic upbringing and then going on to say that
we cannot let our “personal views” get in the way of defending
“people’s rights” and Charter rights, you imply that the
Catholic Church does not support human rights. Nothing could be
further from the truth.
And fifthly, and
perhaps most concerning, when you use your Catholic faith in this
manner, you potentially lead other Catholics astray. As a political
leader, your words carry a lot of weight. Those Catholics less
informed about their faith may believe from your words that even
faithful Catholics can, even must, support abortion rights. In this
way, you overstep the bounds of your authority which is in the
political realm, not the religious realm. Intentional or not, what
you are doing amounts to using your position of political power to
corrupt a Catholic person’s morals.
With respect, Mr.
Trudeau, if you want to argue in favour of abortion rights, please be
honest with Canadians. Please let Canadians know why you believe
abortion is good for women and good for Canadian society (if this is
what you honestly believe), without distorting the Supreme
Court’s ruling in Morgentaler; without
misrepresenting what the Charter requires; and without
suggesting that the beliefs informed by the teachings of the Catholic
Church ought not to inform public policy because they are just
“personal” beliefs, when in fact all our beliefs are “personal.”
And please make your case without misrepresenting and
marginalizing the Catholic faith.
Mr. Trudeau, for
some reason having nothing to do with what the Charter
requires, you are willing to sacrifice one of our most fundamental
Charter freedoms (freedom of conscience and religion) for the
sake of an absolute abortion rights ideology. This is very
disturbing. I believe this will have a detrimental effect not only on
the individual MPs who violate their consciences, but on Canada as a
whole.
We all watched in
horror last month as two Canadian soldiers were attacked and killed
and as Parliament was terrorized by a gunman. We may never know
exactly what motivated the two killers, but we do know that
there are Canadians and citizens of other Western countries as well
who are being radicalized into the hateful and violent ideology
espoused by ISIS. I’m sure all peace-loving and freedom-loving
people cannot help but wonder what could lead civilized people into
abandoning Western values and buying into such hateful propaganda.
I’m sure there are several factors involved, but if we looked at
root causes, I can’t help but think we’d find that a poorly
formed conscience must play a role.
Our consciences
guide us in moral decision-making. We have to make moral decisions
every day. Some decisions will have far more serious consequences
than others. Some will be decisions literally about life and death.
It is thus imperative that as a society we respect conscientious
reflection and decision-making and not institute policies that would
punish people—including Members of Parliament—who act according
to their deeply held conscientious beliefs that are rooted in respect
for the dignity of the human person.
Mr. Trudeau, while I don’t
believe it was intentional, your policy to force all MPs to vote
“pro-choice” effectively discriminates against faithful Catholics
since it would force them to vote against what they believe about
the dignity of the human person. You would be imposing upon them a
certain belief system that is at odds with their own. This
disenfranchisement of Catholics and other Christians from public life
would not bode well for society. We are warned of the consequences of
ignoring conscience in this excerpt from the “Doctrinal Note on
some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political
Life”:
Living
and acting in conformity with one’s own conscience on questions of
politics is not slavish acceptance of positions alien to politics or
some kind of confessionalism, but rather the way in which Christians
offer their concrete contribution so that, through political life,
society will become more just and more consistent with the dignity of
the human person.
In
democratic societies, all proposals are freely discussed and
examined. Those who, on the basis of respect for individual
conscience, would view the moral duty of Christians to act according
to their conscience as something that disqualifies them from
political life, denying the legitimacy of their political involvement
following from their convictions about the common good, would be
guilty of a form of intolerant secularism. Such
a position would seek to deny not only any engagement of Christianity
in public or political life, but even the possibility of natural
ethics itself. Were this the case, the road would be open to
moral anarchy, which would be anything but legitimate pluralism. The
oppression of the weak by the strong would be the obvious
consequence. The marginalization of Christianity, moreover,
would not bode well for the future of society or for consensus among
peoples; indeed, it would threaten the very spiritual and cultural
foundations of civilization.[26]v
Mr. Trudeau, if you
can make your case for “pro-choice” honestly and leave your
Catholic upbringing out of it and then respect each MP enough to give
him or her the freedom to vote their conscience, you yourself will
have garnered the respect that is impossible to attain by holding
fast to your current edict and the narrative that surrounds it.
At a time when our
world is increasingly being influenced and threatened by those bent
on demolishing freedom and democracy and justice, I urge you, Mr.
Trudeau, as one of Canada’s key political leaders, to make every
effort to protect what is surely a crucial bulwark against injustice,
violence and hate: freedom to act in accordance with one’s deeply
held conscientious beliefs that are grounded in peace, love, and
respect for the dignity of human persons.
If
I may conclude by borrowing from the words spoken by the Right
Reverend Michael Bird during the final blessing at Cpl. Nathan
Cirillo’s funeral on October 28, may you and I and all Canadians
remember always to “...live with courage, act with justice, and
choose with love.”
Respectfully,
iii
“The Supreme
Court’s decision, profound as it was, did not create a right to
abortion for Canadian women, nor did it offer any resolution of the
abortion issue.”--
Gavigan, Shelley A.M., “Morgentaler and Beyond:
Abortion, Reproduction, and the Courts,” in The
Politics of Abortion,
Oxford University Press, 1992, page 118.
“The
majority of the judges (5 of 7) had decided that Section 251
violated Canadian women’s constitutional rights to the security of
the person. Only one, however, Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, declared
that women had a right
to an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy. Moreover, all of
the majority decisions conceded the state’s interest in protecting
the foetus.”--
Brodie, Janine, “Choice and No Choice in the House” in The
Politics of Abortion,
Oxford University Press, 1992, page 59-60.
For
an analysis of what the Supreme Court decided in the 1988
Morgentaler
decision see this resource from the Library of Parliament: Abortion: Constitutional and Legal Developments, prepared by Mollie
Dunsmuir, Law and Government Division, Reviewed 18 August, 1998.
iv R v. Morgentaler [1988] 1 S.C.R.; Tremblay
v. Daigle,
[1989] 2 S.C.R. 530; Dobson (Litigation
Guardian of) v.
Dobson, [1999] 2 S.C.R. 753; Winnipeg
Child and Family Services v. DFG [1997] SCR 925
