The democratic process is alive and well in Canada...except when it comes to any subject related to prenatal human life.
We see this time and time again on our campuses, in our Parliament, in our media, and now we see it even affecting private member's business (PMB). PMB is not government business. It is individual member's chance to introduce motions or bills that they or their constituents feel is important.
On Thursday last week, MP Mark Warawa's Private Member's Motion 408, "that the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination" was deemed non-votable by the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
This means that the motion will not be allowed to go before Parliament to be voted on by members in the House. Yet according to an impartial Library of Parliament analyst, M-408 passed all the votability criteria and therefore should have been deemed votable, according to strict rules of the House.
Yet representatives from all three parties unanimously voted against it.
Pro-lifers have grown used to having MPs vote against anything that attempts to provide any legal protection for the unborn. However to date, our elected representatives have been at least allowed to bring forward private member's bills and motions. Now it seems that avenue might be closing as well.
One would think that the opposition parties would at least stand up for democracy if they can't bring themselves to ever stand up for the unborn. In this case, however, they sided with the Conservative MP on the committee. Unless someone can provide evidence to the contrary, we can only assume that all three parties were whipped into voting against allowing the Motion to proceed to a vote.
It is a well known fact that Prime Minister Harper will never bring forward abortion legislation, and all other parties have an official "pro-choice" stand on abortion. There is unanimous distaste amongst all political parties for anything remotely related to abortion. But so what?
Parliament is supposed to exist to serve the people. Parliament is not supposed to exist to serve the politicians.
Since the parties represent the people--all the people, even those they don't agree with--all viewpoints must be respected, discussed and debated as the public wishes. This motion had a lot of public support, and a recent (2011) Environics poll told us that 92% of Canadians are against sex selective abortions. In fact, leaders from all the major parties spoke out against sex selection prior to the introduction of this motion. To all of a sudden unilaterally prevent our elected MPs from voting on this issue in Parliament, is a perversion of the democratic process that is our right.
Democracy in Canada should not apply only when it is convenient for our political leaders. When we allow this kind of behaviour, that arbitrarily deems some topics worthy of discussion and others not worthy, democracy loses its meaning.
All three parties are pro-choice. If the democratic process can be subverted simply because of a pre-existing bias by those in power, it is only a matter of time before another topic suffers the same fate.
Mr. Warawa will be appealing the non-votability ruling to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) on Wednesday. If the PROC committee upholds the non-votability ruling, Mr. Warawa has said he will take the unprecedented step of appealing that ruling to the House where a secret ballot of all Members will take place over the course of two days. That vote will determine whether or not M-408 will be allowed to proceed to a vote. In effect, it will be a vote for or against democracy in our Canadian Parliament.
It is quite a sad irony that something so small and vulnerable as the child in the womb can instill so much fear in our political leaders, that they are willing to sacrifice one of our most cherished Canadian values--democracy itself—in order to shield themselves from the truth about what abortion involves.
Showing posts with label Environics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environics. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Election strategy: banning late-term abortions
I was startled to read this: Aggressive Incrementalism: A Winning Strategy for Pro-Lifers by Pete Spiliakos. Not because Spiliakos said anything I don't agree with, but because the author talks about how available late-term abortion on demand is in the US. Of course it is, but I always think that well, at least the Americans have some legal abortion restrictions unlike us Canadians. I guess I'm naive.
Spiliakos makes some good points about political pro-life strategies for Republicans. Our own Conservative MPs could learn a thing or two from his advice.
Spiliakos says:
"In the last few presidential elections, the strategy of the Republican presidential candidate has been to talk about abortion only when asked. The purpose seems to be to signal pro-life views while not alienating voters for whom abortion is a low priority issue. This strategy is about mobilizing an existing voting base and not at all about persuasion. It is almost an exaggeration of the general Republican approach to electoral politics recently.
This “speak only when spoken to” approach to abortion seems cautious, but it is really foolhardy. It allows Democrats and their media allies [to] decide when and how the abortion issue is discussed. So in a country in which third trimester abortions are legal on-demand, our abortion discussion centers on questions like “So why are you against the removal of a tiny clump of rapist-produced cells?” Republicans not choosing to talk about abortion doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about abortion. It means that we only talk about the issue when and how liberals choose."
Tim Hudak immediately comes to mind. Mr. Hudak barely spoke at all in the last Ontario election, when he was spoken to about abortion. Rather he fell all over himself with what many of us had thought was his pro-life world view, only to make a quick retreat to distance himself from himself.
In the next election he won't even do that. He'll pull a Mr. Harper. With his nice big spread in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday, the A word wasn't raised, and if it ever does get raised, he'll shut it down quicker than you can say I told you so. Judging from the number of abortion related letters I've sent to numerous Conservative MPPs that elicited not so much as the expected form letter response, I think I can safely conclude Mr. Hudak has told his MPPs to keep their mouths shut on the abortion issue. When the abortion issue is raised there will be no reply at all: see no evil hear no evil speak no evil. That's how the Ontario Conservatives will try and get in power.
I have already made a decision about how I will vote in the next election, Federal or Ontario. I will start by asking all the candidates in my riding about what they think about abortion. Their answer, if they have to courage to answer me, will decide how I vote.
I have voted Conservative pretty much my entire life. That automatic nod to the Conservatives has now come to an end unless the Conservative candidates respond favourably to my question.
Speaking of naive, many of us pro-life people kept telling ourselves that once the Conservatives got into power Federally that things would change. Then after they won a minority government we thought, okay they haven’t done anything, so let's wait for that majority and then they'll do something. They didn't. Silly us.
If another candidate gives me an answer that would support some legal restriction on abortion, say a ban on late-term abortions, they would get my vote.
Spiliakos then says:
"In my experience, a substantial number of self-identified pro-choicers are in favor of generally restricting late-term abortions. Many are not even aware that such abortions are legal or that President Obama supports them. It isn't simply that such pro-choicers could become allies in moving politics in a slightly more pro-life direction (though it is that too.) To some extent, presence can determine issue salience. It is all well and good to have some vague idea that late-term abortion exists and that President Obama is "pro-choice." It is another altogether to see human beings and know that some politicians are in favor of their destruction at-will."
Spiliakos could be writing about Canada. I think we all know that there are a lot of Canadians who are against late-term abortions, yet they don't all call themselves pro-life. In fact LifeCanada's latest poll commissioned by Environics and published just last week tells us that :
"Two-thirds (65%) of Canadians think abortion should be illegal in the last three months."
Unlike most politicians, I don't think publicly stating that one is against late-term abortion is a nail in the coffin of a political career. And apparently a majority of Canadians are also against late-term abortions. All we need, is for a few good, closet anti-late-term abortion men and women candidates to say so. They might be surprised at the result.
Spiliakos makes some good points about political pro-life strategies for Republicans. Our own Conservative MPs could learn a thing or two from his advice.
Spiliakos says:
"In the last few presidential elections, the strategy of the Republican presidential candidate has been to talk about abortion only when asked. The purpose seems to be to signal pro-life views while not alienating voters for whom abortion is a low priority issue. This strategy is about mobilizing an existing voting base and not at all about persuasion. It is almost an exaggeration of the general Republican approach to electoral politics recently.
This “speak only when spoken to” approach to abortion seems cautious, but it is really foolhardy. It allows Democrats and their media allies [to] decide when and how the abortion issue is discussed. So in a country in which third trimester abortions are legal on-demand, our abortion discussion centers on questions like “So why are you against the removal of a tiny clump of rapist-produced cells?” Republicans not choosing to talk about abortion doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about abortion. It means that we only talk about the issue when and how liberals choose."
Tim Hudak immediately comes to mind. Mr. Hudak barely spoke at all in the last Ontario election, when he was spoken to about abortion. Rather he fell all over himself with what many of us had thought was his pro-life world view, only to make a quick retreat to distance himself from himself.
In the next election he won't even do that. He'll pull a Mr. Harper. With his nice big spread in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday, the A word wasn't raised, and if it ever does get raised, he'll shut it down quicker than you can say I told you so. Judging from the number of abortion related letters I've sent to numerous Conservative MPPs that elicited not so much as the expected form letter response, I think I can safely conclude Mr. Hudak has told his MPPs to keep their mouths shut on the abortion issue. When the abortion issue is raised there will be no reply at all: see no evil hear no evil speak no evil. That's how the Ontario Conservatives will try and get in power.
I have already made a decision about how I will vote in the next election, Federal or Ontario. I will start by asking all the candidates in my riding about what they think about abortion. Their answer, if they have to courage to answer me, will decide how I vote.
I have voted Conservative pretty much my entire life. That automatic nod to the Conservatives has now come to an end unless the Conservative candidates respond favourably to my question.
Speaking of naive, many of us pro-life people kept telling ourselves that once the Conservatives got into power Federally that things would change. Then after they won a minority government we thought, okay they haven’t done anything, so let's wait for that majority and then they'll do something. They didn't. Silly us.
If another candidate gives me an answer that would support some legal restriction on abortion, say a ban on late-term abortions, they would get my vote.
Spiliakos then says:
"In my experience, a substantial number of self-identified pro-choicers are in favor of generally restricting late-term abortions. Many are not even aware that such abortions are legal or that President Obama supports them. It isn't simply that such pro-choicers could become allies in moving politics in a slightly more pro-life direction (though it is that too.) To some extent, presence can determine issue salience. It is all well and good to have some vague idea that late-term abortion exists and that President Obama is "pro-choice." It is another altogether to see human beings and know that some politicians are in favor of their destruction at-will."
Spiliakos could be writing about Canada. I think we all know that there are a lot of Canadians who are against late-term abortions, yet they don't all call themselves pro-life. In fact LifeCanada's latest poll commissioned by Environics and published just last week tells us that :
"Two-thirds (65%) of Canadians think abortion should be illegal in the last three months."
Unlike most politicians, I don't think publicly stating that one is against late-term abortion is a nail in the coffin of a political career. And apparently a majority of Canadians are also against late-term abortions. All we need, is for a few good, closet anti-late-term abortion men and women candidates to say so. They might be surprised at the result.
Monday, December 31, 2012
A pro-life wish for 2013
(This letter to Mr. Harper is posted with permission from the author)
21 December 2012
Honourable Mr. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada,
Mr. Harper, I am writing to you after watching a preview of your Christmas interview with The Global Television Network. In the interview, you said that in the future Canada will not face an unemployment problem, but a labour shortage and that bringing others into Canada to fill the labour shortage is only a band aid solution to the problem. You also said we need to train Canadians for positions that need to be filled now and into the future; engineering was cited as a profession where we will need people.
When watching the clips of your interview, my mind wandered back one week to December 14th when I watched President Obama publicly mourn the loss of twenty little children. According to him, the children had their whole lives ahead of them. Mr. Obama passionately talked about children who should have had graduations to attend, jobs to go to, that they would likely be married and have families of their own; but tragically, all this was taken away from them by a senseless and deliberate act of violence. Mr. Obama also stated that the children were destroyed in what should have been the safest place on earth, their school. In reality, the safest place on earth for children is their first home, their mothers’ womb.
Mr. Harper, each year in Canada we destroy more than 100,000 children and we do it in the wombs of their mothers, supposedly the safest place on earth for these children. We destroy the lives of these children in the same way that Mr. Obama described the massacre of the twenty children in Newtown, Connecticut, by senseless and deliberate acts of violence. Mr. Harper, these children have their lives taken from them before they even have an opportunity to go to school, or to graduate or to marry and have families. It is very conceivable that hundreds of engineers, teachers, doctors, or even a future Prime Minister of Canada have been/are destroyed by the violence of the abortionists’ curettes, their suction apparatus, and their scissors or by life destroying intra cardiac injections of Potassium Chloride.
Mr. Harper, I believe most Canadians would agree with you that we need more of us, so that our future in Canada is secure. I also believe you understand that children who have their lives taken from them by abortion are the future labourers and engineers that you speak about in the interview. Mr. Harper, the senseless killing of twenty innocent and defenceless school children in Newtown is only different from the children killed at the hands of abortionists by two things, their ages and where they were/are living when their lives were/are taken from them. As you can tell, I am finding it difficult to make my verbs agree at this point because although the deaths of the twenty school children in Newtown is past, this is not so for the children who are killed by abortion. Yes, Mr. Harper just in the past week thousands more innocent and defenceless children have lost their lives; but their deaths go unnoticed by the media, by their president and by their Prime Minister.
Please, Mr. Harper won’t you reconsider your “I will not open the abortion debate” for the sake of all Canadians and for the sake of our country. Please, Mr. Harper listen to the majority of Canadians (Environics poll commissioned by LifeCanada Sept 2011) who want restrictions placed on abortion. Please, Mr. Harper open your heart at this blessed Christmas time when Christians understand that all human life is sacred and needs to be protected.
With Respect,
Jennifer Snell
21 December 2012
Honourable Mr. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada,
Mr. Harper, I am writing to you after watching a preview of your Christmas interview with The Global Television Network. In the interview, you said that in the future Canada will not face an unemployment problem, but a labour shortage and that bringing others into Canada to fill the labour shortage is only a band aid solution to the problem. You also said we need to train Canadians for positions that need to be filled now and into the future; engineering was cited as a profession where we will need people.
When watching the clips of your interview, my mind wandered back one week to December 14th when I watched President Obama publicly mourn the loss of twenty little children. According to him, the children had their whole lives ahead of them. Mr. Obama passionately talked about children who should have had graduations to attend, jobs to go to, that they would likely be married and have families of their own; but tragically, all this was taken away from them by a senseless and deliberate act of violence. Mr. Obama also stated that the children were destroyed in what should have been the safest place on earth, their school. In reality, the safest place on earth for children is their first home, their mothers’ womb.
Mr. Harper, each year in Canada we destroy more than 100,000 children and we do it in the wombs of their mothers, supposedly the safest place on earth for these children. We destroy the lives of these children in the same way that Mr. Obama described the massacre of the twenty children in Newtown, Connecticut, by senseless and deliberate acts of violence. Mr. Harper, these children have their lives taken from them before they even have an opportunity to go to school, or to graduate or to marry and have families. It is very conceivable that hundreds of engineers, teachers, doctors, or even a future Prime Minister of Canada have been/are destroyed by the violence of the abortionists’ curettes, their suction apparatus, and their scissors or by life destroying intra cardiac injections of Potassium Chloride.
Mr. Harper, I believe most Canadians would agree with you that we need more of us, so that our future in Canada is secure. I also believe you understand that children who have their lives taken from them by abortion are the future labourers and engineers that you speak about in the interview. Mr. Harper, the senseless killing of twenty innocent and defenceless school children in Newtown is only different from the children killed at the hands of abortionists by two things, their ages and where they were/are living when their lives were/are taken from them. As you can tell, I am finding it difficult to make my verbs agree at this point because although the deaths of the twenty school children in Newtown is past, this is not so for the children who are killed by abortion. Yes, Mr. Harper just in the past week thousands more innocent and defenceless children have lost their lives; but their deaths go unnoticed by the media, by their president and by their Prime Minister.
Please, Mr. Harper won’t you reconsider your “I will not open the abortion debate” for the sake of all Canadians and for the sake of our country. Please, Mr. Harper listen to the majority of Canadians (Environics poll commissioned by LifeCanada Sept 2011) who want restrictions placed on abortion. Please, Mr. Harper open your heart at this blessed Christmas time when Christians understand that all human life is sacred and needs to be protected.
With Respect,
Jennifer Snell
Friday, April 27, 2012
The pro-abortions should listen to themselves
I think the pro-abortions are losing it.
If you don't believe me, watch Natalie Hudson-Sonnen debating Joyce Arthur, and Andre Mrozek debating Carolyn Egan on Stephen Woodworth's motion.
The radical feminists just keep dragging out their same, old, tired, boring, urban legend myths, every time they talk. I wonder if they ever listen to themselves:
"abortion is a basic human right."
"abortion is a constitutional right."
"legal restrictions on abortion don't work because women will still have them anyway."
(While we're at it, maybe we should make murder legal too, since people will still murder anyway.)
When Ms. Arthur was asked about a compromise in the abortion debate, she completely ignores the question and instead says:
"I want to respond to what Natalie said about the polls. It[abortion] is too complex an issue to have it accurately judged by polls."
Really? Is that because people are too stupid to understand the questions being asked them?
And because these polls are:
"Commissioned by anti-choice groups or use anti-choice propaganda, the answers can't be trusted."
Take that Environics.
Then Ms. Arthur starts on a new tangent and tells us that:
"it is totally inappropriate to have legal restrictions playing a role in medicine...no treatment or procedure in medicine covered by law."
Except that abortion isn't a treatment for anything Joyce. Abortion is the destruction of a defenceless human. This is a situation where the law has an extremely appropriate role.
They are really really afraid of this motion, and the abortion debate it's generating. What's happening here, is that the pro-abortions don't want us to talk about abortion because they know whenever the topic comes up, like in Mr. Woodworth's motion, their pro-abortion arguments simply don't hold up to scrutiny or logic. The more we put the pro-abortions on the hot seat and make them defend their radical views, the more everyone will see how what they say doesn't make any sense.
I did notice that Ms. Arthur actually said that the:
"Fetus is biologically human".
Oh my, was that a mistake?
Monday, January 30, 2012
Dear Mr. McGuinty, It's time to defund abortion in Ontario
Thank you for your letter of January 27, 2012 responding to my email of January 26, 2012, where I stated that it was time to defund abortions in Ontario.
With all due respect Mr. McGuinty, you seem to be confused about the status of abortion in Canada.
In your letter you wrote:
“You may be aware that, in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed the constitutional validity of abortion. The court ruled that a woman in our country has the legal right to a timely, accessible abortion as an insured service. In compliance with the Supreme Court decision, abortion remains a publicly funded procedure in Ontario.”
First, the 1988 Morgentaler decision did not give women the constitutional right to abortion in Canada.
Second, it did not require that abortions be publicly funded.
The Supreme Court said that the procedural requirements laid out in the abortion law caused extensive delays and unequal access to therapeutic abortion committees (TACs). It was the TACs which provided women with a valid defence to a criminal charge of abortion. So if a woman whose life or health was endangered by the pregnancy couldn’t access a TAC, she would be committing a crime if she proceeded with the abortion. And the Court said this was a violation of her Charter 7 right to ‘security of the person.’ Essentially, she had to choose between either obeying a criminal law or protecting her life/health, but not both. That is why the court struck down the law. (See here )
The Court also left open the possibility for Parliament to enact a new law to replace the old one.
Chief Justice Dickson in the majority decision said that the protection of the fetus:
“does relate to concerns which are pressing and substantial in a free and democratic society and which, pursuant to s. 1 of the Charter, justify reasonable limits to be put on a woman’s right.”
In other words, it is reasonable to put some restrictions on abortion because protection of the fetus is a legitimate government objective.
You can read the1988 Court decision here.
Another argument people sometimes use in favour of funding of abortions is that the Canada Health Act requires it. This is untrue. As you know, the CHA only requires that medically necessary procedures be funded. Most abortions are not done for medical reasons.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a research affiliate of the abortion-rights advocacy group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America), nearly all abortions are done for socio-economic reasons, not medical ones.
Did you know that when polled, 91% of Ontarians were unaware how much money your government spends to subsidize abortions in Ontario?
And did you also know that according to a 2011 Environics poll commissioned by LifeCanada, 71% of Ontarians oppose government funding of non-medically necessary abortions?
So, Mr. McGuinty, can you please tell me why Ontarians are paying approximately $35 Million a year on abortions (about 44,000 abortions per year for at least $800 per abortion) when it is likely that most of that money is going towards non-therapeutic abortions—abortions that are done for social reasons that have nothing to do with health care? The Canada Health Act does not require it, the Supreme Court has never ruled on it, and the majority of Ontarians are against it.
One must assume there is a reason, and the people of Ontario, myself included, deserve to know why we continue to pay for abortions.
If your government has no reason, then why are we paying for something for no reason when Ontario is in debt for $16 billion?
I look forward to hearing your answers soon.
Sincerely,
Patricia Maloney
With all due respect Mr. McGuinty, you seem to be confused about the status of abortion in Canada.
In your letter you wrote:
“You may be aware that, in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada addressed the constitutional validity of abortion. The court ruled that a woman in our country has the legal right to a timely, accessible abortion as an insured service. In compliance with the Supreme Court decision, abortion remains a publicly funded procedure in Ontario.”
First, the 1988 Morgentaler decision did not give women the constitutional right to abortion in Canada.
Second, it did not require that abortions be publicly funded.
The Supreme Court said that the procedural requirements laid out in the abortion law caused extensive delays and unequal access to therapeutic abortion committees (TACs). It was the TACs which provided women with a valid defence to a criminal charge of abortion. So if a woman whose life or health was endangered by the pregnancy couldn’t access a TAC, she would be committing a crime if she proceeded with the abortion. And the Court said this was a violation of her Charter 7 right to ‘security of the person.’ Essentially, she had to choose between either obeying a criminal law or protecting her life/health, but not both. That is why the court struck down the law. (See here )
The Court also left open the possibility for Parliament to enact a new law to replace the old one.
Chief Justice Dickson in the majority decision said that the protection of the fetus:
“does relate to concerns which are pressing and substantial in a free and democratic society and which, pursuant to s. 1 of the Charter, justify reasonable limits to be put on a woman’s right.”
In other words, it is reasonable to put some restrictions on abortion because protection of the fetus is a legitimate government objective.
You can read the1988 Court decision here.
Another argument people sometimes use in favour of funding of abortions is that the Canada Health Act requires it. This is untrue. As you know, the CHA only requires that medically necessary procedures be funded. Most abortions are not done for medical reasons.
According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (a research affiliate of the abortion-rights advocacy group, Planned Parenthood Federation of America), nearly all abortions are done for socio-economic reasons, not medical ones.
Did you know that when polled, 91% of Ontarians were unaware how much money your government spends to subsidize abortions in Ontario?
And did you also know that according to a 2011 Environics poll commissioned by LifeCanada, 71% of Ontarians oppose government funding of non-medically necessary abortions?
So, Mr. McGuinty, can you please tell me why Ontarians are paying approximately $35 Million a year on abortions (about 44,000 abortions per year for at least $800 per abortion) when it is likely that most of that money is going towards non-therapeutic abortions—abortions that are done for social reasons that have nothing to do with health care? The Canada Health Act does not require it, the Supreme Court has never ruled on it, and the majority of Ontarians are against it.
One must assume there is a reason, and the people of Ontario, myself included, deserve to know why we continue to pay for abortions.
If your government has no reason, then why are we paying for something for no reason when Ontario is in debt for $16 billion?
I look forward to hearing your answers soon.
Sincerely,
Patricia Maloney
Monday, November 14, 2011
Debate: Should physicians provide, or refer for, abortion? (the video)
Seventy-two percent of Canadians surveyed in a September National Omnibus poll support legal protection for unborn babies. Most (62%) want protection from conception, or two or three months' gestation on. Another ten percent favor protection from 6 months on (Source: Environics poll commissioned by LifeCanada).
The majority of Canadians clearly do want legal protection for our unborn children.
So why won't Mr. Harper allow us to debate abortion in Canada?
We still don't know the answer to that question so I guess we'll just have to start the debate without him.
Perhaps Mr. Harper might want to watch Stefanie Gray (CCBR) debating Jovan Morales (Atheist Community of the University of Ottawa) at the University of Ottawa on November 11.
The topic was "Should physicians provide, or refer for, abortion?"
Mr. Harper might want to get involved, and learn something that is extremely important to many of the people he is Prime Minister to. He might even learn something new. Or he can ignore us.
It's your choice, Mr. Harper.
University of Ottawa - abortion debate Nov 11, 2011 from Jeannie on Vimeo.
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