The importance of an examined conscience

Freedom of conscience is a fundamental right for everyone--including doctors. It must remain that way. We never want to see our doctors denied this right. Freedom of conscience must be maintained, nurtured, and honoured.

Listen to Margaret Somerville and Arthur Schafer discuss freedom of conscience rights for doctors. 

Vote in the poll as well.

What a frightening world it would be to live in a world dictated by the likes of Arthur Schafer.

Ottawa against abortion events

No consciences allowed

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario are looking for input on and their Physicians and the Ontario Human Rights Code policy.

I could ever only respect a doctor who practices medicine in a way that is in complete harmony with his conscience. This is crucially important and I would not want to see a doctor who did anything against what his conscience was saying to him.

Here is a real life example of conscience rights gone awry. When Justin Trudeau announced his can't-be-a-pro-life-candidate-for-the-Liberal-party policy, MP Lawrence MacAulay thought he would be permitted to vote with his own personal beliefs, which are anti-abortion:

"MacAuley, who has been an MP since 1988, said last week he expected to be permitted to vote on side with his own personal beliefs which are anti-abortion. 

A spokesperson for the Liberal Party quickly contradicted this statement, stating any Liberal MP will be expected to vote in favour of abortion. 

MacAulay later backtracked on Twitter, stating: “I accept and understand the party position regarding a woman’s right to choose. Despite my personal beliefs, I understand that I will have to vote the party position should this issue ever come up in the House of Commons.”"

This is very troubling. MacAuley says he is pro-life. But then at a flick of a can't-be-a-pro-life-candidate-for-the-Liberal-party switch, MacAulay says he would now support the party position on abortion--against his own conscience.

And freedom of conscience is a right guaranteed by our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And for very good reason. It is how we want all good people to respond to issues of ethics and morality. They pay attention to their conscience.

In purely practical terms, doing away with freedom of conscience rights for doctors will have the following negative outcome.

Good doctors, after years and years of training will leave the profession. This would be a lose-lose situation. The doctor and his family suffer from the loss of his/her livelihood. The public would suffer since we already have a doctor shortage, and this would only make it worse.

We do not want good doctors to leave the profession. For what? So that a woman can be guaranteed to be able to obtain the birth control pill or an abortion from every single doctor in the country, when there are already (some might say too many) doctors filling the need? Is this really what we want of our doctors? I hope not.

And make no mistake. The only reason the issue has come up at all, is because of contraception and abortion.

It will also mean we will now have institutionalized discrimination against pro-life doctors. Just like we have institutionalized discrimination against pro-life politicians in two of our three political parties in Canada. Let's not go there.

Why Joyce Arthur's "report" is harmful to BC CPCs

Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Because there are a lot of falsehoods out there.

For instance, Joyce Arthur's signature "report", Exposing Crisis Pregnancy centres in BC, is a good example of inaccuracies, deceptions and misinformation.

Yet surprisingly, there are actually people writing, who refer to this "research" as if it is a credible source of information.

Now Brian Norton from Canadian Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPSS) has written a rebuttal to Arthur's "report".

Norton begins his rebuttal:

The report makes numerous claims that are not based in fact or reality. The following are some blatant examples (before we discuss the most serious allegations).  

The report alleges the Birthright drop-in centre in Vernon, British Columbia, shows graphic videos to clients. “When women have gone to the local Birthright office, some have had to wait an hour and a half before being given a pregnancy test, during which time they were put into a room to watch anti-abortion videos like the ‘Silent Scream’” (p. 11).13 On doing a fact check with Birthright headquarters, I learned there is no Birthright in Vernon and there never has been.14  

The report continues: “[In Powell River the Prolife Society] … houses one of the fundamentalist Christian CPCs that uses high pressure techniques and is connected to the larger network of North American CPCs” (p. 11). There is in fact no CPC in Powell River and there never has been.15  

The report makes statements about other non-existent centres in BC (pp. 45-46).
16 One so-called CPC is a secular parenting support group. Another CPC is actually a Christian adoption agency.  

Another purported CPC is somebody’s home. For two other listed CPCs the premises do not exist.17

The report not only refers to non-existent pregnancy centres in our province, but everywhere. 

There are 117 CPCs in Canada.18 The report nearly doubles this to “about 200 CPCs” (p. 3). 

In the United States there are some 2,500 CPCs. 

19 According to an American CPC association, “Usually our opponents will use 3,000 locations which seems a purposeful overstatement.”20 The report rounds this up to “4,000” (p. 3).  

Regarding abortion clinics, The New York Times estimates there are some 1,800 US clinics.21

The report rounds this down to 800 (p. 3) sourcing the National Abortion Federation (p. 19).  

The NAF reference – footnoted in the report as “800 clinics” – actually says “2,000 clinics”.22  

Furthermore, the report is riddled with inaccurate ‘throwaway’ remarks.
23 (See footnote.)

Read Brian Norton's entire rebuttal to Arthur's damaging "report".

Norton identifies eight serious allegations in Arthur's report, along with 12 silly allegations. Norton did actual research in writing his rebuttal. And unlike Arthur, he didn't get $27,400 from the Status of Women to do it.

If Arthur wants to make things up, that's one thing. But when other people start referencing her "research" well that's another thing entirely. And that's the real problem with her harmful "report". Other people refer to it.

Here are a list of professional people and organizations who reference Arthur's work.

1) Dr. Sam Rowlands MB BS, MD, LLM, FRCGP, FFSRH, DRCOG (UK abortion rights advocate).

This is what a reviewer from a conference organized by Dr. Rowlands had to say:

"Dr Sam Rowlands, Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, Warwick Medical School and organiser of this conference at the RSM, discussed the key sources of ‘misinformation’ that are popularised in relation to abortion. He outlined five claims: that abortion poses a risk to a woman’s life, to her mental health, or to her future fertility, that it carries an increased risk of breast cancer, and the preoccupation with ‘fetal pain’, and briefly debunked these claims by using solid research. 

The sources of such misinformation vary from websites to non-peer-reviewed journals, and are particularly troubling in relation to the biased or false information given directly to women by so-called ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centres’. Rowlands referred to a 2009 study by Joyce Arthur of such centres in a province of Canada as an example of how this misinformation process works through."

2) The Canadian Women’s Health Network (CWHN):

"A new study by the Pro-Choice Action Network finds that most agencies that counsel pregnant women are actually anti-abortion Christian ministries whose main goal is to stop women from having abortions. These centres are generally not medical facilities, and most of their "counsellors" are volunteers who are not medical professionals and have no recognized training in counselling. Some of these centres are called Crisis Pregnancy Centres or "CPCs", although many of them have different names. This research project on anti-abortion counseling centres in British Columbia, or "fake clinics," has been published, and is available."

3) Feminist Women's Health Center (from Wastington state). 

FWHC has a section called "fake clinics", and refers to Arthur's report, saying this:

"Exposing CPCs in British Columbia, Canada - CPCs far outnumber abortion clinics. There are 4,000 CPCs in the United States, compared to about 800 abortion clinics. In Canada, there are about 200 CPCs and roughly 25 abortion clinics. In BC, there are about 30 CPCs and 6 abortion clinics."

4) On the University of Windsor website is a paper written by Jessica Shaw from the University of Calgary, called "Abortion as a Social Justice Issue in Contemporary Canada".

Shaw relies heavily on Arthur's other "research" for references, as well as Arthur's inaccurate "report" discussed here.
(And this is scary. The policy for submissions to this Critical Social Work Journal is supposedly peer reviewed: "The peer review process is double blind, in that the identity of authors and reviewers is not known to either party").

4) The UK (Education Financial Council). They refer to Arthur's misleading "report", saying:

"Widespread anecdotal evidence in the UK, and full-scale research reports from the United States, ireland and Canada, indicate that some CPCs do not provide impartial poignancy decision-making support and that many are formed with a specific anti-abortion agenda".

5) West Coast LEAF is an organization in BC "that uses the law to further women’s equality". They refer to Arthur's inaccurate "report":

"According to research conducted by the Pro-Choice Action Network, “crisis pregnancy
centres” (CPCs) “are actually anti-choice Christian ministries, often pretending to be
non-biased medical clinics or counselling centres. Their main goal is to stop women
from having abortions and to convert women to Christianity."

6) The CTV devoted a whole three part investigation, based on Arthur's faulty "report": Jan 7, Jan18, Jan 20. You'd think at least CTV would check their facts before going undercover.

7) Finally, is the Status of Woman Canada, who funded Arthur's to write this defective report in the first place. With your tax dollars. Does anybody at the Status of Women actually check to see what they're funding  to see if it's accurate, before they dole out our money? It doesn't look like it.

For all those people who reference Arthur's report, it really doesn't do their pro-abortion cause any good. It just makes them look like they don't know what they're talking about. Or maybe they just can't get out of the way of their own ideology.

So what does Norton want? He would like Arthur to remove her sorry excuse for a "report" from the Internet. Let's hope she has the decency to do so.

Margaret Somerville: how to address Canada's lack of legal protection for unborn children

Some common sense from Margaret Somerville on Canada's abortion laws.

"An email made me ponder what the labels “pro-choice” and “pro-life” really mean, in particular regarding people’s stance on using law to govern abortion...

"...My [email] correspondent, [an articulate, politically engaged, professional woman] wrote: “I spoke to a very successful and intelligent entrepreneur at an event on Saturday, who described himself as pro-choice, who explained, ‘I just have come to the conclusion that abortion is a woman’s choice.’ So I asked two questions: “How would you feel if she was six months along in her pregnancy and the physician would make sure the baby was not born alive?” And, ‘What if the mother wanted an abortion because the baby was a girl and not a boy?’ To both questions, he answered quite adamantly, ‘No, I would never agree.’ And he concluded, ‘I just have never thought about it in those terms.’”

Is he pro-choice? He clearly doesn’t agree with the 28 percent of pro-choice Canadians, who, one survey showed, reject any legal protection for human life prior to birth.

The same survey found only 6 percent of Canadians would legally prohibit all abortions, while 60 percent believe there should be some law protecting unborn children, at the latest at viability (20 weeks gestation). Are only the 6 percent pro-life? 

The 28 percent and 6 percent are the two poles in our abortion debate, but their disputes dominate in the public square. Two-thirds of Canadians fall somewhere on a spectrum between them – they are not absolutists, in either direction, about using law to govern abortion. For them, abortion law (in comparison with abortion, itself, for pro-life people) is not a black and white issue, many are uncertain where to stand, and their voices are rarely heard. 

Adding two new positions to the survey, “modified pro-choice” and “modified pro-life”, to test public opinion more accurately, could remedy that. These terms would indicate basic presumptions, rather than absolutist positions. 

People who accepted a “modified pro-choice” position would allow women to choose abortion, although legal restrictions would apply in certain situations. People who accepted a “modified pro-life” stance would favour legally restricting abortion, but with some exceptions to comply with the Charter and to avoid unenforceable law. 

This modified approach might also allow us, although we start from different bases, to identify where in fact we agree, or are closer to agreement than we’ve recognized, about what the law on abortion should be.

Sixty percent of Canadians agree abortion-on-demand should be legally limited after 20 weeks gestation. Their moral intuitions warn them unborn children capable of living outside the womb should have some legal protection. They also find it horrendous to think of inflicting excruciating pain on the fetus in dismembering it, in utero, to ensure it’s born dead to avoid legal liability for killing it. 

So should abortion-on-demand be legally limited before 20 weeks? I propose applying law at 13 weeks gestation. 

This is not to approve first trimester abortion. Abortion is always a very serious ethical issue, but from a practical and even an ethical point of view in reducing abortions to the minimum number achievable, I believe that in Canada, where, presently, we have no law, it should not be a legal issue until after 13 weeks gestation...

...We need some law on abortion in Canada in order to recognize publicly and as a society that abortion is always a very serious ethical decision and that, as all the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Morgentaler case, the lives of unborn children, at least at a certain point in pregnancy, merit legal protection. The court also explained that it’s the role of Parliament to decide and legally establish what that point of the protection of unborn children is. 

To the contrary, Justin Trudeau, the leader of the federal Liberal Party, recently took a very public and highly controversial position that all politicians in his party must vote “pro-choice” on abortion or they were not welcome in the party, that is, they would have to vote against enacting any law on abortion. 

Here’s Trudeau’s edict: “The policy going forward is that every single Liberal MP will be expected to stand up for a woman’s right to choose”. Let’s complete it: “The policy going forward is that every single Liberal MP will be expected to stand up for a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn child, even if, were it delivered, it would have a chance of surviving or she seeks an abortion only because of the sex of the fetus”. 

Choice, itself, is neither moral nor immoral; rather, as these examples show, it’s what we choose that determines that. Moreover, Trudeau and his MPs should note that facilitating immoral choices is complicity in the immorality involved. 

And I haven’t yet even mentioned the contravention of rights to freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, politicians’ obligations in a democracy to those they represent and so on, this edict represents. The vast majority of religious people are excluded from running for elected office in the Liberal Party – for instance, all Catholics and Muslims (or at least those who follow their conscience), most other Christians and many Jews - and even as members of the Liberal Party, as Trudeau initially extended his edict not just to MPs, but also to members. 

As a woman, whose prestigious Catholic family had been active Liberal supporters for generations, expressed it in her signature on an email to me the day after the edict: “Card-carrying Liberal until yesterday”. 

Canada continues to be a living laboratory on social values issues, with some consequences which, I predict, it will probably one day seriously regret. To close, however, on a more optimistic note: there are signs that more and more young Canadians are realizing that possibility, especially in relation to abortion, and working very effectively to help change the current situation."