Monday’s Globe & Mail carried a story about abortion. Apparently women in the Ottawa area who wish to terminate their pregnancies are waiting longer than usual – sometimes weeks – to do so due to staffing shortages at hospitals that perform the procedure. As was to be expected, pro-choicers and pro-lifers reacted differently to the news: the former with frustration at what they saw as women’s difficulty in exercising their reproductive rights and the latter with hope that the delays might cause some women to rethink their decision. One point on which members of both camps concurred, however: Canadians aren’t thinking much about abortion these days.
Indeed, abortion appears to have passed from the limelight. It is no longer the burning issue it was in the 1980s, for example, a decade that saw everything from the acquittal of Dr. Henry Morgentaler to the introduction of abortion on demand to attempts by men to stop their girlfriends from undergoing the operation. Politicians on both the left and right have largely steered clear of the subject. Media coverage has likewise dwindled, whereas in the 1980s it seemed not a day went by without a piece on abortion in one of the major Canadian dailies.
Nonetheless, through it all some trends have emerged. First, most Canadians support a woman’s right to end a pregnancy, at least in the first few months. This stance may be due in part to a general liberalization of societal mores, as witnessed in the greater acceptance of phenomena like homosexuality, premarital sex, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. It might also stem from Canadians’ reluctance to let the state into areas they feel it has no business being, such as the family. Of course such hesitancy can work against “progressive†as well as conservative goals. For instance, despite efforts by some child advocacy groups to ban corporal punishment, polls consistently show a majority of Canadians – including myself – oppose making the practice illegal on the grounds that the choice to spank their children or not should fall to the parents themselves.
It does not follow however that most people share the entire pro-choice agenda. According to a number of surveys, over 50% of respondents are against the use of public funds for abortions. There thus exists a large contingency of individuals – and again I count myself among them – who believe that while the procedure should be legal, the government has no obligation to pay for it (other than perhaps in the minority of cases where the pregnancy is caused by rape, threatens the mother’s life, or would result in the birth of a deformed child).
Speaking as a so-called average Canadian, I suspect that many people are tired of the extremist rhetoric from both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. In the former camp, inflammatory terms like “murder†and “baby killing†tend to alienate those who consider abortion the taking of a life of some sort but who don’t equate it to the strangling of a five-month-old infant. On the other side of the fence, I can’t help but get irritated by some pro-choice advocates who take umbrage at the suggestion that an abortion for a fourteen-year-old rape victim is less morally ambiguous that that for a thirty-year-old married woman who thinks children would impinge on her lifestyle (both real-life incidents).
The majority of Canadians obviously don’t view abortion as just another medical procedure. But they appear to have come to the conclusion that criminalizing it would create more problems than it would solve. On the other hand, many of the pro-choice camp’s demands and its seeming unwillingness to address the moral dimension of the issue will probably leave the general population’s support for the movement lukewarm.
In your article, you stated that in Canada, abortion procedures should be legal, and that the government “..has no obligation to pay for it (other than perhaps in the minority of cases where the pregnancy is caused by rape, threatens the mother’s life, or would result in the birth of a deformed child).”
I agree with the concept of abortion be legal- to the extent that it protects the life of the mother AND the fully developed foetus- meaning a fetus that’s 20 to 27 months old and is capable of developing into a premature baby.
While I support a woman’s right to “choice”, I believe there should be limits to “abortion on demand”. I also don’t want my taxes going to non-health care related activities- such as discretionary infanticide. Expecting the State to sponsor this type of reason for abortion is like asking me to pay the cost of clipping someone’s toe nails, or using Botox to hide their facial wrinkles.
Witchdoctor, thank you for your comment. I always appreciate people commenting on my articles.
I think we are on the same page in terms of paying for abortion for social reasons (i.e. the woman herself should shell out the money). With regard to limits to abortion, I would agree that after a certain time limit (perhaps as you say 20 weeks – I think you mistakenly wrote “months” when you meant “weeks”) abortion should be restricted. I say “restricted” because although I would draw the line at performing an abortion after 20 weeks in cases where, for example, the woman suddenly decides she doesn’t want a baby after all, I would allow the procedure in cases where the baby has been found to have a deformity incompatible with life, where a threat to the mother’s health has emerged, and so on.
I personally don’t believe in abortion, but I do think it should be allowed in the early stages of pregnancy. After that I would limit to the so-called “hard cases” I mentioned above.