This Is Sure to Infuriate the Pro-Abortion Lobby

Rabble contributor admits abortion debate is alive, if not necessarily well

Rabble contributor Mercedes Allen is officially off the reservation.

Pro-abortion activists in Canada have long insisted that there is no debate on abortion in Canada -- your not-so-humble scribe was once threatened with gun violence for merely pointing out that there is. Many pro-abortion activists have long operated under a mistaken belief that, if they simply refused to discuss the abortion topic as an issue of ideas, that there was no debate.

Logical people would know better. And even if one disagrees with Allen on any number of different issues, one at least has to respect her acknowledgement of the ongoing debate.

It doesn't necessarily mean that she's happy about it.

Allen is apparently frustrated with parents who oppose the institution of extreme and provocative anti-discrimination education curriculum -- similar to that administered by the Toronto District School Board -- while some Catholic schools in Canada are giving students course credit for protesting against abortion, as is happening at Christ the King school in Winnipeg.

"According to the Winnipeg Free Press, students are being given full credits for doing so, and principal David Hood is considering making it an official school activity," Allen fumes. "Christ the King School is a private Catholic school in St. Vital, Manitoba providing instruction to students ranging from kindergarten to Grade 8. It's a funded independent school, which means that it receives 50 per cent of student tuition from the province."

"In Canada, there have been renewed efforts to eliminate all funding for International Planned Parenthood, even for women's health initiatives in countries where abortion is banned," she continues. "The United Way similarly came under fire for women's health support and some Canadian hairstylists reportedly participated in a campaign to discuss pro-life beliefs with customers. The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform has been picketing schools of all levels across southern and central Alberta and BC with graphic signs."

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated during the election that he wasn't interested in reopening the debate about abortion," she concludes. "But he doesn't have to, and Canadians no longer have that luxury."

Precisely. There is still a debate on abortion, no matter how badly pro-abortion activists would prefer there isn't, no matter how vociferously they demand that it not take place.

This is increasingly going to be a problem for a movement that has convinced itself that it enjoys near-uniform support among Canadians, even as they applaud the jailing of their adversaries, as was the case when longtime anti-abortion activist Mary Wagner was jailed for counseling women against abortion too close to an abortion clinic.

“Despite numerous warnings from judges to stop breaking the law, she continues to do so,” remarked Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada coordinator Joyce Arthur. “Judges have little choice but to send people to jail when they do that. Wagner is apparently willing to pay the price, and so she should. Wagner needs to take responsibility for her actions and the harms she inflicts on women.”

Apparently, for Arthur, being confronted with the idea that the life they are about to terminate is human "inflicts harm on women."

If this were merely about keeping anti-abortion activists away from abortion clinics, it would be one thing. But Arthur's applause of the jailing of Wagner is unsurprising when one considers her long history of advocacy in favour of denying on-campus anti-abortion groups the same access to student resources as their pro-abortion adversaries.

In the sad history of pro-aboriton authoritarianism, Arthur has been its leading figure. If Mercedes Allen's admission that the abortion debate is active is going to provoke an angry outburst from the pro-abortion lobby, Joyce Arthur should be considered the leading candidate to freak out.

There's plenty of room to debate whether or not Catholic school students should be given course credit for anti-abortion protest (in this author's view, they absolutely should not).

But Mercedes Allen is entirely right: there is a debate on abortion taking place, regardless of how loudly pro-abortion authoritarians like Joyce Arthur demand that it not.