Let me attempt something foolhardy and see what happens — try to talk about abortion.
The last time I did that was some 15 years ago, in a couple of columns in which I suggested that compromises should be sought in the socially destructive warfare around it. I got whacked from both sides.
Two responses, one from a pro-choicer and one from a pro-lifer, have stuck in my mind ever since because they used exactly the same words to object. “Your words frightened me,” they both said.
Such fragile absolutism, such fear of even talking about it, is what gives me a fright, on this and others of our societal debates — and it has gotten worse since. Who knew that even suggesting peace talks could be so scary? In a non-debate dominated by absolutes, the dynamic is like that of Israel and Hamas, where the presumed solution is wiping out the other guy.
But that’s not going to happen. And although the little facts about abortion are mostly in dispute, here are a couple of big, indisputable facts for both sides to chew on.
First, the law on abortion is not going to change. If Stephen Harper couldn’t even allow debate on it from within his own religious fundamentalist-based party, it’s not going to happen. The pro-life side should start by understanding that.
Second, opposition to abortion is not going to disappear, either. The law is not going to bind the consciences of either citizens or doctors and nurses who object and will resist. Abortion is never going to be a technical, untroubled business-as-usual affair. The pro-choice side should start with that.
Meanwhile, the news on the peace front got worse recently as the Liberal party required its candidates to swear to support the existing pro-choice law. This is superficially reasonable, since that’s the party’s position, and in fact the broad public’s position.
However, since no such vote is going to happen, why stir up the bottom for nothing? Second, the move attempts to reduce abortion to a mere political/legal matter whereas it’s a far vaster moral/societal one. The net effect will not be to put the issue to bed, but to deepen the social divisions around it.
I’m presuming there’ll be a new government after the next election, probably Liberal, making a fresh start. Here’s what presumed prime minister Justin Trudeau could do to set things right. Seek out one or more retired female judges of impeccable credentials to carry out an inquiry, first to establish the facts about abortion beyond the rhetoric of both sides, but with the ultimate aim of exploring ways to actually talk about it, of finding possible points of societal bargaining and elaborating a mechanism for doing it.
For example, the pro-choice movement bemoans the fact that abortion is legal but difficult to obtain in many places, notably the Maritimes where the Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton is closing.
Would the pro-life side be willing to relent in its opposition to more access in exchange for the pro-choice side admitting that abortion is not a good and desirable thing in itself — that 100,000 abortions a year in Canada is too many — and be willing to co-operate in changing the tone and trying to bring those numbers down?
An incentive might be that, according to a University of Ottawa website on the subject, there are fewer and fewer doctors actually willing and available to do abortions.
Am I dreaming? In the U.S., the corrosive warfare is increasing. We’re on that path, too, since we’re always just a few steps behind what’s going on there. To get off that path would be a victory, not only regarding abortion but other divisive societal issues.
The polls show that up to 80 per cent of Canadians support the law as is. The polls over time, however, also show that just as many abhor the idea of abortion and basically wish it didn’t exist. They support legal abortion because they don’t want to send it into the back alleys — a recognition that there will always be abortions no matter what the law is.
My hypothetical inquiry might even dabble into larger philosophical questions regarding population dynamics. The large justification for abortion comes under the banner of “a woman’s right to choose.” This is indeed a powerful principle. But it is also true that no woman is an island, and there are bigger questions attached.
For example, there are couples so desperate for children that they spend tens of thousands of dollars and undergo all kinds of hazards to adopt abroad; medical science goes to heroic lengths to save premature babies at younger and younger ages, and to stimulate infertile women. And yet we abort 100,000. Is there a disconnect there?
I repeat: can we talk?