National Affairs

The worm, we hope, may be turning slightly. For years, fuelled by a combination of wellfinanced feminists, friendly media, and cowardly politicians, the one major Canadian issue which dare not speak its' name has been abortion.

Never mind that Canada is the only country in the world with absolutely no law governing abortion.

Never mind that, for all our prattle about respect for human life and dignity, an unborn baby is aborted in Canada about every five minutes - that's every hour, every day, every week, every month and every year - a total of more than 100,000 a year. Yet, when those of us who view these numbers as an unconscionable indictment attempt to raise the argument, we are met with a barrage of hateful fire which should - but obviously doesn't - even make our over zealous human rights commissars blush.

Case in point. Late last month, Winnipeg South Tory MP Rod Bruinooge, newlyelected chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, wrote a National Post article entitled "Why I am pro-life," which, predictably, set off a firestorm of attacks against him and also against Prime Minister Stephen Harper, despite the fact that Harper - much to his shame, I believe - was quick to say he will not "re-open" the abortion debate.

Like most newspapers, the Toronto Star published an editorial entitled, "Leave abortion alone," concluding that, "The abortion debate is over in Canada. Move on."

Pick an issue, any issue, and ask yourself if any newspaper - let alone nearly all of them - would argue that the subject is closed and can not even be debated. But abortion, it seems, is different. Indeed, in publishing the Canadian Press story citing Bruinooge's intentions to raise the abortion issue, many newspapers reported that a)-the parliamentary pro-life caucus is new; and b) - its' membership is secret. Fact is, the caucus has been around for years. The only thing "new" was that Bruinooge is now the chairman. You won't read it in your newspaper, but over the years that caucus has been chaired by Liberals and New Democrats, not just Tories, as the pro-abortion crowd would have you believe.

But whatever your view on abortion, surely you can't believe that it is reasonable to say that it can't even be discussed.

The most commonly heard argument to support the notion that the debate is "closed" is the fallacious claim that the Supreme Court "decided" the issue in 1998 when it struck down the existing abortion law as "unconstitutional." This is a complete - and deliberate - lie. The Supremes ruled that the existing abortion law was "unconstitutional," but did not conclude that there should be no abortion law at all. They specifically said that it was up to the elected politicians, if they chose to do so, to make sure that any new abortion law was constitutional. Shortly after that ruling, in fact, then prime minister Brian Mulroney did attempt to pass a revised abortion law only to see it lose - on a tie vote, yet - in the Senate. No politician since has had the guts to revisit the issue.

Earlier this month, in a Post column, entitled, "Pro-life absurdity," Colby Cosh ramped up a remarkable attack on Christianity - as if no other religious groups or non-religious groups oppose abortion-on-demand - by making the astounding claim that, "It has only been in the last 40 years that there has been any real controversy about the ethical status of abortion."

For the record, the Roman Catholic Church - and no, I'm not a member - has opposed abortion on ethical grounds since around the year 100, as have most major world religions. But there you have it. When it comes to defending abortion, no level of attacking pro-lifers is too low.

With the advances in science, particularly ultrasounds, it has become increasingly difficult to sustain the reckless notion that a fetus is simply a blob of blood and tissue. A baby can actually survive outside the uterus by about 22 weeks of gestation.

But a favorite tactic of the pro-abortion crowd is to accuse anyone who even questions our current lack of abortion governance as favoring "forcing" women to carry babies to term. This also is not true. Public opinion polls clearly show that only a tiny minority of Canadians - between three and six percent - believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

At least half of Canadians - and some polls put the numbers much higher - support a law which offers some protections to the unborn at various stages, such as at the beginning of the second trimester or the outset of the third. The point here - and nomatter which side you're on - is to demonstrate the reality that despite what the pro-abortion side says, this issue has never, ever been a closed shop, certainly not for those of us who believe an abortion stops a beating heart. In the meantime, alas, the killing continues unabated.