Recently asked about her position on abortion, Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May put forward what many would call a moderate position. Although she supports legal abortion, she views life as “sacred” and would never have an abortion herself.
I think there's been a moral dimension to this debate that's quite complex, and I think deserves respect. So I respect people who say, "I'm against abortion because there is a right to life, and the fetus is sacred."
I respect that, because I think all life is sacred. So, where do I come to thinking we should be able to have - and must have - access to therapeutic abortions in Canada?
It's the other side of a moral dilemma: If we make them illegal, women will die. We know this. It happened for hundreds and hundreds of years, that women would seek out whatever butcher they could find to cause an abortion to happen, and they would die horrible deaths, and the baby would die too.
. . .
[W]hat I'd like to do in politics is to be able to create the space to say, "Abortions are legal because they must be to avoid women dying. But nobody in their right mind is for abortions."
I've talked women out of having abortions. I would never have an abortion myself, not in a million years. I cannot imagine the circumstances that would have ever induced me to.
Radical leftist and über-feminist Judy Rebick went apoplectic when she heard about that. In a scathing open letter, she practically accuses Ms May of shilling for the pro-life movement.
[Y]ou have questioned the most important victory of the women's movement of my generation.
If you had said that you personally oppose abortion but you support a woman's right to choose, I would have been fine with that. Instead you said that a woman's right to choose, something tens of thousands of Canadian women fought for for decades, was trivializing an important issue. It felt like a slap in the face.
Since you have so little respect for me or for the women's movement which mobilized for so long to win this hard-earned right, I hope you will understand that I ripped up the cheque I had written to the Green Party and you can no longer rely on me for support.
Wow! Elizabeth May says “all life is sacred” and Judy Rebick hits the roof. That says it all.
Ms Rebick is particularly worried that more Canadians may start talking about abortion. We can’t have that!
We had a debate on abortion in this country for decades. Raising the need for further debate as you have done is a serious error in judgment and in the unlikely possibility that Stephen Harper wins a majority in the next election, you could have done irreparable harm.
Leaving aside the dodgy syntax of the latter sentence, one wonders why she’s so afraid of more debate. If the pro-abortion side really has superior arguments and solid majority support, why not give the pro-lifers another chance to get hammered and make fools of themselves?
Her view seems to be: The courts ruled in our favour long ago, so the subject is closed until Doomsday. So much for leftist tolerance and open-mindedness.
h/t: Big Blue Wave
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