I'm too old, too jaded, too pragmatic and too experienced to care

No, I have not died since my last post almost a month ago. February just happened to be a very hectic month for me and my colleagues, and I have had no time for the kind of reflection that I like to do before posting to my blog.

But I have been spending a good deal of time following Canadian MP Ken Epp's private member's bill C-484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act as it has made its way through "second reading"--successfully, I am happy to add--and on to tomorrow's vote. This has entailed actually meeting Ken and having him give a public lecture here in beauty's home (Abbotsford, in case you didn't think of it immediately), reading relevant speeches in Hansard, and otherwise following the various critiques recorded in the media.

Simultaneously I have been observing the on-going suppression of free speech on post-secondary campuses regarding student pro-life clubs and activities. I say this as a lifelong academic who was once nominated for a teaching award at one of Canada's largest universities and who has published an award-winning book: I don't recognize the universities of today. They no longer stand for the old values of academic freedom, freedom of speech and expression, tolerance of various points of view and so on. They have become vicious protectors of the new shibboleths, the latest mantras, the popular war cries, the current rallying points, with no regard to other points of view. A plague on them, that they might die out and genuine institutions of higher learning return.

I have come to two conclusions from this four weeks of cogitation:

1. People who have claimed to argue against Ken Epp's bill on the strength of what they call pro-woman/pro-choice principles are beyond philosophical reach. Either they believe the claptrap they spout, in which case they are incapable of rational thought, or they use it as cover for their concern for the 'personhood of the fetus' issue, in which case they are manipulative cynics who are preoccupied, if not obsessed, with abortion. This includes (so called) pro-choice activists like Joyce Arthur, and her counterparts in Parliament such as Alexa McDonough, Irene Mathyssen, Marlene Jennings, Carole Freeman and Raymond Gravel. We should be praying for their constituents.

2. The foregoing notwithstanding, student pro-life clubs have been poorly advised and bring much of their trouble on themselves.

Abandoning completely my normal balanced approach (see the title of this post above), Father Raymond Gravel, dissident Catholic priest and Bloc Quebecois MP, is an idiot. The dislocation between what he sometimes says and how he votes is astonishing. Parliament has suffered its share of incompetents over the years, but even they might have trouble with Fr. Gravel. He rates his own Hall of Fame, believe me.

But even buffoons can sometimes say something useful (Can you say Forrest Gump?). And Gravel did just that yesterday, even though his conclusions did not follow from what he said (maybe he wasn't listening). I would like the members of student pro-life clubs, and those that advise them, to read what he said in debate on Ken Epp's bill. However, I also urge you to take the remarks seriously, which Fr. Gravel did not in voting against a bill that in no way contradicted a word he said.


Mr. Raymond Gravel (Repentigny, BQ):

Mr. Speaker, I think that my remarks were misrepresented after I spoke to this bill in the House in December. That is why I would like to set the record straight today. I think this is in order because my bishop and the apostolic nunciature in Ottawa have received a number of e-mails. I want to clarify and qualify a few things.

First, I am against abortion. I regard human life as sacred and abortion as always being a tragedy in our society. We must do everything in our power, while showing respect for those involved, to limit the number of abortions and promote life.

Second, I sincerely believe that human life starts at conception, and even before. From the moment that a couple decides to have a child, the process has already begun. I have never said that I agreed with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada whereby a child becomes a human being when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, and that until then, it is not distinct from its mother. I simply quoted the definition given by the Supreme Court of Canada. I understand it, even though I disagree with it.

Third, the high number of abortions is distressing. We must identify the causes to be able to find solutions: lack of sexual knowledge, poverty, violence, emotional deprivation and lack of values, just to name a few.

Fourth, the recriminalization of abortion will not solve the problems I mentioned, since before abortion was legalized, many women risked their lives with self-induced abortion or turned to charlatans.

Fifth, by educating, teaching values, fighting poverty, ensuring respect and dignity for people, achieving equality between the sexes, fighting for justice and supporting pregnant women, we can hopefully decrease the number of abortions or even eliminate them entirely. A doctor told me the following: “With all the resources we have available to us now, there should be no more abortions. But we need to promote these resources, which a number of religious institutions refuse to do to this day.”

I have felt for some time that pro-life clubs are too moralistic, judgmental, defensive and negative to really accomplish much. That is not to say that other clubs are any different. Universities used to encourage all kinds of eccentric pronouncements and still should. But the pro-life clubs need to start from common ground and earn a hearing. They don't seem to know how to do that.

My advice as a veteran of twenty-one years of municipal politics, and even more years of wrestling with thorny moral questions, is to accept the reality of our pro-choice situation in Canada. Accept as well that the public is grossly undereducated on life issues. And find common ground in being concerned for the well-being of women, who have been exploited throughout history and are now fighting back in ways that make sense--most of the time.

For making abortion illegal, substitute making it unnecessary. Abortion is a quick fix answer with a poor track record. It is promoted by lazy and unimaginative activists who don't have the creativity to see a better way. It cheapens life. But recriminalizing abortion would no more solve most of the things that make a pregnancy a crisis than abortion does.

I suppose that I should apologize for my harsh language in some of what I have said above. But sometimes you just have to grab a whip and head for the Temple. And I'm too far along in life to care what you think of me. I would just like to see creative, positive, long-term results instead of the hurling of ideologies across the barricades.