Pro-choice vs pro-abortion

Slowly I am coming to the conviction that the so-called pro-choice camp can be divided into two rough groupings: pro-choice, and a harder edged, ideologically driven pro-abortion. Here's why.

Firstly, polls indicate that approximately two-thirds of Canadians call themselves pro-choice in the sense that they believe that restrictions on abortion should either be limited to some point in the fetal development process (most would favour no abortions after the first trimester) or that there should be no restrictions at all. It is interesting to note that more men fall into this camp than women.

Many of these two-thirds would be personally pro-life in that they would never consent to an abortion for themselves. But they would allow others to make a limited or unlimited choice to go the abortion route.

The other third of Canadians would be classic pro-lifers; i.e., human life and personhood begin at conception, ruling out abortion as an option. A small number within this camp might accept incidents of rape, incest, and endangerment to the mother's life as legitimate bases for terminating the pregnancy, citing the principle of self-defense. About 5% of all abortions are done for these reasons.

[I have explored the various polls in Canada and and the U.S. fairly thoroughly in others posts and won't repeat the details here. You could look at My name is John--and I'm a stats addict, Nov. 8, 2007.]

So to summarize the statistics, about one-third would completely restrict abortion, about one-third would restrict it to no abortion after the first trimester or second trimester, and a third would advocate no restrictions at all.

Or to put it even more broadly, while two-thirds of Canadian women call themselves pro-choice, at least half of these would see no incompatibility between some restrictions on access to abortion on one hand, and women's rights on the other.

This analysis is further buttressed by the results of the Environics and Angus Reid polls done regarding Canadian M.P. Ken Epp's Bill C-484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act. If all of the classic pro-lifers, and all of the pro-choicers who would accept some restrictions on access to abortion were added together, it would still fall short of the number of respondents who say that they favour Epp's bill. In fact, only about 20% of respondents were opposed. Clearly, even some of the one-third of Canadians who oppose all restrictions on abortion must have claimed support for the bill.

It is probably safe to say, then, that a rather small percentage of Canadians (and more men than women) see limits on abortion of any sort, or perceived restrictions in the case of Epp's bill, as incompatible with women's rights.

Yet the pro-choice people most often quoted by our Canadian media constantly refer to any restrictions on access to abortion, or anything that they perceive to be a back door way of putting restrictions on access to abortion, as in opposition to women's rights. Consider these representative quotes:

M.P. Meili Faille (Vaudreuil-Soulanges, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-484. I will start by saying that, as a woman, I would have never believed that I would still be here fighting for the rights of women. It has been a fierce battle, waged by so many women before me.

Joyce Arthur, Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada:
A private member's bill called The "Unborn Victims of Crime Act" (C-484), passed Second Reading in Parliament on March 5. This bill would amend the Criminal Code to allow separate homicide charges to be laid in the death of a fetus when a pregnant woman is attacked. If passed, this bill would be an unconstitutional infringement on women’s rights

M.P. Irene Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP):
While I will not argue that murdering a pregnant woman is particularly abhorrent, this bill will in the end do more harm than good for women's rights in Canada.

M.P. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.):
As I mentioned at the outset, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the fetus and mother are one and the same. Any attempt to separate the two through a redefinition of a human being in the Criminal Code would only cloud the issue of a woman's rights over her own person. I cannot say whether this confusion and clouding of a woman's rights over her own body is the intended consequence of this bill or not but it is, nevertheless, alarming.

From the National Post:
CBC.ca writer Heather Mallick likewise expressed approval of student associations that cut off funding to pro-life groups-- because the rights of Canadian women "are not up for debate." She also theorized that pro-life stirrings in the mainstream media were mostly the result of over-the-hill male editors seeking to control through repression the lithesome bodies that, in their decrepitude, they could no longer enjoy in the bedroom. And Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett put up a slide entitled "Role of an elected official," which declared that politicians have "no right" to oppose abortion -- because "That is the responsibility of women."

A perusal of publications on abortion-related issues would seem to indicate that such quotes as these are representative of women's opinions generally. But empirical evidence appears to say otherwise.

Within the pro-choice camp, the minority who appear to be ideologically pro-abortion rather than pro-choice put themselves forward as the spokespeople for women's rights, even though most women don't appear to agree with them.

As so often happens, then, spokespeople actually representing a relatively narrow segment of society are allowed to speak for all. Those who try to bring balance to this disproportionate state of affairs do not seem to have the same regular access to the media.

An exception to this rule is Dr. Margaret Somerville, the Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Founding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University.

She routinely takes the pro-abortionists to task for misunderstanding, or deliberately misrepresenting, the key Canadian Supreme Court ruling that found abortion restrictions of the day as contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights:

I would like to clarify the statement that "on Jan. 28, 1988, the Supreme Court struck down Section 251 of the Criminal Code that made abortion illegal, ruling that a woman and her fetus are considered a single physical person."

The court did rule that a fetus is not a person for the purposes of attributing Charter rights to it, but that was not the primary basis of its decision that the law governing abortion was unconstitutional. Rather, it held the abortion law was unconstitutional because a woman who needed an abortion to protect her life or health might not have access to a legal abortion if she had no access to a "therapeutic abortion committee."

That potential inaccessibility contravened women's rights to life and to personal security and was therefore struck down.

All Supreme Court judges, however, including Madame Justice Bertha Wilson, the strongly pro-choice, women's rights advocate, ruled that society has a legitimate interest in the fetus and that Parliament has the power to pass laws regulating abortion, provided that it complies with the Charter.

The statement that "a woman and her fetus are considered a single physical person" is used heavily by pro-choice advocates regarding Bill C-484. But it relies on a position that is scientifically incorrect; the fetus is not the same physical entity as the woman.

Rather than bolstering their case, it seems to me that this "selective articulation" or misrepresentation of the law to support their position shows that their case is not a strong one, including ethically.

Margaret Somerville , Montreal Gazette,April 20/08.

Most women have no difficulty with Dr. Somerville's views, it would appear. But an arrogant and unrepresentative minority do. I wish the media was more sophisticated and knowledgeable, and would bring more balance to their reporting on these issues.