Switching sides again? Apparently not!

Our illustrious former BC premier, the Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, is famous, and rightly so, for being the first South Asian-born leader of this or any other province. Prince Edward Island had a premier of Lebanese heritage in Joe Ghiz, but he was born in Canada as was his son, Robert Ghiz, the current PEI premier.

But Dosanjh is also well-known for his big switcheroo from the provincial New Democratic Party to the federal Liberals with whom he served as a cabinet minister. More recently another former provincial NDP premier, Bob Rae of Ontario, has also become a federal Liberal MP.

For one brief shining moment it appeared that the Hon. Ujjal had done another switch--from pro-choice to pro-life. Dosanjh had publicly decried the practice, not altogether uncommon in the Indo-Canadian community, of women aborting female fetuses. The former premier and Canadian Minister of Health called the motivation for such abortions “absolutely inappropriate” and “contemptible”.

John Hof, president of the BC chapter of Campaign Life Coalition, a pro-life political lobby group, made what appears to me to be a semi-jesting remark regarding Dosanjh's views on gender-specific abortions:

“On behalf of the pro-life movement,” Hof is quoted as saying, “I would like to welcome you half way home. Now that we have you opposed to eliminating girl babies before birth, perhaps we can start talking about the other 50% of abortions. Those done on little boy babies.” [This and subsequent quotes are taken from straight.com.]

Pro-choice activists, who apparently had a humour bypass at some point in their lives, jumped all over this as an indication of perfidy on Hoff's part, trying to trick the public into thinking that Mr. Dosanjh had once again switched sides. Dosanjh himself complained that Hof was "playing fast and loose with my words. I never intended to convey support for his movement.”

Don't give up your day job, John. Stay out of comedy. Nobody gets your jokes.

But what Hof was really doing, I suspect, was exposing an important inconsistency among pro-abortionists; that is, that they are not always so pro. In virtually the same breath we have Dosanjh saying:

He said he does not support gender selection, which he called, “absolutely inappropriate” and “contemptible”. Yet, he also thinks women seeking abortions in Canada should not have to say why they want one.

“That’s between her and her medical advisers,” he said.

If abortion-seeking women should not have to say why they want an abortion, surely it is not the place of anyone else to judge their motivation either. If women are not to be judged for seeking one, then shouldn't they also be free of judgment for wanting one? The latter would seem to follow from the former. But not so for Mr. Dosanjh.

I'm really trying to grapple with this but I can't make it work. Roughly the same number of baby boys and girls are conceived and born each year (males have a slight edge). It stands to reason, then, that just about as many female babies are aborted as males. No pro-abortion activist questions or criticizes this. From their point of view there is nothing inherently wrong with aborting a female any more than a male. Both are fair game, as it were.

Let's go further. Approximately 5% of abortions are solicited because the child was conceived through rape or incest, or posed a threat to the life of the mother. That leaves 95% of abortions that are obtained for a host of other reasons:
a. I'm too young to start a family.
b. I don't want to be a single mother.
c. I have too many children already.
d. My boyfriend will leave me.
e. I'll lose my job.
f. I'll have to quit school.
g. My parents will reject me.
h. The fetus has Down's Syndrome.
etc., etc., etc.

While the pro-choicers may regret that these crises exist, and decry the poverty, pressure and so on that causes them, they would never judge the girl/woman who aborts as a result.

But if they abort because they prefer not to have a female child, their choice is inappropriate and contemptible. Why?

There is more than one culture that values boys over girls. In China, where a one-child policy is the law, many Chinese couples abort female fetuses because if they can only have one child they want it to be a boy. Some in the Indo-Canadian community similarly value males over females. [For further information, see "Some Asian Americans screening out girl babies--is abortion used?", Chicago Sun-Times, March 31, 2008.]

In the politically correct culture of our times we are not to judge cultural differences. In fact, we move heaven and earth (if one can still use the word 'heaven' in public discourse) to accommodate the differences. But now I find pro-abortion activists drawing lines.

So we have the contradictory state of affairs best summarized as follows: You can have an abortion for absolutely any reason--whether the fetus is male or female--unless you are aborting for the simple fact that the baby is female.

Now pro-life people also draw lines. It so happens that they feel that all life is sacred; therefore, abortion is "absolutely inappropriate" and "contemptible", to use Dosanjh's words.

The pro-abortion line is much fuzzier and more arbitrary. It seems to go something like this: "No (fetal) life is sacred, male or female, except sometimes." The "sometimes" has to do with certain cultural values and certain motivations. But I don't know how the pro-abortionists can claim what they otherwise do and yet make such distinctions.

Sorry, Ujjal et al, it just doesn't work.