| PUBLICATION:
National Post DATE: 2005.11.18 EDITION: National SECTION: Issues & Ideas PAGE: A22 COLUMN: Colby Cosh BYLINE: Colby Cosh SOURCE: National Post WORD COUNT: 796 NOTE: ColbyCosh@gmail.com
Canada's silent majority -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Welcome back to the issue no one wants to talk about. Earlier this month, Environics released the results of a wide-ranging October poll commissioned by LifeCanada, which will probably be annoyed at being described as a "leading national anti-abortion group." Despite a sample size of over 2,000 respondents, the poll did not get much play in the press, and indeed nothing in the poll is "news" if you have tracked measurements of public opinion about therapeutic abortion. An impressive majority of Canadians continues to profess beliefs at odds with both the legal status quo and with the tacit stances of the national parties. Consider the results. Only 33% of respondents said that legal protection for human life should begin at birth; 60%, by contrast, favoured some species of protection in the womb. 56% believe Canada should require parental consent from female minors seeking an abortion. Only 29% believe that medicare should pay for all abortions; 50% favour tax-funded abortion only in cases of rape, incest or jeopardy to the mother, and another 18% believe all abortions should be purchased privately. Perhaps most remarkably, 70% of Canadians in the survey favour "informed consent" laws that would require women seeking abortion to be provided with certain mandatory information or advice beforehand. I doubt Environics offered respondents the full story about the informed-consent laws that exist in the United States, but it should be obvious that such laws can be used to impose significant burdens on anxious women. Many states require that patients be counselled in person 24 hours before an abortion, which can force them to arrange two separate trips to a faraway clinic. A few states oblige abortionists to warn that a fetus "may" feel pain. Others demand that patients be warned of a possible link between abortion and breast cancer, even though few doctors take the sketchy data on this topic seriously. As a whole, the poll paints a familiar picture of Canadian public opinion. Most of us don't like abortion and would prefer that the law reduce its incidence, or make it more difficult. Whatever your own view -- mine is squarely pro-choice -- this produces a conundrum. A schema of modest legal steps against therapeutic abortion should be a vote-winner: As the LifeCanada polls shows, radicals like me -- that is, those who are unreservedly pro-choice -- seem quite outnumbered by the "moderates" who would circumscribe a woman's right to abort in various ways. But senior politicians, including capital-C "Conservatives," are terrified to propose any such steps. Which means we are left with the status quo -- the only nation in the entire Western world where there is no abortion law whatsoever. First trimester, second trimester, third trimester: Anything goes. And any politician who dares question this state of affairs risks being shot down by the media as a stone-age misogynist. Of course, there are several similar puzzles in Canadian life; there is good evidence that we collectively favour capital punishment for the most loathsome murderers, and overwhelming evidence that we would prefer a more restrictive immigration policy. Yet neither of these positions will find its way on to a federal platform soon. How does it happen that polls show the public to one side and its representatives to the other? This is particularly confounding when it comes to abortion. Shouldn't this be a matter of principle? Even if a fetus merits only a limited package of rights to humane treatment, or to a weird sort of medical due process, we're still talking about rights -- by definition, matters of basic civil conscience. How can any abortion moderate vote for the Liberals, who believe that the present anarchy on abortion is sacred, or even the Conservatives, who run from the issue like a jackrabbit from a coyote? It is easy for politicians to ignore those who share the majority opinion. You are unorganized and quiet. But why are you? There may be an opportunity for some nonpartisan group, or even a brave party leader, to emerge and speak for the disfranchised moderate majority. But in truth, I'm more cynical. I believe most of us lie to pollsters. I suspect that we are genuinely ashamed of our reproductive freedom, but that we secretly cherish it for our private purposes (or those of our wives, girlfriends, and daughters). And so we tell pollsters that we favour restrictions on abortion. But when a politician makes noises about doing something about it, we get scared. Are the politicians the real
cowards here, or is it the people they serve? |