Chris Selley's Full Pundit: The infinite nuance of Canada's abortion debate
Jan 18, 2012 – 12:12 PM ET | Last Updated: Jan 18, 2012 12:24 PM ET
The most complicated debate ever [???]
Latest update: All abortions are OK, except if they're done on grounds of the fetus's gender — but that might actually be OK too, if you already have enough children of the opposite gender.
"As symbolic a gesture of disapprobation as it may be," the Calgary Herald's editorialists like the idea of empowering doctors not to divulge gender information about fetuses until 30 weeks, as a means of reducing, or at least declaring society's abhorrence of, sex-selective abortions. Barbara Kay agrees. "Sex selection through government-funded technology … is gendercide tout court," she writes in the National Post — "no different than enforced sterilization on grounds of mental or racial inferiority" — and, she says, "private clinics as well as public should be regulated to prevent it."
The Ottawa Citizen's editorialists, on the other hand, think the idea is "inappropriate and insulting to Canadian women," and that it wouldn't work anyway: Truly determined sex-selectors would find a way around the rules. They also note, apparently apropos of nothing, that "anti-abortion Republican congressman Trent Franks wants to make it illegal to choose to abort a fetus based on its race or gender." We're not sure what they're getting at there. Is it not OK ever to share an opinion with someone who's anti-abortion?
The Globe and Mail's André Picard wants us to know that this is a very "nuanced" issue. "There are also Canadians of all religions and races who practise other forms of 'family balancing,' " he writes. "Couples who have a girl and want a boy, or have two boys and want a girl. So they choose to abort a fetus and try again." Tim Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, seems to defend the practice to Picard, calling it "not evil or nefarious" — but, says Picard, Caulfield "stressed that he is not endorsing sex selection." So … no, sorry, we're utterly baffled. How in the world is this "family balancing" thing any different from sex selection?
All of the above (save possibly Kay), and the Montreal Gazette's editorialists to boot, believe the only approach that's likely to really tackle this problem (which the Gazette doubts exists at all) is to directly address the cultural biases at play. We agree. But that's going to be awfully difficult if the apparent desire among some bien-pensant, native-born Canadians for matched gender sets of children is inexplicably exempt from the discussion.
Latest update: All abortions are OK, except if they're done on grounds of the fetus's gender — but that might actually be OK too, if you already have enough children of the opposite gender.
"As symbolic a gesture of disapprobation as it may be," the Calgary Herald's editorialists like the idea of empowering doctors not to divulge gender information about fetuses until 30 weeks, as a means of reducing, or at least declaring society's abhorrence of, sex-selective abortions. Barbara Kay agrees. "Sex selection through government-funded technology … is gendercide tout court," she writes in the National Post — "no different than enforced sterilization on grounds of mental or racial inferiority" — and, she says, "private clinics as well as public should be regulated to prevent it."
The Ottawa Citizen's editorialists, on the other hand, think the idea is "inappropriate and insulting to Canadian women," and that it wouldn't work anyway: Truly determined sex-selectors would find a way around the rules. They also note, apparently apropos of nothing, that "anti-abortion Republican congressman Trent Franks wants to make it illegal to choose to abort a fetus based on its race or gender." We're not sure what they're getting at there. Is it not OK ever to share an opinion with someone who's anti-abortion?
The Globe and Mail's André Picard wants us to know that this is a very "nuanced" issue. "There are also Canadians of all religions and races who practise other forms of 'family balancing,' " he writes. "Couples who have a girl and want a boy, or have two boys and want a girl. So they choose to abort a fetus and try again." Tim Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Alberta, seems to defend the practice to Picard, calling it "not evil or nefarious" — but, says Picard, Caulfield "stressed that he is not endorsing sex selection." So … no, sorry, we're utterly baffled. How in the world is this "family balancing" thing any different from sex selection?
All of the above (save possibly Kay), and the Montreal Gazette's editorialists to boot, believe the only approach that's likely to really tackle this problem (which the Gazette doubts exists at all) is to directly address the cultural biases at play. We agree. But that's going to be awfully difficult if the apparent desire among some bien-pensant, native-born Canadians for matched gender sets of children is inexplicably exempt from the discussion.