I was… um… unthrilled to read this story in the Globe earlier this week:
MP wants to reopen abortion debate
December 28, 2008 at 11:59 PM ESTWINNIPEG — The abortion debate is about to enter a “new era” of advocacy for the rights of the unborn, says a Conservative MP who recently took over the chairmanship of a secretive, parliamentary anti-abortion caucus.
The all-party caucus will publicize what it views as inadequate abotion regulation, and push for legislation to restrict abortions, Winnipeg MP Rod Bruinooge said in an interview.
Normally you could write this sort of thing off as some whacko backbencher going off message, but between the extremism of the current Conservative party and the way Harper basically doesn’t let them talk (I suspect for fear of how the populace would react if they knew the actual views of the Conservative caucus), this kind of thing gets me quite worried.
And of course, the majority of the sitting members are on the record as being anti-choice:
Joyce Arthur, co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, noted that since a majority of the Conservative caucus are “publicly anti-choice,” it is not surprising that many are prepared to lobby against a woman’s right to choose.
I devoted some time to alternating rage and worry about that story until Tuesday brought this one:
Abortion debate will not be reopened: PMO
The Prime Minister’s Office has reaffirmed its position that the government has no intention of reopening the abortion debate following a Conservative MP’s comments that the issue needs to be addressed.
“Throughout his political career, the prime minister has been clear on this issue,” Dimitri Soudas, a spokesman for the prime minister, told the National Post. “We will not introduce or support legislation on abortion.”
Although the issue has come up during election campaigns, Harper has insisted that it will not be part of a Conservative government agenda.
Now, reading between the lines there, Harper is saying the same thing he’s always said: “the government” won’t introduce a bill on this. That, of course, is potentially his dodge, because allowing a backbencher, or a “secretive, parliamentary anti-abortion caucus” to introduce the bill and having it voted on is not excluded by that statement. The “or support” clause is interesting in the statement, but I suspect that could also be neatly stepped around by allowing a “free vote”–so the bill would not have the formal support of the government, but would be framed as being a democratic exercise with each MP voting their conscience. Of course the MPs might not have been elected if people in their ridings had thought this was on the table, since they all campaigned under the “abortion is not an issue for us” aegis…
As long as the Conservatives have a minority government, I don’t think we have to worry about this actually coming to pass, though, since we can assume that it would be defeated and with some political cost for the Conservatives among their “non-base” supporters.
So, I’ll take some good news from this: it’s still a minority, and Harper is still publicly backing away from it. Probably nothing will come of it–unless Winnipeg is as cool as city as I’ve been told, in which case this might cost Bruinooge come the next election.
But, I am going to worry about it just a little bit anyway, for a couple of reasons:
1) Bruinooge talked to the media with something that’s supposedly “off message”–this just doesn’t happen in Harper’s caucus. Am I wearing a tinfoil hat if I see this as a combination temperature check and presentation of the “not the government, oh no” group to the public?
2) It’s a slim minority, that requires three parties to agree pretty closely to 100%. If the secret caucus could lock down a small number of anti-choice voters from other parties (and the article claims that there are already representatives from all the parties in the group), then a “free vote” that just happened to have all the Conservatives voting one way could actually pass.
