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| Maternal madness |
| Life |
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How an initiative to help mothers and children in the developing world became all about abortion
Written by Andrea Mrozek, manager of research and communications at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada
When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would make maternal health a major initiative when Canada assumed presidency of the G8 in late June, the move garnered widespread approval. Since then, many have wondered how on earth a call for improved maternal and child health in the developing world evolved into a debate about abortion.
The following chronology outlines how the debate unfolded:
January 20, 2010 – Seven groups co-author a piece called Putting the World’s Poor on the G8 Agenda. One of the groups is Action Canada for Population and Development, an Ottawa-based lobby group that aims to expand access to abortion internationally.
January 26 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces his intent to use Canada’s presidency of the G8 to focus on maternal and child health in an opinion piece in the Toronto Star. The Prime Minister indicates that solutions to high maternal and child mortality might include “clean water, inoculations and better nutrition, as well as the training of health workers to care for women and deliver babies . . .”
January 26 – Bev Oda, Minister for International Cooperation, hosts a round table question and answer session with media and the new Canadian Coalition for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. At this session a journalist draws attention to the presence of an abortion rights group (Action Canada).
January 27-31 – At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Stephen Harper gives a speech that highlights the focus on maternal and child health.
January 27-28 – Pro-life groups Campaign Life Coalition, LifeSiteNews and ProWomanProLife ask questions about why the government would partner with an abortion rights group to fulfill a maternal health mandate. The government replies, saying no partner and no mandate has been chosen.
February 3 – Opposition leader Michael Ignatieff hopes he can capitalize on perceived discord in the Conservative ranks on the issue of abortion. He demands the Conservatives include abortion in the maternal health strategy.
March 16 – When asked whether the maternal health initiative will include “family planning,” a term that many abortion activists use as a catch-all phrase to include abortion, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says no. Cannon also discounts contraception at this time.
March 18 – Prime Minister Stephen Harper confirms the initiative will include contraception.
March 23 – Bob Rae, foreign affairs critic, brings forward an opposition motion that, without mentioning the word abortion, aims to ensure abortion is part of Canada’s maternal health mandate.
The motion said:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government’s G8 maternal and child health initiative for the world’s poorest regions must include the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception, consistent with the policy of previous Liberal and Conservative governments, and all other G8 governments last year in L’Aquila, Italy; that the approach of the Government of Canada must be based on scientific evidence, which proves that education and family planning can prevent as many as one in every three maternal deaths; and that the Canadian government should refrain from advancing the failed right-wing ideologies previously imposed by the George W. Bush administration in the United States, which made humanitarian assistance conditional upon a “global gag rule” that required all non-governmental organizations receiving federal funding to refrain from promoting medically-sound family planning. The motion that should have easily passed with the support of all three Opposition parties is defeated, 144 to 138. Many Liberals did not come to the vote, and three Liberals, Dan McTeague, Paul Szabo and John McKay, opposed the motion. These motions are non-binding political statements with no teeth; nonetheless, they are public relations events that hold some sway in the media and the general public.
The Prime Minister may now rightfully claim at the G8 meetings that this matter has been debated in the Canadian House of Commons and that Canada does not include abortion as a part of maternal health.
March 30 – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells Canada at a meeting of foreign ministers in Ottawa that “any effort to improve the health of mothers in poor countries must include access to abortion.”
As of April 10, 2010, calls for abortion to be included in the maternal health mandate continue. For example, Catholics for Choice, a theologically liberal activist group based in Washington DC, wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to this effect.
Among the takeaways from this tempest in a teapot for Canadians and Canadian politicians three stand out: firstly, that women’s health and what that means remain hotly contested; secondly, this issue will remain in the news until the G8 summit; and thirdly, Canada’s abortion issue is a far from resolved. |
