P'wndering the Non-Debate Debate & Subsquent Foolish Fallout

So that happened.

I was unfortunately waylaid by a flu bug of such savage magnitude that I was unable to participate in any bursting of blogs, but it seems to have all worked out for the good.  Motion 312 was exposed for the sleazy little fetus-humping sham it is, an attack on womens’ rights unworthy of the time and taxpayer dollars wasted on debating it.

The highlight was MP Stephen Woodworth, the source of this demented irritant, being given a top-drawer pro-choice asskicking by his own caucus whip, Gordon O’Connor, while the world watched.  Among other things, O’Connor reminded Woodworth in no uncertain terms that the House is neither a medical nor religious body:

The House of Commons, however, is not a laboratory. It is not a house of faith, an academic setting or a hospital. It is a legislature, and a legislature deals with law, specifically, in this case, subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code.

Woohoo!  Go Gordio!  But this little nugget was my personal favourite:

The decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, and in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount and take precedence over that of the state.

Hear hear!  And here here!

But predictably, in the wake of the M312 debate we’ve been beset by a frenzy of furious pearl-clutching over Canada’s lack of legislation governing this personal medical decision.  Apparently “Canada needs a proper open debate on abortion policy” because the status quo isn’t what the Supreme Court intended.

Well guess what: the status quo isn’t what anyone thought would happen.  Back in 1988, even I assumed that eventually abortion would be codified in some kind of law.  I doubt anyone could have imagined that Canada was about to embark on a 24-year experiment in glorious “lawlessness” that would work out so incredibly well.  An experiment in which women and doctors proved themselves more than capable, thankyouverymuch, of making these kinds of decisions and regulating themselves without the long hairy arm of the State reaching in and using its coercive power to manipulate private lives.  An experiment that concluded with a lower abortion rate.

Could it be that women and doctors know better than government bureaucrats?  Say it ain’t so.

In fact, our “experiment” worked out so fantastically well that the only answer to the suggestion that Canada needs abortion legislation is…

Why?

(h/t AntoniaZ)