02.06.2012 05:57 PM

Conservatives and abortion

Contest time! Who can find the number of commenters on this web site – or in the media, if you have time – who insisted the Harper regime would never, ever touch abortion? Best examples welcome!

41 Comments

  1. Michael Bussiere says:

    “While [Stephen] Harper has not promised to raise pro-life or pro-family legislation he has promised to allow such legislation to be introduced by others and to permit free votes….” – Anti-abortion Web site LifeSite.net, March 22, 2004.

    http://jeansansum.shawwebspace.ca/blog/post/quotes_by_and_about_stephen_ha_1/

    • Philip says:

      There was a chorus of Conservatives on this proto-blog, bleating away that there was no way Harper would be stupid enough (not my phrase, theirs) to open up the abortion issue. Well he has, pretty much right on schedule and all of Mr. Tulk’s semantics doesn’t change that one bit.

      • Jason King says:

        Yeah Phillip, and once you answered Gord, Im sure he will pull out one of his chestnuts that starts with “A better question for the Liberals would be…”

      • Michael Bussiere says:

        Same difference.

        “While [Stephen] Harper has not promised to raise pro-life or pro-family legislation he has promised to allow such legislation to be introduced by others and to permit free votes….” – Anti-abortion Web site LifeSite.net, March 22, 2004.

        http://jeansansum.shawwebspace.ca/blog/post/quotes_by_and_about_stephen_ha_1/

      • Philip says:

        Mr. Harper’s intent was to slip this issue in through the back door, using a no name MP. We have discussed this particular tactic ad nauseum on this proto blog. Thus the complete lack of surprise on anyone’s part that the abortion issue has reared it’s head. Harper not explicitly telling the Canadian people that abortion was off the table is meaningless, if the intent to back door the legislation is there. Which it obviously is.

        A better question for the Conservative Party is why they feel they can’t level with Canadians about their core values. If you are afraid to talk openly about them in public, then it perhaps it’s time to drop them.

  2. Philip says:

    I found one!

  3. Domenico says:

    It is quite apparent that Harper is floating trial balloons through his back benchers like Woodworth and Trost. I suspect He is gauging the amount of push back he will get before allowing a “private members bill” to come to a vote. Obstensibly because he is suddenly in favor of relaxing party discipline, but with the de facto aim of pushing his conservative social agenda.

  4. jason king says:

    Found two! Oh wait…

  5. allegra fortissima says:

    What’s next?

    “Many forms of so-called contraception are, in fact, aborbifacient, that is, they destroy, at its beginning, a life which has already been conceived.” ~ Cardinal Raymond Burke, Advancing the Culture of Life in Hope and With Obedience, October29, 2011

    Keep your rosary off women’s ovaries, PLEASE!

  6. RDS says:

    “Justice Minister Rob Nicholson also sent out an emailed statement Monday saying that while the government had no power to influence motions from individual MPs, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised not to re-open the debate.”

    Really. “No power?”

    I call shenanigans.

    I am pretty sure an “emailed statement” that said, “If you introduce a motion that even remotely touches the abortion debate you will be summarily kicked out of the caucus,” might “influence motions from individual MPs.”

    Disingenuous at best. Only the Tulks of the world buy these lame denials; everybody else either won’t understand that this (allegedly) isn’t a government bill, or will understand that His Royal Steveness has managed to keep a lid on this for six years and darn well could continue to keep the lid on if he wanted to.

    • Pat says:

      There is no parliamentary rule, but we have all gotten used to PMSH controlling everything his MPs say and do. All of a sudden his MPs are aloud to speak?

    • Michael Bussiere says:

      According to these guys, he’s promised a free vote. And just how do you think that free vote would go?

      “While [Stephen] Harper has not promised to raise pro-life or pro-family legislation he has promised to allow such legislation to be introduced by others and to permit free votes….” – Anti-abortion Web site LifeSite.net, March 22, 2004.

      http://jeansansum.shawwebspace.ca/blog/post/quotes_by_and_about_stephen_ha_1/

    • RDS says:

      Please read what I wrote, and what Rob Nicholson wrote.

      “Power to influence” is not parliamentary authority. The PM certainly could expel a member from caucus, and certainly could call a whipped vote and insist that all members vote against it.

      Unless he does those things, he is demonstrating that regardless of what power or influence he does or doesn’t have, he has no real interest in suppressing this issue, which is far more important. If he did everything he could to stop this and it still went ahead, maybe we’d believe he doesn’t want it. But he hasn’t.

  7. Sean says:

    Gord, how do you feel about Dean Del Mastro, P.Sec. to the PM, as a feature speaker at Pro Life Rallies, telling everyone who is a real Catholic and who is not?

  8. frmr disgruntled Con now happy Lib says:

    A number of em from your “Agenda, not so hidden” blog dated Jan 12/21012

    But here’s a personal favourite: ******** says:
    January 13, 2012 at 8:31 pm
    As my granpappy used to say, “Betchall feel real dumb now that ya said that”! There is no hidden agenda on SSM…PERIOD.Same goes for abortion,death penalty etc etc.
    Please do keep up the fear mongering though because election after election thousands of swing voters are realizing that mainstream libs have very few tools other than trying to portray Harper as a boogieman. 3 election, 7 years and none of it has come to play. But please do continue.

  9. Dana says:

    Is lard-ass in the country or isn’t he? We’re treated to shots of him and Laureen getting in the doomed airplane in the morning and then in the afternoon we see him sitting beside Grand Puppet Johnston smiling at and shaking hands with people who just want to strangle him. Is he in China blowing the Politburo or isn’t he?

    Warren think about this for a bit: imagine that the LPC and NDP get all concerned about the country instead of their own belly buttons and decide to provide some kind of united opposition to lard-ass and it becomes clear to all and sundry that the Cons have no chance of re-election even to a minority. Is Harper crazy enough to go all scorched earth on us, do you think? He could do a fuck of a lot of irreversible damage to the place with the majority he’s got and I sense no backbones at all, well a few whiners maybe, in the Con caucus. If Tulk is any indication Harper has a certain number of rabid asswipe supporters around who’d applaud anything he did even if, or perhaps especially if it involved unweaving the last 70 years or so of federal Liberal and even PC legislation. Of course Tulk and his ilk would like it even better if it involved dead puppies and kittens on the clothesline but even he or she or it must’ve heard of the Rolling Stones.

    Whaddya think – how crazy is this fat little motherfucker?

  10. Mulletaur says:

    What is this Conservative obsession with controlling female reproductive organs ? Machismo ? Fascism ? Trying to (re)impose male dominance over the female of the species ? What ?

    • Mulletaur says:

      What a woman decides to do with her body is up to her, Gourd, not you, and certainly not the gang of patriarchal anti-abortion nutters (i.e. Harper Conservatives) that you represent. The most ironic part of the rubbish you posted above is that you rely on science that doesn’t even exist to buttress what is eventually an extreme religious view. I am not in favour of abortion except in very exceptional circumstances, but it’s just not my decision – it’s a woman’s decision.

      You and your hypocritical ilk want to impose your choices on women by law – that is the strongest evidence that you have no convincing arguments. I say hypocritical because you would not hesitate to send the living into battle to kill and be killed, no matter what the pain it causes the living – and if the Great Canadian Public would let you get away with it, you wouldn’t have the state do a single thing to improve the lives of people once they were brought into this world. You would just leave them to their own devices.

  11. Philippe says:

    My theory on this is that Harper’s given his blessing for this to get thrown out there to “test the water”.

  12. James Curran says:

    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/730478–tory-rips-no-good-jobless

    “There has been no such apology from Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott for his unflattering depiction of women seeking abortions, which also applauded Saskatoon doctors for restricting access to abortion services.

    “Pro-life feminists have … come to see abortion as part of a male agenda to have women more sexually available,” said the controversial MP in an anti-abortion news release sent out Nov. 20.”

  13. Steve T says:

    Just so I’m clear, we are saying that no MP may even speak about abortion – otherwise it will be equated to the entire Tory caucus (and the PMO itself) re-introducing the abortion issue?

    Remind me – wasn’t there a lot of bleating about Harper being a control freak, who never lets his MPs speak their mind?

  14. fred says:

    Gord, the German people were responsible for Hitler’s actions. Harper can float his trial balloons while being voted into power by
    24% 0f the eligible voters. There will come a time when the 76% of the Canadian population says that starving grandmas and
    other draconian measures are not acceptable. He will be arrested for crimes committed against the Canadian people.

  15. GPAlta says:

    Abortion rates are higher in countries where abortion is illegal, sex education in schools is the only other policy measure ever shown to reduce abortion rates, abortion rates are declining in Canada. Meanwhile, Conservatives want to make abortion illegal, conservatives want to end sex education in schools. Therefore Conservatives want to increase abortion rates in Canada.

  16. JH says:

    Whoa! The level of debate, while partisan, is usually pretty high on here. Sadly not on this topic.
    BTW – If you check you’ll find lots of private memebers bills from all sides of the house. They were never considered party or government policy under any PM. I should also add that the anti-abortion MPs group in Parliament has members from all parties.
    And like many on here, I too thought Stephen Harper was a control freak, who called the shots on everything within his government and the CPC. Apparently not – can’t have it both ways. Too bad.

    • Philip says:

      Unless we are watching Harper float a trial ballon using a back bench MP. This is still Harper being very much in control of his Conservative Party and his caucus. He loses nothing by having Stephen Woodworth float this out. If there is little push back, he gets to move forward on a file that is very close to is heart. If the ballon gets punctured, Harper gets puff and posture about listening to his core voter but respecting the wishes of all Canadians. He simply can’t lose.

  17. Tired of it All says:

    Anyone else curious why our PMSH iron clad grip on communications has suddenly gone *poof*? Capital punishment, fetal rights, two huge hot-buttons and MPs are suddenly allowed to publicly muse about them… HMMMMM. Trial meet balloon. And there will be many more until they are just a common buzz, daily, and no one will notice when they get tabled.

  18. Hoohah says:

    Yawn. Enjoy blowing your brains out, tinfoil hatters. There’s zero chance anything will come of this, no matter how many Vellacotts, Trosts and Woodworths are in the Tory caucus – unless of course, there’s 155 of them out of 166, all of whom are prepared to openly defy the Prime Minister. Anyone want to take bets on that happening? Anyone? Bueller? This will come up for discussion, the so-cons in the CPC caucus will get to blow off some steam, and then Harper will ensure it gets voted down. It’s simply not conceivable he would let any legislation on this matter pass. Not. Gonna. Happen.

    Even better: Harper corners the market on the pro-life vote (since unlike every other party that treats pro-lifers like lepers, Harper lets them speak) AND his credentials with pro-choicers go up since he will have proven that even with a majority he’s not beholden to the pro-life wing on the party. After all, wasn’t that the constant warning we got? Don’t let him have a majority! He’ll ban abortion! Well, he’ll have had 4.5 years of a majority. And abortion will remain totally untouched, no matter how much debate rages on and folks insist the secret plan is just around the corner.

    But don’t take my word for it. Just wait and see (I guess we have no choice: it’s a majority, after all) But when election 2015 rolls around and there’s absolutely no change to the (no) abortion laws in this country, how dumb are you going to look, Warren, for repeatedly suggesting the Tories were going to bring it in by stealth?

  19. Tim Sullivan says:

    I was at a meeting where MP Pierre Lemieux spoke. The crowd was friendly to this pro-life MP. Two questions posed to him were essentially – WTF’s up with your government?!? Where is the legislation to outlaw abortion?

    Lemieux’s response was: the maternal health initiative was a start, caucus is chomping at the bit to do something, and we have to proceed with baby steps, under the radar. Keep praying … and send money!

    It was at this point I objected to the presence of a politician attending our non-political association and asking for money. He had been asked not to request money. My focus of questioning was more in line with “Why does the government lie so often and endlessly?”

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