By Mike Archer. With news reported this morning [Abbotsford News] that the abortion debate in Abbotsofrd is escalating we can look forward to an enormous waste of time and energy as two irreconcilable extremes battle for our attention.
Can Abbotsford never get on the front pages of our national newspapers or magazines for something useful, interesting and productive?
One of the things Stephen Harper made quite clear to even his most far right wing supporters was that he would not allow the abortion debate to resurface on his watch.
Why? Because there is absolutely no middle ground on the matter. Those who believe in a woman’s right to be in charge of her own body and reproductive rights do not see any reason why someone else’s beliefs should have any legal sway over what she does with her body.
Those who believe abortion is against the laws of their god will not change their minds on the issue simply because Canadian law permits abortion under certain conditions which appear to be acceptable to the majority of Candians.
Those at the extremes will stop at nothing to force others to accept their point of view. More reasonable minds find themselves accepting the fact that not everything in the world is the way they would personally like it and that not everybody agrees with their views.
These people are willing to acknowledge that the freedoms of which we are so proud are there to allow us to hold our beliefs without fear of attack or persecution … not to impose them on others.
If we had the right to shape the world according to our own personal views and beliefs it would look an awful lot like the various failed experiments which have gone before – from the Spanish Inquisition to the attempts at state run communism like the former Soviet Union – and we would be the worse for it.
The freedom to hold beliefs, views, opinions … does not include the right to force them on others. Those on both sides of the abortion debate should take a hint from the fact that politicians, community leaders, media and most average people simply shudder in disbelief when either side gears up for a battle neither side will ever win.
If your god won’t allow you to have an abortion then don’t have one. If you believe you have a right to have an abortion then let your belief guide you.
Either way, would both side please stop trying to change each others minds by shrieking at the rest of us?
Photo from the New Mexico Independent
“The freedom to hold beliefs, views, opinions … does not include the right to force them on others.”
But that’s exactly what “pro choice” people do. They force their view of the non-personhood of the unborn child onto the unborn child, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of viable children in Canada, every year. There is no right greater than the right to have life. You don’t have to be religious to understand that, but apparently it helps a lot.