Elizabeth May, (left) the leader of the Green Party of Canada, is drawing some political fire for some comments she made during the byelection campaign in London North Centre on abortion.
Here are those comments and some context:
In the week or so prior to the Nov. 28 byelection, May, like all candidates, was invited to a meeting with the residents of The Sisters of Saint Joseph, a convent in London, Ont.. Many of the sisters in residence there are elderly and so, as a service to those who cannot get out very easily, the sisters invite candidates in various election campaigns to visit. During the London North Centre byelection, all the candidates were invited by the sisters and three chose to attend. They addressed the sisters on separate occasions and not all at once.
May met with sisters for about 45 minutes. She gave a 15-minute presentation and then answered questions on a variety of topics. Sister Kateri Gheisquier was one of the organizers and she says each candidate was asked to respond to a similar series of questions, one of which was their views on abortion.
None of these meetings were open to the public and the media was not invited to any of these meetings.
Sister Kateri says May arrived with, she thinks, three people and she did not know that anyone was recording the conversation.
One of those individuals who accompanied May was Dan Baril. Baril was May's “Chief Strategist” during the byelection campaign:
Baril taped May’s answers and subsequently posted an audio recording of her answer to the abortion question on his blog.
On his blog, Baril wrote:
“While speaking to the Sisters of Saint Joseph, at Mount St. Joseph's, one of the Sisters asked “…so what's your position on abortion and gay marriage?”
I had one set of fingers grasping for the handle on my briefcase ready to bolt, while the fingers on my other hand had dialed the 9 and the 1, but suddenly minutes later everything was okay. The perfect answer flowed. But that perfect answer was perfect not because it gave the sisters what they wanted to hear. On the contrary. It was perfect because it was 100% honest, it was 100% from the heart, and the Sisters, 100% of them I believe, got that.
This is what Elizabeth answered to the Sister that asked: click here.”
So I clicked and here is my transcription of what that recording contained. This is May speaking:
Of course this is a question that is tough. Let me explain what our party's position is and then I'll tell how as a Christian I deal with it personally. OK? First of all, the party's position is that we must maintain access to thereapeutic abortions for women in Canada and the party's position is that we should not re-open the debate on same-sex marriage. It's a closed debate. It's a human-rights issues. It's under the charter. Case closed.
My personal views – and this is tricky – and this [inaudible] here. I actually agree with the party's position but not necessarily for the reasons you'd think. I think that part of the type of malaise in Canadian society and it's true right across North America is that nobody wants to discuss moral issues as part of the discussion. It's always a polarized debate with people on either side of the fence throwing things at each other. I think there are moral dimensions to the question that can be discussed as dialogue.
If you go back and I've been doing this basically – St. Thomas Aquinas thought the whole issue of when it was – the issue wasn't abortion, it was an issue of when ensouled and not ensouled fetuses. It was a debate then because there was different levels of crime then. If a man caused a woman to miscarry a pregnancy he'd be put to death because it was past the point in the pregnancy when it was considered an ensouled fetus. So there was a debate there. It wasn't always the case .. Augustine went to this to, St. Thomas Aquinas went to it … when is it that the human potential of conception crystallizes – it was never considered a trivial matter, to strike a woman and cause her to miscarry – it's a moral dimensions debate that's quite complex and I think deserves respect.
So I respect people who say, “I'm against abortion because there is a right to life, and the fetus is sacred.”
I respect that, because I think all life is sacred. So, where do I come to thinking we should be able to have – and must have – access to therapeutic abortions in Canada?
It's the other side of the moral dilemma: If we make them illegal, women will die. We know this. It happened for hundreds and hundreds of years, that women would seek out whatever butcher they could find to cause an abortion to happen, and they would die horrible deaths, and the baby would die too.
So I see it as a moral dilemma, and I don't see it as a clear-cut black-and-white.
And I think one of the things I would like to bring to Canadian politics is to show enough respect for the other view, that we could actually have a dialogue about it. Because one of the things that is wrong about polarization is the language becomes a barrier to understanding.
So if one group of people say, “A woman has a right to choose,” I get queasy, because I'm against abortion. I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose.
What I don't want is a desperate woman to die in an illegal abortion. But I also don't think it's right to say – Well, you see, you end up having this conflict.
What I'd like to do in politics – and I've talked about this in some other settings besides here today, because this is the first time it's come up in London North Centre – what I'd like to do in politics is to be able to create the space to say, “Abortions are legal because they must be to avoid women dying. But nobody in their right mind is for abortions.”
I've talked women out of having abortions. I would never have an abortion myself, not in a million years. I can't imagine the circumstances that would ever reduce me to it.
So can't we then have a different kind of conversation? What kind of programs and strategies do we need to have to reduce the number of legal abortions that take place? Instead of having this rather polarized and, you know, really, futile debate that only fuels divisions and makes both sides feel as they're, you know, in some form of battle where … I don't know, that may not satisfy you at all, but that's where I am on the issue