In the last election campaign, Prime Minister Paul Martin spent the last few days of the campaign suggesting that a Harper government would move to restrict abortion access rights. Harper, for his part, said the grassroots of his party had voted in March, 2005 to preserve the status quo on abortion access rights — and Harper agreed with that position.
I can recall pointing out in some reports at the time the hypocrisy of Martin’s attacks because many members of the Liberal caucus then and now would, if they had the chance, vote to roll back abortion access rights.
And indeed, it is a Liberal that has a bill before the current Parliament that would restrict abortion access. Paul Steckle — who celebrates his birthday today, by the way — introduced Bill C-338 last June, a private members bill that, if passed into law, would make abortion illegal after the 20th week of pregnancy.
Steckle, I suspect, may speak about this at today’s March For Life demonstration on Parliament Hill.
His leader, Stephane Dion, was asked by reporters about that bill after Question Period yesterday:
Reporter: One of your MPs, Paul Steckle, has Bill C-338. It's a private member's bill to restrict abortion … I want to ask you about that. [Thursday]'s the big March for Life. Today the Pope was saying any Catholic that votes in favour of abortion is automatically excommunicated. In light of that is 338 the type of bill you'd give a free vote to or —
Hon. Stéphane Dion: No, the party doesn't want to revisit this issue.
Reporter: But would it be a whipped vote then? I mean it's one of your MPs that brought it forward. Would you just tell your caucus to vote against it?
Hon. Stéphane Dion: I just want to say the point of view of the party is that we don't revisit this issue.
Dion is essentially responding to a hypothetical question here because private members bills almost never get passed. This bill, like similar bills before it over the last decade, may wither and die on the order paper or in committee.
But I point this out because, so far as I know, Dion has not yet said how he or his party would handle a vote in the House on abortion access rights. If you’ve got a link or other information about Dion’s position on this issue, I’d be pleased to be corrected. Would he whip MPs? Whip his cabinet as Martin did on the same-sex marriage vote? Would he allow Liberals to vote their conscience?
This issue may come up again today for, if last year’s event was any indication, there will likely be several hundred people on Parliament Hill today to demonstrate in support of legislation like Steckle’s (I counted 2,200 last year; organizers said there were many times more than that). Last year at the March for Life event, many Conservative MPs — including Jason Kenney who would later become Secretary of State — joined three Liberal MPs on the speaker’s platform at this event. Those three Liberals were Steckle, Paul Szabo and Tom Wappel.
Harper is on the record that he would allow all Conservative MPs, including cabinet members, to vote as they see fit.
NDP leader Jack Layton and Bloc Quebecois Gilles Duceppe see the issue differently and would whip their MPs to vote to protect abortion access rights.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May, to my knowledge, has not said what she would do if she led a party in the House with MPs and such a vote came up but, when she ran in a by-election last year in London, she sounded personally uncomfortable with the issue of abortion though she she promised to fight for and defend her party’s platform which calls for the protection of abortion access rights.