Is Justin Trudeau right to expel anti-abortion candidates?

 Is Justin Trudeau right to expel anti-abortion candidates?
http://www.lactualite.com/politique/avortement-vote-de-conscience-et-equilibrisme/  google translated

Public opinion is not monolithic. Despite the marches and blows of absolutists on both sides, it seems that many people are uncomfortable with the extreme positions in this debate.

  27 May. 2014 - by Jérôme Lussier

Over the past 20 days, the debate on abortion has been half revived in Canada, against all odds.
 
 
The starting point is Justin Trudeau's statement on May 7 that the future candidates of the Liberal Party of Canada must be in favor of the right to abortion - a position that on the surface at least broke with the Liberal tradition of a free vote on so-called "conscience issues".
I am not a partisan of the party line in general, let alone questions that come out of the usual political trenches. The news was, moreover, all the more surprising since it came from a party leader who wants to rejuvenate politics (and his party) and, officially, to interfere as little as possible with the process of nominating his candidates.

Was Mr. Trudeau's maneuver politically and strategically wise?


As Lise Ravary pointed out last week, abortion exists in a legal vacuum in Canada. Since the invalidation of the provisions of the Criminal Code that were referred to it by the Supreme Court in Morgentaler in 1988, there is nothing to frame it.

In theory, it is therefore possible in Canada to perform an abortion, for whatever reason, until the very end of a pregnancy. This legal vacuum contrasts with the regimes found in France, Great Britain and Sweden, for example.

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Fifteen years before Morgentaler, the Supreme Court of the United States set out the terms of the debate in its famous Roe v. Wade. While acknowledging a constitutional right to abortion in the United States, the Court had identified divergent interests in confronting each other, thus delineating the contours of a nuanced position.

On the one hand, women have a fundamental right to dispose of their bodies and to make intimate decisions in relation to it - including the decision to have an abortion. On the other hand, the state has a legitimate and opposite interest in protecting "prenatal life".

The Supreme Court of the United States had resolved this dilemma by deciding that a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy prevailed in the first few months, but gradually gave way as the " Viability "of the fetus increases. These notions and tension are at the root of the laws that are found all over the world.
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Public opinion is not monolithic either. Despite the marches and blows of absolutists on both sides, it seems that many people are uncomfortable with the extreme positions in this debate.

For example, in a survey in July 2012, there was very little support (only 6%) for a complete abortion ban. Many more Canadians (49% overall) supported the status quo of unrestricted abortion.

The most popular option - with 60% support, of which 62% for women - was legal abortion, but it was framed, particularly to limit abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy.

Is this position now incompatible with the political agenda of the Liberal Party of Canada?


Are the laws found in several European countries fundamentally foreign to our manners?


Has the PLC decided to make the unlimited right to abortion a principled position, as well as its opposition to the death penalty - supported by 65% ​​of Canadians and apparently 69% of Quebeckers?

Is the absolute and unconditional opposition to the death penalty comparable to the absolute and unconditional defense of the right to abortion? Is there any way to reconcile this rigid posture with the wish for an open policy and the idea of ​​a centrist party that, in principle, defends liberalism and diversity of opinion?

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Here, as elsewhere, the debate about abortion is sometimes kidnapped by a Manichaeism stemming from a rigid conception of human life: the arguments are often summarized as to whether or not the fetus should be considered a human being with The resulting consequences.

If so, he would have all the rights of a normal person, including the right not to be killed. If not, it would be comparable to the body of the woman who wears it, and would not enjoy any right to life or security.
This binary classification leads to known polarized positions. Pro-life - mostly driven by religious beliefs - considers abortion to be prohibited, at conception, and in virtually all circumstances. Pro-choice believes that abortion should be allowed for whatever reason, regardless of the stage of pregnancy.
On both sides, this absolute coherence has the merit of a certain logic. But it may be contrary to the nuances of common sense.
Would it be appropriate in Canada to consider "prenatal life"
 

As enjoying certain rights, but not those of a human being in its own right? Is there a possible compromise in the Canadian political and constitutional context between women's essential freedom to dispose of their bodies and the protection of a child on the eve of birth? I do not pretend to have the answers.

 

And I am far from certain that Canadian politics would benefit from a reopening of the abortion file, which would risk arousing the irrational rifts in the United States. Could not simply launch ad hominem attacks or invoke the slippery slope to end the debate.

 

 

 It would have been relatively simple for Mr. Trudeau to announce that no member of his party could oppose Abortion absolutely and unconditionally. The pro-life position is generally of religious inspiration, and hardly defensible for a party that firmly believes in the separation of church and state, Opinion, and individual rights and freedoms.

 

Respecting the right to abortion, in whole or in part, is certainly part of the DNA of the Liberal Party of Canada. Ultimately, PLC candidates and MPs could be privately pro-life, while committing not to vote to eliminate the right to abortion. Moreover, given the low popular support for a radically anti-abortion position , There were not many political gains to be made from this side for the PLC.

 

The pro-life vote is largely vested in the Conservative Party.That said, it is more difficult to understand why Mr. Trudeau chose to impose on his party the opposite line - that of an "absolute right to abortion"

 

As headline Le Devoir.First, because even for a party very attached to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the recognition of the right to abortion does not imply that it is unlimited.

 

The liberalism advocated by the PLC does not necessarily lead to a compromise position - such as that found in France or Sweden, for example - but it should not exclude it either. Secondly, and more strategically, because That the Liberal Party of Canada should embody a certain political center, capable of nuances and refractory to the absolutes.

 

The Conservatives and the NDP each drag their dogmatic bases; The Liberal Party should ideally have the advantage of flexibility. * * *

 

In Quebec, Mr. Trudeau is right to see the NDP as his main adversary, and to try to seduce his constituents by contrasting strongly with the Conservatives. Many Quebec neo-democrats are ready to vote for Justin Trudeau if it is the only way to overthrow the Harper government. In the rest of Canada, however, Mr. Trudeau's main opponent is Stephen Harper.

 

But if the disappointed Conservatives could be tempted by an honest, centrist and pragmatic Liberal Party, they do not want to know anything about the NDP, widely perceived as ideological, defensive, and in the pay of trade unions.

 

 Of equilibrism, an exercise that usually requires extremes to be avoided. And, perhaps, one avoids losing one's soul, or one's conscience.

 

 

* * * About Jérôme LussierJérôme Lussier is a jurist and journalist. In the past few years, he has worked at the CBC and held a blog in the Voir journal, as well as being a political advisor to the Coalition Avenir Québec. He blogs on contemporary social and political issues at L'actualité since 2013. You can follow him on Twitter: @jeromelussier.