Outer Dark
Lee on Sep 11 2008 at 12:19 pm | Filed under: Culture, Domestic Politics
(photo: Brian Long)
Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice president of the Canadian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is concerned that Sarah Palin’s decision to have Trig, may lead to a reduction of abortions in Canada through positive example.
This is perhaps demonstrative of how different perspectives on abortion can be in the United States on both sides. It is frankly uncommon to see a senior figure among even the staunchest American defenders of abortion rights, argue that a decrease in their exercise would be undesirable. Indeed, such an opinion is more commonly confined to the most extremist fringes of radical feminism, or within the vile eugenics and zero population growth movements.
That even applies to policy in pro-choice advocacy in the United States. For instance, very pro-choice Democrats (including Barack Obama) argued for the Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act on grounds that by providing contraceptives to low income women through Medicaid, you could reduce the number of abortions in significant quantities. Such arguments aren’t formulated in similar fashion in Canada or elsewhere, where the universal assumption isn’t that abortion is an intrinsically bad thing, the occurrence of which ought be reduced through social policy.
You could argue of course that Dr. Lalonde’s assessment has a certain absolutist political sensibility that is lacking in the United States. One of the reasons I’ve often argued the inevitability of an abortion prohibition is that unlike in most of the rest of the West, the arguments for abortion in the United States tend to be fatally compromised by antiabortion assumptions. Generally when this starts to happen it’s merely a matter of time before the compromised side capitulates.
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Your first link is broken.
Based on reading other posts, and the context of his remarks, it sounds to me like his concern is rooted more in the idea of more women choosing not to abort babies that have downs syndrome. It seems he expressed concern that not all potential parents are prepared or capable of raising a child with such major disabilities.
>>Your first link is broken.
Thanks Shinobi. Repaired.
>>It seems he expressed concern that not all potential parents are prepared
Yep. That’s what he says alright.
And yet… if parents have to be prepared… and the babies have to be the right sort of future contributors…