The debate about abortion is over. The question about a woman's rights over her own body are actually not in question, any effort to reopen this issue should be met with solidarity, a united front. Whatever personal views a MP may have about the nature of an abortion is irrelevant to the wider questions revolving around personal freedoms. No "Liberal" can consider themselves as such if they can't separate their own personal stance with the wider questions. I actually have no qualms with people who have a problem with abortions, perhaps one day we can have civil disagreement on this score. That said, whatever your own view, it doesn't extrapolate to the wider issues at hand, issues that are so fundamental and unequivocal, any wavered presentation is simply offensive:
“If there are individuals in my caucus who feel strongly for moral reasons one way or the other, we’re not going to whip the vote,” Rae said.Cop out. It is time for the Liberal Party of Canada to stop playing this game on these particular issues. It is time for the Liberals to draw a line in the sand around the "big red tent" and make it clear, you are free to personally hold whatever view you choose, which is actually in accordance with the similar freedom to have ultimate governance over your own body. Hiding behind feeling "strongly", voting your conscience, is contradictory because it applauds the openness with voting that attacks another core right of citizens. Freedom of expression isn't much different than freedom of choice, at least the underlying ideological belief system seems consistent in my mind. Therefore, yes have an opinion, have a feeling, go so far as to express your displeasure, but when it comes down to sanctioning squashing another right, stand down and vote for that freedom. There is no contradiction here, it is entirely consistent, that's the bottom line. Mr. Rae must whip the vote, again the Liberals need to meet this Conservative backdoor nonsense head on and offer a firm rebuke. If an MP can't see that one right supersedes another then perhaps this party isn't an appropriate home, perhaps the days of trying to be everything to everyone need to end and we plant our flags, proudly, unabashed, this is who we are and this is what we stand for, PERIOD. You want a real world example of why the Liberals fail to resonate, why our wishy washy ways have led to erosion, indifference, a worry ambiguity of purpose? Look no further than this "debate", which a strong party wants NO part of and demands a certain responsibility beyond some personal view of a preferred world. I appreciate tough choices, but sometimes they must be made, this is one occasion. Whip it, whip it good!
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There are two issues here, women's choice and the definition of what it is women are doing to a rapidly evolving intelligence that from the moment of conception physically undergoes the entire gamut of pre-human evolutionary body phases that brought us to human consciousness now, and does so individually, within nine months.
My son was born at the start of his 25th week, 640 grams.
My son is alive because of a combination of human and divine miracles, the greatest of which to me afterwards was my certainty throughout the night and days that followed that he would live: while down the halls fetuses not much younger than my son were being aborted. These are deep issues requiring wise wording and addressing, not running from.
The fetus is not an independent being unless there is a miraculous amount of miracle going on, an abortion is not murder. To me an abortion is a form of suicide particular to women, I think women always feel the loss inside themselves, however otherwise certain they may always remain that they made the right choice.
The civil liberatarian/protestant-individualist/catholic personalist moderate Islam etc etc etc position is that there is no murder, however much loss of life each woman feels or doesn't feel. It's a choice that has helped women survive as the mothers of the species for tens of thousands of years.
Let pro-choice forces and local communities spend their money on offering pregnant women ways to have children that mothers can raise with dignity. Create a genuine choice stream and some will take that route, other's won't. The species survives.
There's all kinds of sorrows in these stories, let's speak honestly, let's speak politically, philosophically and theologically, let's talk scientifically, let's talk choice, and then vote with a genuine conscience, fully aware, as you suggest Steve, that freedoms are always interdependent.
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