A Time to Choose Life: Abortion, Women and Human Rights, 224 pages.
Ian Gentles, Editor
Stoddart Publishing
A time to choose life…has made publishing history. A leading Canadian publishing house, with no church or pro-life affiliation has published a pro-life book on abortion. Stoddart views it as a potential best seller and has printed 7,500 copies.
The 15 essays from 18 contributors (half of them women) are superb. A number of studies are comparative and international in scope. All of them are relevant to the contemporary Canadian scene including analyses of the Daigle case by Ottawa lawyer Robert D. Nadeau, and the 1988 Supreme Court ruling on Morgentaler by political scientist, Dr. Janet Ajzenstat.
Stronger spirituality
The book is graced with the late George Grant’s essay “The Triumph of the Will.” Canada’s foremost political philosopher wrote, “Alone among Western countries, West Germany has a law which gives the fetus a legal right to life, with some conditions…In 1988 West Germany forbade surrogate motherhood and the production of human embryos for research. The Germans have a great advantage over us in that they have already faced the political incarnation of the triumph of the will.”
Another philosopher, Professor Samuel Ajzenstat, from the University of Western Ontario, examines a current pro-abortion position that admits abortion is the killing of a child but that a woman is stronger spiritually for making such a hard decision. Ajzenstat playfully translates this: “I can imagine Claire [the brave, honest feminist] someday saying to me, ‘Yes, Sam, I know I’m killing you, there’s no way around it, but I’m willing to accept that.’ I hope there’s still someone around at that point to wonder whether I’m as willing to accept it as Claire is.”
Ian T. Benson, chairman of the civil liberties committee of the British Columbia Bar Association, brilliantly counters many “pro-choice” slogans: “We should not criminalize abortion because women are not criminals” makes as much sense as “We should not criminalize wife-battering because men are not criminals.” Termination permanent.
Benson’s essay is one of the best. He notes that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were in the past rank-ordered with happiness depending on liberty, and liberty in turn depending on life.” Pro-abortionists yank liberty out of this order and make it pre-eminent. Yet, “the infringement of the woman’s liberty is, after all, time-limited, whereas the termination of the fetus’ life is permanent.”
After the philosophical contributions there are hard medical facts. Associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology University of Toronto, Dr. Heather Morris writes, “It is a strange paradox that advances in diagnosis and treatment have clearly established the fetus as a patient during a time when the developing infant is accorded diminishing legal recognition and moral respect.”
Ironies abound. Professor Morris and writer Lorraine Williams document the real risks that threaten the physical health of the mother in abortion, noting how pro-abortionists who speak endlessly of the woman’s health are the first to oppose a woman actually being informed of these risks.
Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS) is examined by L.L. DeVeber, Professor of Pediatrics at University of Western Ontario, and by researchers Dorothy Chisolm and Anne Kiss. They conclude that not only do some women suffer from psychological distress after undergoing abortion but “that the groups considered most at risk in the professional literature are precisely those whom the public tend to view as most in need of abortion “therapy.” Women with a history of psychiatric disorders are clearly at risk [and] adolescents perhaps because it affects their fragile self-esteem.”
Sexual emancipation of men
Chris Bagley, Professor of Social Work at the University of Calgary, discusses the double standards surrounding abortion. “At present it is acceptable to kill a baby in utero, but not to injure it.” “Ironically the laws concerning experiments on live animals are more stringent than the laws on live fetuses…” “Abortion is frequently an adjunct to the sexual emancipation of men, not women.”
Bagley’s greatest contribution is his countering of the social arguments for abortion. “The potential of any individual can never be predicted. The virtual impossibility of providing an accurate, individual prediction of the future of any child is a fatal blow to the abortionist’s case.” Witness Beethoven or Christy Brown of the recent award-winning film “My Left Foot.”
Free-fire zone
Legal lessons follow. Nadeau, in critiquing the Daigle case, compares it to the famous Person’s case “in which the burden is upon those who deny the word [person] includes women to make out their case.” So the burden is upon those who would deny the words “human being” includes unborn children to make out their case. The Supreme Court did not assume this burden.
Editor Ian Gentles, associate Professor of History at York University and Director of Research at The Human Life Research Institute (HLRI), shows that what the unborn child has gained in civil law she has lost in criminal. “In 1981 the first reported successful out-of-the-womb surgery was carried out.
The irony of this particular medical breakthrough is that during the half hour she spends outside the womb during the operation, the child enjoys the status of a legal person, with her life fully protected. Once back in the womb, however, she resumes the status of a non-person in the eyes of criminal law, having, in effect, re-entered a free-fire zone where she can be killed with impunity.”
A Time to Choose Life may persuade the undecided but thinking person to choose life and will encourage the already committed to continue the fight, armed with fresh facts and insights. It deserves to be a standard reference work in all university and high school, hospital and public libraries.
In an impressive international review of the literature Professor Gentles and bioethics writer Denyse O’Leary carefully document that:
– illegal abortion rates were a fraction of what pro-abortionists claimed they were before 1970 in the United States, Britain and Canada
– it was not the legalization of abortion but the discovery of antibiotics that virtually eliminated maternal abortion deaths after 1940
– of the women who were refused legal abortions the vast majority did not seek illegal ones but went on to have children (thus refuting the myth that women will get illegal abortions if they can’t obtain legal ones).
