At long last, there is hope.

Not only the hope which each new year brings but real hope, hope we can put our hands on.

We find this hope, of all places, in the usually unfriendly editorial pages of the Globe and Mail.

The seemingly rock solid empire that is “choice”, backed by 25 years of incredible media and legal success, has finally started to unravel.

Freedom to choose has long been the foundation on which radical pro-abortion feminists have built their movement. Your pregnancy interferes with your job – no problem, you’re free to terminate it. Only wanted two kids – not a problem, abort the third. After all, it’s your choice.

With the advancements in pre-natal diagnosis (PND), doctors can now determine many more things about an unborn baby than ever before. PND can detect a wide variety of genetic abnormalities such as Down’s Syndrome, Spina Bifida and Huntington’s disease long before the baby is born. PND can determine the baby’s eye colour, hair colour, even its sex.  

The recent $28 million Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies unsuccessfully tackled the problem of pre-natal diagnosis and abortion. The Commission stated that PND should only be used to determine serious genetic disorders. In effect, this would allow abortion for reasons of birth defects, but not for sex selection. Why? If it’s a woman’s choice, anything should go.

A December Globe and Mail editorial spotted the flawed reasoning, and asked some very tough questions. In it the writer made the connection which the pro-life movement has been making all these years. “If abortion for genetic disorders becomes more widespread, how does it affect the status of Canadians already living with disabilities?….If abortion for sex selection takes hold, what are the repercussions for sexual equality and the status of women?”

The editorialist, perhaps unwittingly, makes the connection which both the media and the legal system have long refused to make. The writer identifies the unbreakable chain between the life of the child in the womb and the life of the child after birth. If this chain is broken, society is adversely affected.

Aborting to avoid birth defects affects all Canadians living with disabilities. Aborting for reasons of sex selection affects all female Canadians. Abortion for any reason at all, affects all Canadians.

The Globe questions whether Canadian legislators shouldn’t re-examine the law which allows abortion as a woman’s choice. When the very feminists who fought for abortion as their freedom to choose now want choice forbidden in cases of selecting one sex over another (usually male over female) then their whole premise is lost. The wind has gone out of their sails and their movement is in an ideological drift. Choice cannot apply in some cases and not in others.

The erosion of the ideology of choice is also the erosion of the pro-abortion foundation. If they continue to bicker and work themselves into a corner over their unreasonable stance concerning sex selection abortions, it will not take long before others begin to make the connection which the Globe editorial made.

Advancements in pre-natal diagnosis have allowed many, including this Globe editorialist, to see the unbreakable chain between the baby in the womb and the living result. Others who consider themselves in favour of abortion must begin to make this connection and start to question their beliefs. A movement based on such a shaky foundation cannot withstand such reasoning.

In this year of 1994, the International Year of the Family, we can hope that more editors, doctors and lawmakers continue to make the connection between life before and after birth and stop being fooled by the tired irrational catchphrase of choice. And we can pray they do so before many more little ones are lost.

There is light at the end of the tunnel. The spark of truth is finally beginning to glow. There is hope for this new year.