Many of the arguments in favor of “liberalizing the law,” as it came to be called, centre precisely on this idea of ridding the country of an “outmoded morality,” an expression which became standard in newspaper editorials and articles. It was claimed that opposition to legal contraceptives, divorce, homosexual activity, and abortion was based either on religious foibles peculiar to Catholics and others still stuck with a “Victorian morality,” or based on, or supported by, religious morality. The latter, it was said, is purely personal and private and therefore should never be “imposed” on anyone. A typical expression of such sentiments in the House of Commons may be found in the statement of the then leader of the NDP, Mr. David Lewis, during the debate on the omnibus bill which covered 108 changes in the Criminal Code, including abortion and homosexuality. Mr. Lewis stated on 23 January 1969:
Much of our law developed during a period when society was governed by the Church…; now that separation of Church and State has developed…. Let us not term public crimes those actions which are matters for an individual conscience.
He went on to say:
… in our criminal law, we ought to amend everything that is a relic of the past and not consistent with modern morality.
The case was stated in its boldest form by the government spokesman who guided the passage of the omnibus bill, the Minister of Justice John Turner, who claimed that the Criminal Code of Canada is neutral and cannot represent “private moralities.” The Code is not neutral, of course; public though it may be, it is nevertheless a moral code, which means that it represents somebody’s morals.
An unexpected subsidiary theme of this so-called neutrality of the state was that those Members of Parliament of groups in society who still believed in the validity of moral principles — rational, religious, or both — were told in no uncertain terms to be silent, that they had o right to present their private moralities, and that to do so would be to impose these private views on others.
In short, the spirit of 1969 was the spirit of secular liberalism par excellence. All the elements of its philosophy were present: there are no limits to the sovereignty of Parliament; religious authority is outmoded; human reason has no need of Revelation; there is no unchanging truth man is fully autonomous; utilitarianism is a sufficient motive for human action; and law is whatever the legislature says it is. In this way, then, stating that it was legal to kill the unborn was the culmination and the triumph of 150 years of agitation under the title of political liberalism, if by that term we accept its secular philosophy as an integral part of its politics. Never before had these secular principles been enshrined in legislation so boldly and so completely, fulfilling, as de Montalembert noted in 1893, “that perpetual tendency of democracy to establish the cult of man believing himself God.” A French-Canadian Prime Minister demonstrating such “evident distaste for what was by tradition his own” (George Grant in Abraham Rotstein, The Precarious Homestead [1973]) had become the representative of political liberalism at its most secular.
Private convictions, public acts
Canada’s abortion legislation is more illustrative of Trudeau’s political career, of the dichotomy between his private convictions and his public acts, than anything else. In Sault Ste-Marie in March 1972 he spoke about abortion to some feminists:
“If you want me to vote that way [for abortion on demand], you will have to convince me that a person who asks for an abortion has no responsibility at all. You know that at some point you are killing life in the fetus, whether it is after three months or eight months. At some point an abortion is a killing. All killing is not illegal and is not immoral. You know, in some countries they hang people and it’s legal, and it’s justified by morality. In war, you kill people. You kill people in self-defense….But when there is the benefit of the doubt, my doubt is on the side of life against death. But I will never say that the person who ills doesn’t have to answer in some ways for that killing and justify it in some way. If I kill a man in self-defense, I should be able to explain the cause of it, and the courts will force me to do it. And if a mother kills her child, or a doctor kills a fetus in self-defense for the mother’s health or happiness, or social rights, or privileges as a human being, I think she should have to answer for it and explain. It’s your body, but the fetus is not your body. It’s someone else’s body. And if you kill it, you have to explain.”
On September 25 1976, Trudeau again addressed the question of abortion, in Edmundston, New Brunswick:
“…I consider the fetus, the infant in the womb is a living being, a being we must respect, and I do not think we can kill him arbitrarily. There are cases where killing is legal… there are even cases when it is legal to kill even an infant, but I am saying, when we kill… we must answer to society. That is why our Omnibus Bill requires three doctors. … they are more competent than I, as regards to mental and physical health and I think it is a good law. It is easy for us men to be against abortion. I am against abortion. But I have never been pregnant, illegitimate or otherwise…. I believe we must listen to the woman’s side of the story.”
Reasoning false
Let me conclude with three observations.
First, the reasoning is false. The argument that abortion is a question for women only or that killing the unborn may be a matter of legitimate self-defense — presumably in the manner of society’s legitimate defense against aggressors form outside (“just war”) or aggressors from within (capital punishment) — is untenable, judged by both reason and religion. In addition, it contradicts the recent trend in society which led Trudeau himself to advocate the abolition of the traditional punishment for serious crimes.
Second, the texts quoted illustrate that Trudeau is no Henry Morgentaler. Morgentaler denies the humanity of the unborn “up to five months” or so (MacLean’s, October 4, 1976), contrary to all scientific evidence. Trudeau recognizes that abortion does indeed involve the death of human beings. Morgentaler hates all relation with a general passion and Catholicism with a particular one. This, too, odes not apply to the Prime Minister; nor, probably, to many politicians currently in the House. This, then, is cause for optimism, for hoping that some day reason and true morality may prevail once more.
Third, the general acceptability of the Prime Minster’s views indicates
“…Is just as impossible….”
the powerful and widespread hold modern secularism has gained over Canadian political life. In so far as this secularism openly clashes with Christianity in matters of life and death, as it does in abortion, it cannot but deepen the split within Canadian society as indeed it will within the church. The idea that somehow or other public life should not reflect the impact of Christian principles is simply unacceptable. “To be a Christian privately,” said the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard 150 yrs ago, “is just as impossible as to fire a cannon secretly.” One letter to the editor put it more graphically when another Catholic politician advanced the now standard argument, “I am against abortion but I can’t impose my private views on society…. There is separation of Church and state in Canada.” The letter described the politician as “a prime example of a private Catholic and a public atheist” (Windsor Daily Star, April 19 1983). To my mind, Trudeau’s contribution to political secularism, in all its impossibility and with all its contradictions, is more significant than anything else he did.
