Interim Staff
Pro-Life organizations give qualified support to a call by Reform leader Preston Manning that the Canadian Constitution be amended to protect the unborn children from abortion.
Speaking in British Columbia in late October, Manning said he favors a law allowing a national referendum on abortion, euthanasia and other moral issues. He added, however, that he was expressing his own views on protection of the unborn, not the official policy of the Reform party.
“Our position is to put this issue to referenda, and my own position, if we have this referendum campaign, will be to argue in favor of legal protection for the unborn,” Manning said.
Other Reform party officials, including house leader Ray Speaker, were quick to indicate that Manning was voicing a personal opinion. They reiterated that the party has no policy on abortion.
In a statement released October 30, Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes offered partial support of Manning’s position.
“We applaud Mr. Manning’s call for constitutional protection for the child in the womb although we don’t believe the life or death of innocent human beings or other moral issues should be decided by referenda,” Hughes said.
Michael O’Malley of the Calgary-based Alberta Life Centre commended Manning for his courage in making a bold pro-life statement. “The fact that we have a pro-life statement from a major political player is encouraging,” he said.
Meanwhile, Ron Gray, Leader of the Christian Heritage party, supports a constitutional amendment to protect unborn children, but rejected that it be decided by a national referendum. “You cannot turn wrong into right by a vote of 50 percent plus one,” Gray said in a November 4 statement.
Although the Reform party has no position on the question of abortion or legal protection of the unborn, Reform MPs are required to seek a consensus among constituents on moral issues. If no consensus is reached, Reform MPs are free to vote according to their individual conscience.
Manning said it is preferable to protect the unborn through a Constitutional amendment rather than through changes in the Criminal Code. Criminal Code prohibition of abortion could easily be overturned by the courts or rescinded by future governments, he said.
The Canadian Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that the Criminal Code prohibition of abortion infringes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Manning said denying certain classes of people constitutional protection always proves to be a mistake, adding that slaves, women and children were once regarded as non-persons.
While Manning’s comments generated qualified support among pro-life groups, newspapers across the country were quick to criticize the Reform Leader. Most suggested Manning has blundered by interjecting his personal, evangelical Christian views into the highly charged abortion debate.
The Vancouver Sun, for example, said Manning’s comments will cost the Reform party at the polls.
“Reform has been trying to shed its image as a regional party of extremists and be accepted as a federal government material,” the newspaper said in a November 2 editorial. “Mr. Manning’s extreme personal views on this subject will hurt the party, and may well turn out to have cost it any chance it had at winning power.”
Manning himself also appeared to downplay the matter in the days following his initial comments. He told reporters that abortion is not a “big vote-getter,” adding that Canadians are more concerned with physical rather than moral issues.
