Comparing Canada: aren't we odious!

Is Canada still a civilized country? Many Canadians like to think so, but they are deluded: the hard troth is that the public life of Canada is now so morally debased that we no longer have a single party in Parliament that upholds either marriage, the natural family, or the sanctity of human life.

The Conservative Party of Canada is no exception. Like the Liberal, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democrat parties, it, too, supports both same-sex marriage and the culture of death.

Granted, delegates at last month's Conservative policy convention overwhelmingly adopted a resolution affirming: "A Conservative government will support legislation defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman." But this promise is only a sham inasmuch as party leader Stephen Harper has pledged that, as prime minister, he will bring forward legislation providing the same rights, benefits, and obligations to all couples--married, common-law, and same-sex alike.

In essence, Harper and the Conservative Party are promising to uphold the uniqueness of marriage in name only, while the Liberal, Bloc Quebecois, and New Democrat parties intend to enact same-sex marriage explicitly into law. Both approaches will have the same disastrous results: experience in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and The Netherlands indicates that the conferral of marital benefits on same-sex couples inevitably undermines marriage to such an extent that most children are soon born out of wedlock and grow up in breakdown-prone, common-law unions.

That's bad enough. Worse is the position of all four parties on abortion. The Conservatives were presented with a resolution at their policy convention, stating: "A Conservative government will support a ban on the performing or funding of third trimester partial birth abortion." The motion never came to a vote. Instead, the meeting affirmed: "A Conservative government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion."

On this point, the leaders of every other party in Parliament concur. Together with Harper, they are determined that the government of Canada will not support any legislation to end Canada's ignominious distinction as the only so-called democratic country in the world that provides no legal protection for the lives of even healthy babies in the womb at any time during a pregnancy.

In the United States, President George Bush has signed into law bills banning partial-birth abortion; safeguarding the lives of infants who are born despite an attempted abortion; protecting nurses and doctors who refuse to perform abortions; and authorizing prosecutors to charge persons who harm or kill a pregnant woman with harming or killing her unborn child. Instead of trying to emulate this record of achievement, Harper says his government will introduce no legislation on abortion at all.

In Britain, the law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks, unless the baby is suffering from a "serious disability." With a national election impending, Conservative Party leader Michael Howard has announced that, as prime minister, he would support a private member's bill reducing the legal age to 20 weeks.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, Sir David Steele, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, has called for a reduction in the legal limit for "social" abortions to 12 weeks. For Steele, that's quite a turnaround. In 1967, he introduced the act that legalized abortion for the first time in Britain, subject to the approval of two physicians and a time limit of 28 weeks.

In Britain, Howard hopes to win votes with his abortion-curbing initiative. According to a recent poll, no fewer than 53 per cent of voters support his proposal to cut the legal limit to 20 weeks; only 30 per cent oppose the change; and the remainder are undecided. Among women voters alone, no less than 59 per cent support a 20-week limit, while 28 per cent are opposed.

In Canada, Harper will not speak out against even the horrors of partial-birth abortion after 30 weeks of pregnancy. And neither will any other party leader in Parliament.

And the same goes for the provincial premiers. Canadians must wait months for hip replacement surgery or access to an MRI scanner, yet no premier supports cuts in abortion funding--not even in the case of late-term abortions of a healthy baby.

That's a national disgrace. Canadians deserve better, more principled and inspired political leadership.

Rory Leishman is a national affairs columnist for the London Free Press in London, Ontario. His homepage is www.roryleishman.com