Youth Blog

BY CASSIE FARRELL

Joyce Arthur’s recent piece in the Huffington Post is one that is ripe with inconsistencies and misleading statements, and it’s no surprise given that she has had a slobbering love affair with the traditionally dishonest pro-abortion movement for years. As Executive Director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, Arthur bemoans what she believes was a recent attack on a woman’s “right” to abortion, and insists that pro-lifers are more concerned with controlling women rather than with defending the life and dignity of preborn human person. Despite the fact that Motion 312 aims to look at the scientific evidence as it relates to the personhood status of the fetus, Arthur believes that it is just part of the pro-life movement’s secret plan to enslave women (despite that women comprise the majority of the pro-life movement), and that the personhood debate is irrelevant to the abortion question. Arthur then goes on to mention and elaborate on many other points that we at CLCY could not help but notice and address.

The heart of Choice Joyce’s argument is her insistence that Canadian women have a right to abortion, and are entitled to a pity party because pro-lifers, and apparently Parliament, just won’t stop attacking that right. She is dismayed that 44 “anti-choice” bills and motions have been introduced into Parliament since 1987, because apparently the 2 million Canadians who have been aborted within the same time period just aren’t enough for her. However, as Brian Lilley explained to Choice Joyce several times in a single interview, Canadian women do not have a constitutional right to abortion. The Morgentaler Decision of 1988 struck down all previous abortion laws as unconstitutional, resulting in the total decriminalization of abortion in Canada. However, it did not grant, regulate, or guarantee any so-called “rights” to anyone. In fact, when the decision was made, the Supreme Court assumed that Parliament would pass laws regulating abortion since, you know, that’s Parliament’s job. Only the radically pro-abortion Justice Bertha Wilson believed in a right to abortion, but she was in favour of limiting the killing to the first trimester, and was not in favour of abortion-on-demand. On the other hand, the dissenting Justices insisted that “save for the provisions of the Criminal Code permitting abortion where the life or health of the woman is at risk, no right of abortion can be found in Canadian law, custom or tradition and the Charter, including s.7, does not create such a right.” Further, they noted, “there has always been a clear recognition of a public interest in the protection of the preborn and there is no evidence or indication of general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our society.” Clearly, the “right” to abortion that forms the basis of Choice Joyce’s position is about as substantial as the unicorn, and not nearly as pleasant.  She then attacks Stephen Woodworth for falling into what she calls the “fetus focus fallacy,” and explains that

“the supreme irony of Woodworth's motion is its faux concern over our Canadian law ‘that decrees some human beings are not human beings,’ even while the effect of the motion would be to remove ‘human being’ legal protections from pregnant women and give them to their fetuses instead.”

I always find it interesting that pro-aborts believe that recognizing the personhood of someone else will somehow deplete their own, and that that in itself is reason enough to deny others what is due to them. That is also the epitome of oppression.

In her hilariously fallacious explanation of the “fetus focus fallacy,” she declares that personhood is contingent upon the capabilities of the brain, thus immediately eliminating small children and people with mental disabilities from Choice Joyce’s list of acceptable persons. She then uses her outdated understanding of human biology as further proof of the preborn’s supposed non-personhood:

“At various stages, fetuses have eyes on stalks, notochords (instead of spines), fish-like gills, tails, downy fur, distorted torsos, spindly legs, giant heads, and alien-looking faces. In fact, an early human fetus is practically indistinguishable in appearance from a dog or pig fetus.”

It really sounds like she’s is stuck in the 1800’s... I guess she hasn’t heard yet, but Haeckel’s drawings were a fraud! Besides, that description also fits many people who have gone/are going through the ever-awkward stage of puberty. I’m still trying to forget the days of spindly legs, a distorted torso, and an alien looking-face, but I’m pretty sure that even though I was an unattractive and unpleasant pre-teen, I was still a person. What happened to beauty being in the eyes of the beholder, anyway?

Later in the article, Choice Joyce drops this little racist gem:

“Surely, no all-party committee would recommend a backbencher's motion that, for example, wanted to examine whether black people should go back to Africa, or whether Muslims should have freedom of religion.”

I think it’s fair to say that racial equality is not morally equivalent to being allowed to rip a preborn child to pieces, and the suggestion of it is pretty much disgusting.  She then closes by informing readers that abortion is part of good mothering, even though abortion by the nature of the act is the complete and total rejection of the child by its mother making it the anti-thesis of good mothering. 

What Choice Joyce and her cronies need to understand is that their lies simply aren’t cutting it in Canada anymore. Instead of formulating a sound argument, they attack the legitimacy of the debate. However, the debate is on and it isn’t going anywhere until the right to life for all Canadians is acknowledged and ensured. Even though Joyce Arthur et al. seem to think they have a deeper understanding of womanhood than normal women do, they should at least try to comprehend that women are not stupid, they have a right to know the truth about abortion, and should be free to make up their own minds about what is being discussed in Motion 312.