OK, be generous if you wish. My main point remains it is not proper to give an national award for something that 1 of 3 Canadians have serious reservations about. Premature, at best.

I have not looked at the Life Canada polls recently. Probably the Life Canada polls want to probe deeper into real attitudes about abortion, that may contradict with each individual’s position on legality. In that case, questions about legality may be too blunt. To insist on the question of legality is itself a bias.

Yes, Ill look at your references, and I appreciate having them. However, even if Morgentaler was mistreated, it makes not a whit of difference to the validity and justice of abortion. That would be confounding two separate issues of justice. The justice of abortion is far from being validated. The debate on abortion is far from over. The question of a women’s right to choose is full of holes, and its purported benefits discredited by actual practice subsequent to the Supreme Court Morgentaler decision.

I echo Red Torys comment. I also ask the same question as many others in these comments have, “where do these doctorates these evangelicals sport come from?” Do they just give them to each other? Can their theses be found anywhere?

I am not impressed with the evangelical brand of Christianity of TV fame. For instance, have you ever watched van Impe and his wife? BOTH doctors now, he rattles of biblical verses with great speed. Try writing down the verses and checking them later – these verses (or that particular preacher) simply make no sense in the context quoted. He just does not expect you to check the facts.

Wouldn’t you love to see a peer reviewed article by McVety and these characters? And not one reviewed by his buddies, of course.

The Christian right wing attack on Justice McLachlin is both spurious and scurilous. Her ethics are beyond reproach. Their views originate from a particular interpretation of a book that many consider fiction and subject to many different interpretations; why else would there be about 500 different brands of Christianity? If you oppose abortion, so be it. May I suggest every person acts according to their own beliefs and precepts?

Justice McLachlan did not ignore the law; the Christian right is economical with the truth, and where the truth doesn’t fit, they simply make up their own.

But Morgentaler himself admitted to violating the laws of Canada for some 18 years before he was exonerated and the law struck down by a court. Surely the chief judge and Advisory Council don’t approve of that conduct to change laws?

Morgentaler admitted to violating laws which were later found to be unjust. We do not, as a rule, continue to punish people for violating unjust laws after they are repealed, as that would be both hypocritical and stupid.

I am also dreadfully amused by your complaint about the “selective writing of Colby Cosh.” As any follower of the SCC knows, Cosh is far and away its most prominent conservative critic. Any “selectiveness” on his part wouldn’t be liberally inclined.

Roland:

Firstly, I would recommend Catherine Dunphy’s extremely objective biography of Morgentaler to you if you hadn’t read it to get a sense of how opposed the medical community was to Morgentaler – in some cases out of principle, in other cases out of fear of allowing someone to “rock the boat.”

Secondly, for a good depiction of support for abortion trends in general, I recommend this site:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/abopollca.htm

It measures trends using Life Canada’s yearly poll, and Life Canada’s poll tends to skew in favour of pro-life attitudes thanks to stacked questions (the question on informed consent laws is particularly slanted, and they don’t ask at any point where individuals support the legal right to an abortion but instead phrase the question in terms of “where life begins,” a questioning technique that has been pretty conclusively shown to bump results towards a pro-life conclusion). Even then, support for the concept of life beginning at conception peaked in 2002.

If CFAC case is correct then due diligence will not be demonstrated

Except that CFAC’s case is not correct. Again, we’re talking about an organization that felt the need to misrepresent its popular support and purposefully misquote the statutory law of Canada in their initial letter. Treating them as a party acting in good faith is idiotic.

My main point remains it is not proper to give an national award for something that 2 of 5 Canadians have serious reservations about.

Try one in three, and that’s being generous.

For purposes of comparison, the number of people supporting elective legal abortion to a reasonable degree in Canada is about twenty percent higher than ever voted for Pierre Trudeau, a Companion of the Order of Canada.

1) Today, one is more likely to encounter a systemic whitewash. When I review the list of malpractice charges against Morgentaler listed in Karol Karolak’s post, namely:

• not holding a valid interview before an abortion,
• failing almost completely to gather a case history of his client,
• failing to perform the necessary pregnancy test or blood test,
• not obtaining pathological examination of the ’tissues’ removed, and
• failing to follow up the state of health of his patients afterward,

I still find it hard to believe such charges by his peers would be made if the charges did not have substance, even if Morgentalers peers at the time were motivated to suppress abortion. These were serious charges and truth was a defence at that time.

Furthermore I notice that Brian Rushfeld (of CFAC fame who submitted the complaint regarding Chief Justice McLachlin) has a post just above this post, and for Rushfeldt concerning Morgentaler, the malpractice charges were ”not because he was doing abortions”. You seem confident that your view of this question is already a matter of public record, but I expect there will be more about this in the news in the near future to refresh our memory.

2) It is too early to declare victory, but you are correct about the poll numbers. I was just doing a quick check and picked up on this quote at the very beginning of the poll report:

“Almost half of respondents (46%) believe abortion should be permitted in all cases. Roughly two-in-five Canadians (19%) would subject abortion to greater restrictions than now, 22 per cent would allow the procedure only in cases such as rape, incest and to save the woman’s life, and seven per cent would only permit abortion to save the woman’s life.”

But I would say that questions about what should be “permitted “ are more representative of the population’s feelings on the rightness of abortion, whereas questions on ‘legality’ introduces a bias because of the spectre of punishment of the mother, whatever that implies for one.

Time will tell if this poll is an outlier. I take the view that the current weather is a good indicator of tomorrow’s weather. It may be that support for abortion has peaked. It may be that attempts to suppress debate on campuses reflects a desperation at the though of losing.

3) Granted.

4) If CFAC case is correct then due diligence will not be demonstrated and primary responsibility will be with McLachlin.

My main point remains it is not proper to give an national award for something that 2 of 5 Canadians have serious reservations about. At best, it was premature, and therefore the judgment of the Advisory Council is questionable.

We thank Colby Cosh for re-clarifying comments judge McLachlin made regarding her role on the Order of Canada Advisory Council. However, notably absent in his column were several key facts.

Canada Family Action Coalition (CFAC) operated with the best evidence available to us on August 13 when we filed the complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council. Some information came from news stories (one from the National Post); some from past council decisions, and some from the Constitution of the Order. All attempts we made to confirm the accuracy of information were stonewalled. We were stonewalled by the governor general’s office and the justice. Requests for information under the Freedom of Access to Information failed. We were informed the Governor General is exempt from requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, which allows her to operate in a code of secrecy. Additionally, a one-liner on GG webpage states, “All deliberations of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada, as well as for any Canadian honour, are confidential.”

The major concern for CFAC and others who supported the letter is what was missing from the selective writing of Colby Cosh, the selective public response of McLachlin, and what seems to be an avoidance of facts by some media and academics defending McLachlin.

The letter of complaint’s point one and two are based upon the Policy Section 3 (b) (i) and (ii) of the Constitution which says:
3. The Advisory Council shall consider the termination of a person’s appointment to the Order of Canada if (b) the conduct of the person
(i) constitutes a significant departure from generally-recognized standards of public behaviour which is seen to undermine the credibility, integrity or relevance of the Order,or
(ii) has been subject to official sanction, such as a fine or a reprimand, by an adjudicating body, professional association or other organization.
The conduct in 3 b(i) may be debated. Cosh and some others argue Morgentaler’s conduct did not seem to depart from generally recognized standards. But Morgentaler himself admitted to violating the laws of Canada for some 18 years before he was exonerated and the law struck down by a court. Surely the chief judge and Advisory Council don’t approve of that conduct to change laws ?
The conduct in 3 b(ii) is certainly not open to debate. It is a legal fact that Morgentaler was sanctioned by the Disciplinary Committee of the Professional Corporations of Physicians in Quebec. His medical license was revoked for one year and not because he was doing abortions.

So at issue is conduct of the Advisory Council which ignored the law that it operates under. McLachlin said her role “is to make sure the meeting runs well and fairly and that the vote is taken fairly – and not to weigh in for, or against, any particular candidate.” Surely as chair and judge her role would also include ensuring the Council obeyed the law.

Judge McLachlin Chairs the Council, Chair’s the Canadian Judicial Council, and is Chief Justice. To have a code of secrecy around her conduct is not acceptable. The public needs to be reassured of judicial impartiality and fairness. That happens with transparency not secrecy. Hence the need for investigation.

Since Morgentaler was wrongly awarded the honor, termination of the award should now occur. Reprimands for those involved for not following the Policy and law should also occur. Asking people to obey the law is not a “ludicrous attack” as stated in the Cosh piece.

While I do not know the extent of your experience with or among the so-called “Christian Right”, your response would be appropriate when it comes to a number of individuals, particularly among the leadership (or those who claim leadership, since “leadership” in the Christian Right is more a matter of marketing than hierarchy). However, to paint all politically conservative (and politically active, which they have a right to be) Christians as “malicious rascals” and “implacable foes of the common good” comes disturbingly close to bigotry.

This is basically my point. Tolerance isn’t worth a wooden nickel if it applies exclusively to those you agree with and admire. It’s when you vehemently dissent from, and personally detest, another’s opinion that both tolerance and understanding are called on to do the heavy lifting.

After all, even if everything you say about right-wing Christians is true, why would you want to be as malicious as they are? Doesn’t it make sense that generosity be a moral quality of the professed liberal?

1.) The information I excluded re: Morgentaler’s “professional malpractice” charges followed from his refusal to perform procedures that applied to surgically necessary abortions Canada permitted in certain circumstances at the time, and which were given to him specifically as punishment for performing abortions. (This is all in the public record now.) Considering that these charges were essentially systemic persecution of his performance of abortions and thus tied to the charges of which he has since been exonerated, etc.

2.) Your most recent poll link doesn’t even agree with the numbers you quoted. According to that link, which I have open in front of me right now, 49 percent (not 46) want abortion legal under any circumstances, and 47 percent want either some restrictions or want it to be illegal (page 5 of 11). According to the first question, 46 percent want it legal under any circumstances and 48 percent want it illegal in some or all circumstances.

The problem is that the first question also divides the people who want it to be illegal in some circumstances and the people who want it to be illegal in most or all circumstances very easily: 29 percent want it to be illegal in most or all circumstances, and 19 percent want it to be illegal in some circumstances, but moreso than allowing abortions only in cases of rape or incest.

Other polling over time has shown that that 19 percent is almost wholly worried about the prospect of easily available second- or third-trimester abortions, which are obviously more horrific than first-trimester abortions (I say this not to trivialize first-trimester abortions, but come on: the mental imagery involved in later-term abortions is scarier and uglier and we all know it). However, said other research has also demonstrated that when that 19 percent learns that second- and third-trimester are practically never performed where there is not a significant medical risk involved in the mother potentially giving birth, their objection to legal abortion drops to almost zero. Pro-lifers are frankly just wrong to claim these as being “on their side” when their only agreement is borne out of misinformation.

And finally, while I grant that the 29 percent mark is definitely higher than most other polling on this issue, it’s also a definite outlier, and without a few more polls in the 25-30 percent range to back it up, it should be treated as such. Support for criminalizing abortion has stayed consistently in the 15-25 percent range in Canada for almost two decades now; one recent poll simply isn’t enough proof for your assertion of popular support.

3.) Chief Justice (not Judge) McLachlin might not compare it to repeated Academy Award nominations, but so what? “Overruled” has a very specific meaning within the law: it means altering a previously made decision, and what has happened here with the Order of Canada has not done that. The historical record on Dr. Morgentaler’s nomination to the Order of Canada will read that he was submitted for nomination twice and rejected twice previous to his acceptance into the Order in 2008.

4. and last) And ultimately all of this is meaningless because all that needs to be demonstrated is that the Advisory Council exercised due diligence in considering Morgentaler as a candidate. Those two individuals who voted against Morgentaler may have protested the decision and disagreed with it, but even they haven’t accused the Advisory Council of not taking their jobs seriously or performing them poorly.

You merely assume they did. Your explanation that abortion is not controversial today would not excuse the Advisory Council. In fact, the information you say you excluded for brevity does not accuse Morgentaler for performing an abortion as you state, but for professional malpractice as a doctor.

Morgentaler acted unprofessionally and could have harmed his patient. (I am assuming that the list provided by Karol Karolak is complete and does not include abortion). Presumably such behaviour is still unacceptable. If the Advisory Council regards this as non controversial and irrelevant, then it is in need of a personnel change.

Further, you quote the polls in a biased way. While Canadians accept abortion to a significant extent…46% want no restrictions, the majority (52%) according to the most recent poll (http://angusreidstrategies.com/uploads/pages/pdfs/2008.06.20_Abortion.pdf) want significant restrictions. Abortion remains a sufficiently controversial issue in Canada. It follows that the Advisory Council had an ideological bias in desiring to honor Morgentaler.

While the Dr Vety will have to explain his impressive list which you ridicule, it does seem that CFAC is justified in challenging the advisory council in view of what little has been publicly revealed. Why you have attempted a valiant defense of Judge McLachlin, she has not herself addressed the points you made. If it is not beneath her, I am interested in learning if she too compares to order of Canada to an repeated Academy award nomination.

Also, Mr. Bird probably chose the Isaiah verse on account of its poetic way of stating the point rather than because of its Talmudic force. He, too, knows that the Christian Right care not one whit for the the Law nor the Prophets nor the Ten Commandments.