Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me
twice, shame on me.
I’ve been a gun control activist
since Sept. 14, 2006—which, for those keeping track, was the day after Kimveer Gill’s murderous rampage at Dawson College. And I’m also a strong feminist,
for whom a woman’s right to control her own body—aka the right to choose
abortion, if necessary—is vital.
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| THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld |
So why am I not all bent out of
shape about last week’s vote on Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth's Motion 312,
which everyone recognizes as the Tories latest attempt to reopen the abortion
debate? Because I remember what the Harper Conservatives did with the long gun
registry: they turned it into a fundraiser’s wet dream. And I don't want that to happen again.
The more those of us in the
pro-choice camp make a stink about a measly private member’s bill that didn’t
have a hope in h-e-double-toothpicks of passing, the more quotes Conservatives
will have for their future fundraising letters.
Mr. Harper is on tape multiple
times, declaring, as he does in this video, that “as long as I'm Prime Minister,
we are not reopening the abortion debate.” (see the 27 sec mark in this video).
Absent Henry Morgenthaler’s
performing the act buck naked and on-camera in the House of Commons, I take the
Prime Minister at his word. On the other hand, of course, once Mr. Harper steps
away from the Prime Ministership, all bets are off.
The dance of the seven veils the
Conservatives performed over the murder of the long gun registry was probably
their single best fundraising issue. “Look,” they said, “we want to kill the
registry. We’re trying our best to do so. But we just can’t, not in this
Parliament, not unless we have a majority. And that costs, friends. To go from a
minority to a majority government costs a lot. So, if you truly love the death
of the gun registry, please open your wallets
wide…”
Which begs the question: since the
Conservative base is chockfull of types who love oil (the less regulated the
better), guns (ditto), and the right of all women to, once again, remain
barefoot and pregnant, and they already have a majority, why allow piddly little
private members like Mr. Woodsworth to propose piddly little motions like this
latest one to debate when human life begins? I mean, how dumb do they think
their supporters really are?
I believe Motion 312 is just more of
the same political hot air, and that pro-choice supporters are shooting their
wads, so to speak, by making a big deal of it. Far better to just Youtube a mix
of all those clips of Mr. Harper vowing the abortion issue will never be
re-opened during his mandate…and then asking him when he’s planning on
quitting.
Dear Conservative supporters: as
that foreign bank used to say, “save your money.” Until Mr. Harper quits, you’re never
going to get a real debate on abortion.
Let’s see: there have been, so far
as I can recall, two Tory private member’s bills on abortion, Mr. Woodsworth’s
and Mr. Rod Bruinooge’s 2010 motion “that would have made it a crime to ‘coerce’
a woman to have an abortion,” as Aaron Wherry put it in Macleans.
Oh, and dear Conservative
supporters, one more little piece of advice, and it goes like this: “fool me
once, shame on you…”
