The Rules Of Engagement

Stephen Woodworth's private member's motion 312 is going nowhere, and its only a motion, not an actual bill, so it means nothing anyway.  Therefore the protest at Waterloo yesterday was just students killing time.  But that said, before the speechys start to howl at the way things turned out, it is worth noting the position of the campus security staff:


Although campus security was present, the pro-life organizers say they failed to take any kind of action to allow Mr. Woodworth to continue his presentation.  When asked to intervene, say the organizers, security said they would not unless the protesters became violent.

Campus security said they “couldn’t do anything because [the protesters] had the right to free speech as much as Mr. Woodworth did,” explained Clarissa Luluquisin, Central Campus Coordinator of the National Campus Life Network, who attended the event.

Luluquisin said Students for Life is an approved club and they had booked the space properly.

“I asked, what if this were a lecture and the students were talking while the professor was teaching? And the officer said, no that’s a different context,” she said.

So there, speechys.

File Under: Bleeding Obvious

 “In the absence of anything else happening, it appears [Conservative] MP Stephen Woodworth’s attempt to re-open the abortion debate had the effect of hardening opinion in favour of legal abortion.”

This is why I'm happy to let the Harper Tories reopen the abortion debate as often as they want.  Its like watching someone step on a rake again and again and again.

In Canada, Abortion Could Become Illegal Again As Soon As This Fall

So say Canada's doctors, and who am I to argue?


Canada’s doctors have sternly rejected what they see as a stealth attempt to recriminalize abortion.

At the general council meeting of the Canadian Medical Association on Wednesday, delegates called on the federal government to reject attempts by a Conservative backbench MP to amend the Criminal Code so that a fetus is defined as a human being

“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que.

“This change could even prevent a pregnant woman from travelling or taking certain drug treatments,” she said.

Of course this attempt will fail, because the Harper government cannot afford electorally to have it succeed.  The point for progressives will be to see that it fails in the most humiliating manner possible.  Let Harper confidants be forced to trash their own pro-life MPs in public.  Let Canadian pro-lifers  gnash their teeth once again and contemplate a vote for some crazy fringe party, as they always do when one of these bills appears, only to go down in flames.  

At the end of the day the status quo will prevail.

Gruending On The One Year Anniversary Of The Harper Majority

Its all good, but I'll just highlight a bit that seems especially pertinent:

It is worth noting, however, that Conservative backbenchers continued to bring forward private member’s bills that could curtail a woman’s right to abortion. We can expect religious conservatives to keep applying pressure, even as they continue to support Harper as their preferred alternative.

I received, by way of example, an automated telephone call late in the campaign from Jim Hughes, chairman of the Campaign Life Coalition, asking me to support the Conservative candidate in an Ottawa riding. Shortly after the election in May, a National March for Life event drew about 10,000 people to Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Their clear message to the Harper government was that the abortion debate is on again.

Note that the message was to the Harper government and not the nation at large.  That's because in the suddenly reopened abortion debate competing factions with the Canadian Right are arguing with one another more so than with the rest of us.  And this cannot help but damage the gov.: while the PM and party  brass encourage their people against the Woodworth person-hood motion, the grass roots vow to struggle on.  So while I suppose its a hassle to have to retread old ground, its always good to get into a gunfight with opponents who are using half their ammo on one another.  Pro-Lifers wanted to reopen this argument; now they get to lose it over and over again until Woodworth's motion is finally killed off in a vote this summer.  And they get to blame the federal conservatives for their ongoing humiliation.

Whip It Good

Stephen Woodworth's  person-hood motion will not be defeated by Bob Rae's whipping or not whipping his caucus against the measure.  It will be defeated because Stephen Harper needs it to be defeated or he will see his real agenda--deregulation, rolling back environmental protections--go up in flames as he panders to the CPoC right wing.  Nevertheless,  Mulcair's move to whip his own people, despite their already unanimous opposition to the measure, was a pretty clever trick.  Since he's become NDP leader, opposition politics has become more about broad rhetorical gestures that project "strength" and "leadership" and less about the kind of nuance, statesmanship, and appeal to democratic principles that  Mr. Rae would like  to offer.  But that's tough.  In today's Ottawa, Rae's equivocation looks like weakness or collaboration, and if he can't play the new game he should retire from it.

On April 26th, The Abortion Debate Gets Briefly Re-Opened

Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth’s motion M-312 calling upon Parliament to debate whether an unborn child is a human being and the human rights implications of those findings, is scheduled for debate on April 26.

As Kady O'Malley notes through the link, I can't see the Harper gov. letting this one pass, even if the only result would be the striking of committees.  Presumably this whole exercise is to allow his SoCon wing to blow off a little steam.  The trick will be how he manages to engineer the motion's defeat without making it look too obvious.

They Wanted A Debate

Ottawa A proposal from a Conservative backbencher to legally define fetuses as human beings - and reopen the abortion debate - will have its day in the House of Commons. 

...so let's have a debate:

...and then they won't want to have that debate again for a long, long time.

Abortion BACK On The (Hidden) Agenda!

From Stephen Woodworth this morning:

A recent poll disclosed that 80% of Canadians believe that Canadian law protects the fundamental human rights of children before birth in the later stages of gestation.

In fact, the opposite is true.  Canadian law provides no human rights protection whatsoever for children before the moment of complete birth. 

[...]

The important question is whether this 400 year old Canadian law is supported by 21st century medical science and principles of human rights.  Perhaps Canadians should at least examine this question.  MP Stephen Woodworth proposes that Parliament has a responsibility to lead that examination.

I love it when Tories examine this question!  Their polling numbers imitate a WWII dive-bomber!  You start, Stephen.  Put a private member's bill on the table in regards to...I don't know...banning late term abortions; see who rallies to your side.

Stephen Woodworth Doubles Down On Frivolous Twitter Tweets

He so wants you to think that this is working.

I Don't Wanna Work

...I just wanna play on de net all day.

Kitchener CPoC MP Stephen Woodworth tweets away the empty hours. H/t and more of Woodworth obsessive non-working.