Kill Free Speech:The Road To Justice?

Canadian Liberal leader Justin Trudeau put his party on notice: no more debate about abortion.  Anyone not openly pro-choice won't be accepted as a candidate to run for Parliament.  His spokeswoman, Kate Purchase, said:  "This is a matter of rights, and Canadians need to know that when they vote Liberal they will get a representative who supports and defends women's rights."

The last part of this sentence is deceptive.  It implies that pro-life advocates do not "defend women's rights".  But what does this vague euphemism mean?  Pro-lifers don't support women's right to equal employment opportunities?   don't support women's right to live free from domestic violence?  don't support women's right to an education?  don't support women's right to choose a partner (male or female)?  don't support women's right to choose career, domicile and lifestyle?  ETC.  ETC. ETC.  Absurd!  What Ms. Purchase should have said was "Canadians need to know that when they vote Liberal they will get a representative who supports and defends women's right to terminate a fetus growing in their own bodies".  specific, on point, clearly understood.

Now we enter the realm of morality and  conscience.  Now we can debate when human life begins.  And now each of us can come to a personal decision about pro-life and pro-choice.  Killing debate is a clear violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - where freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are enshrined.  Perhaps the best response to the Liberal Party's attempt to snuff out political dialogue on controversial topics comes from Roman Catholic Cardinal Thomas Collins:  "I think something has to be said, or the whole of our society will become one in which only certain approved political views are accepted.... and especially when it comes to questions not of tariff reform or things like that, but when we're dealing with deep issues of human life and conscience, I think that's not a healthy or a good thing".

Euphemisms may be politically expedient but they can't replace open, honest debate.