Thu Mar 10/05
Abort! Abort!

Andrew Coyne dropped an A-bomb today, laying down what he calls the "ground rules" for a national debate on abortion that will never happen. There are two issues in play here: one, the old "it's impossible to have a debate in Canada" chestnut; and two, abortion itself. The first one is perplexing, certainly, but though the second is far more important, I actually have a harder time getting worked up about it.

Ethically speaking, abortion is easily one of the most messed up things about western civilization, and our inability to come to grips with it has, as Coyne points out, "forced the courts to tie themselves up in ever more complicated knots, to avoid granting the fetus legal standing." All true, but such legal oddities are not exclusive to Canada and its "legal vacuum" on abortion — the Scott Peterson trial exposed issues just as problematic in the US, which does undertake to legislate who can and cannot have an abortion. These problems are not unique to Canada, in other words, and though we would certainly be far better off to reconcile ourselves with what we're doing to all these fetuses, I just don't share Coyne's enthusiasm for a national debate.

"There are people of goodwill on all sides of the question," says Coyne. Right, says I, but not nearly enough of them. Quite frankly, if you're squarely on any side of this issue, you've either (a) formed a practicable, ethically airtight solution to the abortion dilemma (and if so, congratulations and please forward said solution to chris.selley@tartcider.com); or you're almost certainly not a person of goodwill — the millions of unthinkingly hardwired pro-lifers and pro-choicers are evidence enough of that.

I'm all for having a debate about abortion, in blog comment threads (so long as it's not the Shotgun), at the bar (quietly), what have you. A national debate about abortion, however, would be a horror show — the pro-choice professionals duking it out with the pro-life professionals to see who can be the most unwavering, to see who can deliberately miss the point and misrepresent the other side by the widest margin. Consider for a moment the nonsensical lather into which people work themselves over the prospect of gay marriage, a social arrangement in which no one dies, and imagine what we'd be up against if the same people were faced with yea or nay on abortion. A moment's consideration is about all I can stand.

As far as Coyne's column goes, this is circular logic. The factionalized nature of this issue is one of the reasons we can't have an honest debate about it, which is what Coyne was lamenting in the first place. At the same time, though, abortion, like marijuana, alcohol, and all the other things we attempt to regulate because we realize that they are inherently unfortunate, will always be with us. I think Coyne may inadvertently be on to something with "ground rule" number six:

The status quo is, objectively, extreme. I don't mean it's unreasonable. It may even be right. But it is a truism that, of the range of possible legal resolutions of the abortion question, the status quo — no abortion law of any kind — is at one extreme end, the polar opposite of a total ban.

Except that no society with a total ban on abortion could even be considered civilized. Debate abortion's merits and demerits for a thousand years and just as many women will undergo the procedure, for the simple reason that they are pregnant and they don't want to be.

None of the chief potential participants in a "national debate" on abortion are capable of acknowledging such nuance. God knows the politicians aren't. One camp would entrench itself at "a fetus is part of a woman's body," which is clearly not the whole story, and the other would entrench itself at "abortion is murder," which is about as useful a position as "alcohol is bad." The outcome would, inevitably, be a slightly modified version of the status quo (i.e., abortion would be legal) and a lot of pissed off people. Coyne is right to lament the state of Canadian national debates, but in the case of abortion, I think the state of Canadian national debates is a perfectly good reason not to have one at all.