pro-life, pro-choice semantics

[d_rawk]

Yeah, I'm doing it. We've got four years of this coming up.

Pro-life makes no sense. Everybody but serial killers are pro-life. Plus the people who tend to identify strongest with the pro-life label tend to be the same people most in favour of capital punishment. It is about as interesting and novel as identifying as 'pro-food'.

Anti-abortion doesn't contribute much more meaningful .. nobody is 'pro-abortion', so there is no counterpart for contrast. Even among those who support legal access to such medical services. "Hi, I'm pro-abortion. I love abortions. Let's do this thing!"

Anti-choice seems to capture the one side well enough. It sounds unfair at first, but really, it gets to the heart of it. The argument is in favour of using legal means to restrict access, right?

Pro-choice seems to capture the other side well enough. It sounds generous at first, but really, it gets to the heart of it. The argument is in favour of maintaining legal means of access, where decided, right?

Wow. Years of this. Here we go. I guess yesterday's rally got my hairs up.

[Kanada Kev]

Yup, and with the announcement that two of our Supreme Court Justices will be retiring, we will get to see two new ones appointed by Harper. Guess which way they'll be leaning?

[d_rawk]

Binnie and Charron will be missed.

Of all the justices, the only two that I have had regular personal contact with were Abella and Fish .. both of whom I adored and respected (though Fish could be intimidating).

Of the nine justices who serve on the Supreme Court of Canada, three – Ian Binnie, Morris Fish and Louis LeBel – will hit the mandatory retirement age of 75 within the next four years. Another, Marshall Rothstein, will come very close to it. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin would be 71 by the end of a majority government’s mandate, and Rosie Abella would be 68.

In other words, Mr. Harper would have an excellent opportunity to shape the country’s top court. And given that court’s enormous role in shaping public policy, particularly since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect nearly three decades ago, that could be a very transformative power.

If one were looking for signs that the abortion debate is about to be reignited, this would be a better place to start than the musings of a backbench MP. Realistically, though, it seems unlikely that Mr. Harper would overload the judiciary with raging social conservatives. If his goal is to firmly establish the Conservatives as the country’s dominant national party, then returning the focus to hot-button social issues that helped derail its past campaigns would be a dubious strategy.

But if his goal is also to subtly shift the country’s laws and institutions and culture of governance toward something more in line with his party’s vision for the country – as opposed to the one held by the Liberals – there is much that the Supreme Court could help with. From property rights to issues of federal-provincial jurisdiction to law and order, not to mention the balance between national security and individual liberties, there’s all sorts of room to help turn Canada into a more small-C conservative country.

Here, some qualifiers are in order. Mr. Harper’s two Supreme Court appointments to date – the aforementioned Justice Rothstein, and Thomas Cromwell – have both been considered moderate and uncontroversial choices. He has committed to having future appointments be vetted by Parliament, which even with a majority would require them to withstand some level of scrutiny. And Canada’s judiciary is not divided along partisan and ideological lines nearly to the extent of the one south of the border.

But it also bears noting that, the first time he led the Conservatives into an election, Mr. Harper expressed some strong views about what he perceived to be an overly activist judiciary.

“The idea of adjudicated rights is an important development in our political system,†he said in 2004. “It's one that I support in principle. But to make it work, we've got to make sure that we have courts that apply the law, not courts that apply their own criteria.â€

Harper and his circle want this issue to just shut up and go away (possibly part of why I feel compelled to raise it). And he is well bent on ideological principle - one of which is a strong opposition to judiciary activism.

Even if they were to find a way - should a case ever get back up to that level of the courts (and I'm confused .. why or how would it?) - they'll have a pretty tricky time arguing against section 7 of the CoRaF and against the previous supreme court decisions (which themselves are based on there being no abortion law in this country, having been struck down by the senate) without betraying themselves as exactly 'activists' with no regard for Parliamentary law.

These marches on Ottawa must have given Harper a serious headache.