Ignatieff Pro-Abortion Stance Continues to Draw Fire

Here is a very good article in the Globe and Mail by Niel Reynolds calling Michael Ignatieff on his attempt to use abortion as a wedge issue against the Conservatives. He is surprisingly blunt (considering that this is the mainstream media we are talking about) and points out that Ignatieff is calling for a certain funding priority (abortion services) that inevitably decreases funding for other purposes. By all means let us debate the priorities here.

"How low can you go? Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff will surely come to regret his comments the other day on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's commitment to champion, as a G7 initiative, maternal health care in impoverished countries. Mr. Ignatieff expressed concern that Mr. Harper would use the funds to make it harder for poor women to get abortions – with appalling consequences. “We don't want to have women dying because of botched procedures,” Mr. Ignatieff said, implicitly suggesting that Mr. Harper does. “We don't want to have women dying in misery. . .

But hard questions remain – and Mr. Ignatieff's answers aren't obvious. Would he distribute as much food and medicine as he possibly could? Or would he invest in do-it-yourself abortion kits? How much funding would he give to the various abortion-rights organizations? In which countries? With what consequences? Applying Mr. Ignatieff's own rhetorical construct, would his diversion of funds result in the death of another mother and child? One set of choices here is humanitarian. The other can be ideological.

Within days of the quake, The Washington Times reported that abortion-rights groups had launched a major fundraising drive in the U.S. to finance “reproductive choice” in Haiti. On one level, you can understand why. One cannot imagine a worse place on Earth to give birth. But in a place where suffering exceeds relief, do you not necessarily help the living first?"

There is a reason why a certain type of person is anxious to give to help the poor of the world from reproducing themselves and it is not pretty. This theme of reducing the population of the poor so they are not such a burden on us has been a staple of the eugenic movement since its inception and a major method by which Planned Parenthood appeals to white, middle class fears of the "breeders" overwhelming the resources of the world.

Nice going Ignatieff. Thomas Malthus, Herbert Spencer, the Nazis and Margaret Sanger would be proud of you for carrying on their tradition.