Poll: Large Majority of Canadians Disagree With Status-Quo On Abortion

Our opponents may claim that the abortion debate is over and should never be reopened. The politicians may agree with them. But the public opinion on the status quo is different:

For the ninth year in a row, a majority of Canadians have rejected the status quo on abortion in this country, according to a new poll. Over half of respondents to the poll said there should be legal protection for human life before birth and over two-thirds say abortions should only be paid for by taxpayers in medical emergencies or in cases of rape or incest.

A poll by Environics Research of 2002 Canadians found that only one-third of Canadians agree with the current policy that denies any protection to unborn babies before birth. The majority, 56%, support legal protection at some stage before birth: 30% support legal protection from conception on, 17% after three months of pregnancy and 8% after six months of pregnancy. Once again, support for legal protection from conception on is much higher among women, 35%, than men at 25%.

The disconnect between official policy and the opinions of Canadians is even more stark in the area of abortion funding. Most abortions in Canada, which now total well over 100,000 annually, are paid for by taxpayers through the publicly funded health care system. Yet when asked, 68% of Canadians polled said that abortions should be either privately funded (18%) or only tax-funded in cases of medical emergency "such as a threat to the mother's life or in cases of rape or incest." Only 26% support tax-funding of all abortions, down from 30% last year.

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Meanwhile, we have the hard-left feminist Liberal MPs attacking Maurice Vellacott, a Conservative MP for Saskatoon—Wanuskewin for his comments on abortion. They claim that even the slightest opposition to unrestricted tax-funded abortions through all 9 months of pregnancy "insults and denigrates women" and they accuse him of "making statements that are medically incorrect to support his moral ideology".

Well, in reality, we have more women than men supporting full legal protection of the unborn. As for their claims that Maurice Vellacott's statements are "medically incorrect" - if Lise Zarac and Anita Neville know so little about fetal development and about the known side-effects of abortions, maybe their place is not in Parliament, but in high-school?