Morgentaler and the Order of Canada
By Pierre Lemieux
Abortion is a difficult issue. Consider the main argument against it: abortion is murder and must be prevented. But then the main pro-argument is also convincing: a woman’s body belongs to her alone and she may do what she wants with what’s in it, which includes preventing somebody from squatting it. Both arguments have a libertarian flavour.
The vexing problem is that both arguments carry logical implications that are prima facie unacceptable. If abortion is murder, so is any contraception method that prevents a fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the uterus, like (in some cases) the morning-after pill and the IUD (intrauterine device). If, on the other hand, abortion is permissible, then infanticide should also be allowed. In either case, there is no obvious place to draw the line.
Henry Morgentaler, who was instrumental in bringing the Supreme Court to allow unrestricted abortion, received the Order of Canada this week, fuelling a big debate. Two different issues are involved: the legitimacy of abortion and the workings of the Order of Canada.
One reason I am generally tempted to take the pro-life side is to distance myself from the rather contemptible pro-abortion crowd. Granted some pro-abortion people are respectable, namely the libertarians who share this view and whom I exclude from what I call the pro-abortion crowd. And it is no less true that part of the pro-life movement is composed of bigots. But my point is that the members of the pro-abortion crowd are distastefully inconsistent.
Consider their typical views. A woman has no inherent right to make a product — say, a bottle of wine or a bushel of wheat — and sell it at any agreeable price to whoever wants to buy it. She has no right to open a restaurant on her property and welcome smokers; indeed, she has no right to smoke in her own car when her child is present. She has no right to sell her labour services on any voluntary terms which, say, undercut the minimum wage or a wage fixed by government-empowered unions. She has no right to keep a handgun for self-defence in her own bedroom, let alone carry it strapped to her own body. She has no right, with her own hand or her own voice, to express opinions that are deemed hateful by some state-determined criteria. Hell, she cannot even make her own bargains in purchasing private health insurance! In brief, a woman has no right over her body, except the right to kill her foetus.
It is more or less the same crowd that tries to undermine our remaining liberties in the name of faceless “future generations”, while approving the killing in the womb of its individual specimens. Difficult, isn’t it, to believe that Morgentaler types have brought a great contribution to Canada (whatever that means)?
Which brings me to the Order of Canada, created by the federal government in 1967 with the motto Desiderantes meliorem patriam (“They desire a better country”, reads the official translation). A good argument can be made that public distinctions should not be granted to extremists or very controversial individuals (people who hold opinions at some extreme of the spectrum), for why should the average Canadian honour people with whom he disagrees? But then, it can also be argued that public distinctions should be granted without discrimination to any extremist who has contributed to a meliorem patriam, for Canadian extremists are Canadians too. This is the usual problem of state action: it is either discriminatory or unrepresentative.
The conundrum is always solved in favour of discrimination. The state is, by its very nature, geared to discriminate. Public policy is nearly always discriminatory. The state takes sides between its subjects, favours those it deems deserving and harms the others.
Indeed, it appears that the Order of Canada is not neutral. Distinctions are seldom granted to extremists, but exceptions to this rule nearly always favour the statists. More generally, the Order of Canada is seldom bestowed upon defenders of the Canadian tradition of individual liberty; only a few exceptions come to mind. No surprise here as the decision-makers in the Order of Canada are establishment figures who have served the state obediently and are there for the purpose of serving it again. They define what meliorem patriam means.
Note that obedient subjects include those who, while seemingly disobedient, dissent only to promote more state power or to obtain special privileges for themselves. “I grant you all power over me if only you let me kill my foetuses”, seems to be the bargain that the pro-abortion crowd made with the state.
That the state would honour the crowd’s icon is thus only natural. We may not like it, but this is the state as it is, in the real world. Abolishing the Order of Canada would, in the matter under consideration, be the only solution.
(July 5, 2008)