What had been a pretty calm, uneventful federal election race in Saskatchewan took a turn for the controversial last week when it was revealed that Brad Trost, sitting MP for Saskatoon-Humboldt, announced that the Harper government plans to cut funding to the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
At the Saskatchewan Pro-life Association convention in Humboldt on April 16, he told the crowd that the Conservative government has denied $18 million in funding to Planned Parenthood. Federal funding for this organization had apparently been in limbo for the past year.
That comment successfully opened up the abortion debate once again. For Planned Parenthood is an organization that allows women access to abortions. It also does a lot of other things to help families. Around the world, it provides counselling and services, which include family planning, contraceptives and HIV-related services. It's not all about abortions.
But Trost stated that "it has been an absolute disgrace that this organization and several others like it have been receiving one penny of Canadian taxpayers' dollars."
Personally, I think it's an absolute disgrace that religious viewpoints are infiltrating state policies.
I have a real problem with that.
I absolutely have no problem with Trost's pro-life beliefs. He has the inherent right, as we all do, to believe in what he wants. We do have that freedom in this country.
What I have a problem with is that he is letting his religious beliefs infiltrate what he stands for in the House of Commons. In 2009, he launched a campaign to stop federal funding for the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which is funded through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). And Trost told the pro-life convention that he is trying to convince Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Conservative MPs to move the pro-life movement forward.
What I have a problem with is that our MP is trying to tell me what health services I can and cannot have access to because of religious beliefs he holds - not me, him.
Because it is a health service, when it comes right down to it. It is a procedure performed in a hospital or clinic setting. The emotional or religious implications of it aside, it is a medical procedure.
What really gets me in this debate is the irony.
The Conservatives have no problem sending our soldiers overseas, putting their lives in danger, on "peacekeeping" missions. They are still soldiers. They carry guns. And they keep the peace by defending the vulnerable from attackers, by taking out the attackers.
If we in Canada are all about holding all life sacred, why do we have a military? Why do we train our soldiers to kill? Because we do that - when they are keeping the peace, they are doing so by a show of force, no matter what kind of spin we want to put on it.
As one American put it: why, if you are against killing babies, do you support our soldiers going oversees and killing other mother's babies?
The argument that abortion should be outlawed because it goes against the teachings of the church has no place in the House of Commons. Church and state are supposed to be separate.
By saying these things, to get the support of the pro-lifers at this meeting, Trost has likely destroyed his chances with women who believe that they have the right to decide what to do with their own bodies, that it shouldn't be left up to a blond man sitting on Parliament Hill. He has also likely lost the support of all of those who want government separated from religion. By robbing Peter to pay Paul, he may have dug himself a nice little hole.
