Difficult Choices

I have to say I was surprised, though not particularly offended, that at finding myself pregnant at age 38, the first order of business, medically speaking, was not what my choices might be - but what choice I had made. I can't be sure, but I think I detected relief, from more than one health provider, that not only had I already made a choice -admittedly not a difficult one - but the choice they were most comfortable with given the circumstances. Had I not been healthy, happily married and fast approaching excited at the prospect of another child I'm sure that the burden of those difficult decisions would have been shared by the doctors and nurses I encountered.

A squarely pro-choice Colby Cosh, in today's National Post talks about the issue no one wants to talk about in the only nation in the western world with no abortion law whatsoever. He cites a recent,though largely unreported, Environics poll.

As a whole, the poll paints a familiar picture of Canadian public opinion. Most of us don't like abortion and would prefer that the law reduce its incidence, or make it more difficult. Whatever your own view -- mine is squarely pro-choice -- this produces a conundrum.

I've heard it argued that, on the issue of abortion, there can be no grey areas. That you are either pro-choice or anti-abortion. That argument is itself the reason the issue is not discussed. Cosh calls this abortion anarchy a matter of basic civil conscience.

But in truth, I'm more cynical. I believe most of us lie to pollsters. I suspect that we are genuinely ashamed of our reproductive freedom, but that we secretly cherish it for our private purposes (or those of our wives, girlfriends, and daughters). And so we tell pollsters that we favour restrictions on abortion. But when a politician makes noises about doing something about it, we get scared.

It is about choice. But the nuances are far from subtle. No one appears willing to let legislators examine the grey areas, nor even try to determine if this abortion anarchy, is or is not, in our best interest. We've decided, it seems, to leave the question of abortion in the hands of doctors, nurses and pregnant women who are well versed on difficult decisions and the burden of choices.

hat tip Nealenews