Mr. Kenney doesn’t exactly hide his views, but not every potential voter has seen the press clippings and a YouTube video provided by the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, that show him in his student days at the Catholic-run San Francisco University (SFU) in 1989 and 1990: He so vigorously tried to shut down a pro-choice group from speaking on his campus that he made the CNN news.
Back then, Mr. Kenney also authored an editorial in a student newspaper that likened allowing pro-choice supporters to talk on campus to permitting the Ku Klux Klan or “the Church of Satan” to do the same.
So imagining Mr. Kenney at the helm of a Tory government makes Stephen Harper look like Jack Layton. Except he’s not. During this campaign, both the NDP’s Jack Layton and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff have reiterated their support for “a woman’s right to choose.” Mr. Harper, however, has never publicly affirmed he believes in a right that the majority of Canadians support.
To add yet another frisson to the question of whether access to abortion would be secure under a Tory majority, my favourite rabble-rouser, novelist Margaret Atwood, reflected in an op-ed this week in the Toronto Star: “This government is deeply traumatized by women’s reproductive organs.” Atwood flatly stated Mr. Harper “should allow” a debate on abortion. “All aspects of this troublesome question – and it has been troublesome throughout history, as there are no lovely answers – should be thoroughly discussed,” she wrote.
While that might be one way to flush out Stephen Harper’s real stance on reproductive freedom, most Canadians, wary of an extremely polarizing debate, do not want to revisit this issue.
But that still doesn’t quell the queasy feeling many women have about how a Harper majority would affect their access to abortion and to groups who support all facets of family planning. “It’s a huge issue,” says a friend. “I can’t imagine any woman not taking this seriously.”
To take this issue down to its most private level, where such decisions really belong, you might say that to believe Mr. Harper and a Tory majority absolutely won’t mess with your reproductive rights would be almost as risky as, in the heat of the moment, trusting a man who whispers, “Don’t worry, I will pull out in time.”
