Dear Jean,
Thank you for your last letter; a lot to think about, especially for a faithless bounder like me. I admire the way you find common ground between people, no matter how different.
Life in Toronto has been the usual autumn rush, further complicated by financial collapse and two national elections to watch. Prime Minister Harper defended himself to victory, but he still strikes me as deeply refrigerated.
But it was Sarah Palin who struck me as the most unusual candidate: local in focus, not especially articulate, not a reader or an intellectual, a fundamentalist who doesn't believe in either evolution or abortion. She seemed to have her new baby, Trig, who has Down syndrome, with her wherever she went.
The baby always made me think of Walker, my own 12-year-old disabled son.
Then, a few weeks ago, a geneticist reminded me that it is now possible for researchers to test an embryo for many genetic mutations, and parents can then decide whether they want to carry the fetus to term.
Not all geneticists agree this is a good thing: Testing is expensive, and one doctor suggested the money would be better spent caring in a more effective way for these afflicted children once they are born, rather than leaving them entirely in the arms of their bewildered and isolated parents.
Which of course got me thinking about Walker, and what might have happened had he been “spotted” in embryo. My wife might have had an abortion. Walker might not have been born. The pain and agony that have often been his lot in life – his autism and head-banging, his physical frailties, his awareness of what others can do that he cannot (such as speak) – would never have afflicted him. My wife's life might have been easier.
But I would not have had the chance to know Walker either, and the often-great spirit he is. I might never have learned what he has taught me, unintentionally or otherwise – might never have encountered his deep, unadorned humanity and sadness, which in turn has shown me my own and that of others. I have no desire to romanticize disability, but without Walker the world would not be as rich a place for me.
And yet I do not feel I can oppose abortion. Nothing is that simple. An abortion is a choice; more to the point, it is a choice that affects a woman far more than it affects me. I might want a woman to keep my baby, might believe she will regret it if she doesn't and might believe she will benefit if she does. But in the end I can't get around the argument that it is her choice.
Which in turn got me to thinking about Henry Morgentaler, the Canadian abortion doctor, and the controversy this year over his having received the Order of Canada. Dr. Morgentaler is 85 now, a Pole and a Holocaust survivor who opened his first abortion clinic in 1969, and performed thousands of procedures that were illegal at the time. He felt he was helping women and resisting the oppression of an official culture – a phenomenon had had seen and hated in his homeland.
In 1988, as a result of his challenges to the law, the Supreme Court struck down Canada's abortion law. Last July, in honour of his stand for women, he was awarded the Order of Canada by Governor-General Michaëlle Jean.
Then all hell broke loose. Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte, the Catholic Archbishop of Montreal, returned his own Order of Canada. “We are not the masters of human life,' he said, “it rests in the hands of God.” Gilbert Finn, New Brunswick's Lieutenant-Governor, did the same and officials at Madonna House sent back the medal that had been granted to founder Catherine Doherty, who, as you may know, is under consideration for sainthood. Nearly 56 per cent of Canadians opposed the decision to grant Dr. Morgentaler the medal.
