Juno News - May 20, 2019


Maryam Monsef wants pro-lifers to shut up


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

185.19673

Word count

990

Sentence count

35

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Pro-choice and pro-life supporters have long been on opposite sides of the abortion debate in Canada, but is there a middle ground between the two? Is there a place for both sides to have a voice in the debate?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Even if we accept that the majority of Canadians support abortion rights,
00:00:06.620 most people in the country I don't think are aware that Canada has no abortion law,
00:00:11.340 that abortion is legal right up until one moment before a child is delivered in this country.
00:00:17.700 There may well be a middle ground in the abortion debate between the pro-life and the pro-choice sides of it on this particular issue,
00:00:24.520 but if you ask Justin Trudeau and his cabinet, we shouldn't even be allowed to have the discussion.
00:00:30.720 Last week, thousands and thousands of Canadians flocked to Ottawa for the March for Life,
00:00:35.540 and many more in Toronto for the first March for Life on the steps of Queen's Park, taking place in tandem.
00:00:41.980 And there were even a great many members of Parliament or members of provincial Parliament that showed their support for the pro-life cause.
00:00:48.440 Sam Oosterhoff in Ontario, who said that he wants to make abortion unthinkable in his lifetime.
00:00:54.100 Which does not threaten anyone's rights. It doesn't threaten a woman's right to choose, even.
00:00:58.880 He says, I want to make it unthinkable. That's an education statement, not a legislation statement.
00:01:05.500 And on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, several members of Parliament, like Brad Trost,
00:01:09.420 who's a great supporter of the work we do here at True North, and Bev Shipley, and Harold Albrecht,
00:01:14.700 decided to stand up for life and stand up for the unborn,
00:01:19.080 a marginalised group in a country that says it's on the front lines of every human rights and social justice battle.
00:01:25.240 I'm obviously pro-life, and I don't hide it or feel a reason to.
00:01:28.660 But I'm also pro-free speech, and think that anyone, whether on the pro-life or the pro-choice side,
00:01:33.560 should be allowed to express their opinion, recognising a great many Canadians,
00:01:38.000 millions of them, in fact, who don't take Justin Trudeau's position on this.
00:01:41.660 Although, let's look at the statement issued by Mariam Monsef,
00:01:45.160 the Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality,
00:01:49.300 in an open letter that she sent to the Conservative members of Parliament that attended the March for Life.
00:01:55.480 I was deeply concerned by each of your participation in this year's March for Life,
00:02:00.900 an anti-choice rally, on Thursday, May 9th.
00:02:04.380 As you are well aware, women and women alone have the right to make decisions concerning their own bodies,
00:02:09.780 a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada for more than 30 years.
00:02:14.900 While you and your party may disagree with this, it is an issue that has long been decided,
00:02:19.580 and the court has ensured that no one person or politician, including the leader of the opposition, Andrew Scheer,
00:02:26.340 or any member of your caucus, has the authority to dictate to women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
00:02:34.440 Monsef writes that by standing at rallies, having a screening of a pro-life film,
00:02:38.720 what they're basically doing is saying they want to roll back women's rights and autonomy,
00:02:43.600 which she says is simply unacceptable.
00:02:46.240 Now, even if you agree with Mariam Monsef's position that abortion is the decision of a woman and a woman alone,
00:02:52.120 you should not oppose anyone being allowed to discuss it.
00:02:55.560 I mean, if you're so self-assured in your position,
00:02:58.080 why wouldn't you welcome the debate and prove everyone who disagrees with you wrong?
00:03:02.240 But she's not saying they're wrong.
00:03:03.600 She's not arguing about the importance of the pro-choice position,
00:03:06.440 the importance of abortion rights.
00:03:08.460 She's arguing that they shouldn't even be allowed to stand up and say that they are pro-life
00:03:14.580 and have a place in Canadian politics.
00:03:17.200 Pro-choice may have won the Supreme Court battles and the legislative battles up to this point in Canada,
00:03:23.060 but that doesn't mean they represent 100% of Canadians.
00:03:26.220 But the problem with Justin Trudeau in this particular space is that he's trying to take away
00:03:30.580 the right for anyone to stand up for the percentage of Canadians that do believe abortion is wrong
00:03:35.920 or the very least, the Canadians that believe abortion is wrong after a certain point,
00:03:41.620 where, again, there may be some middle ground between both sides of this discussion.
00:03:46.220 And when Justin Trudeau drew his line in the sand and said,
00:03:49.200 not only is the Liberal Party pro-choice,
00:03:50.900 but no one who's pro-life is allowed to run for the Liberal Party,
00:03:54.060 what he was doing is not just staking his own position,
00:03:57.360 but saying that this is an issue that should be off-limits.
00:04:00.760 You may think that abortion should be off-limits politically,
00:04:03.620 but in a free country, we should not be marginalizing people
00:04:06.840 and making them believe that they are radicals for holding a position
00:04:10.760 that pretty much every major religion in Canada believes.
00:04:15.280 From the Catholic Church to the Anglican Church to branches of Islam to Judaism, 0.90
00:04:20.800 virtually every single religious denomination that exists believes that abortion is wrong.
00:04:28.200 This is not hateful. This is not misogynistic.
00:04:30.560 This is consistent with the faiths of many people who claim to be living by those faiths,
00:04:36.080 yet still holding public office in Canada.
00:04:38.680 Now, again, this is not about selling you on my position on abortion.
00:04:42.140 This is about saying that no matter what the issue is,
00:04:45.020 it is not for a politician to decide what women can or cannot think. 1.00
00:04:49.800 It is not a politician's job to decide what men can or cannot think.
00:04:54.520 And how ironic that Mariam Monsef is claiming that the Conservatives are trying to take away people's autonomy
00:04:59.720 when what she's trying to do is, in fact, take away the autonomy of any legislators or representatives or Canadians 0.94
00:05:06.260 to come up with a position on their own of this contentious issue
00:05:09.720 without her saying it should be off-limits.
00:05:12.680 Remember that when someone is not prepared to debate their position,
00:05:15.700 it means they have a pretty bad one or an indefensible one.
00:05:18.740 For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.