Merry Christmas, Elizabeth May!

I've never given much of my attention to the Green Party of Canada unless my studies forced me to. While I'm not necessarily against the Greens, I've always found the group to be populated by folks of a more, shall I say, adolescent mindset. Sure, environmentalism, as a general movement, is largely benevolent, but its the prevelancy and prominence of the Paul Ehrlichites that has always driven me away.

Thus it is with some surprise (to myself) that I am actually blogging about the Greens. H/T to Suzanne, who informs me that there is some strife/gnashing of teeth/wringing of hands in the party. Some green folks are a little grumpy a with the new leader, Elizabeth May, for speaking freely about abortion.

Abortion? Spoken freely of? In Canada?

May says she disagrees with (publicly) restrictions on abortions and (privately) excessive access to abortions. She says, nevertheless, that she must follow the party line and never question the abortion leviathan of Canada. According to May, it's a settled 'debate' - Charter stuff and all that. Now with condescending triumphalist crud like that, you'd think that it would be the social conservative members of the Green Party who would be upset. Not so.

Judy Rebick, of the Thought Police and Ryerson University, is officially withdrawing her support of May and of the entire Green party. For Rebick, any discussion of abortion must be framed in a certain way, a way which May did not follow. May, Rebick claims, questions the most important achievement of the women's movement of the last 40 years. The mere 'questioning' of the abortion leviathan could result in the complete destruction of years of good, honest, hard work. Restrictions on abortions are now just around the corner, and those damned evil Conservatives will form an unholy alliance with the Greens and send us all back to the 1960s.

Chretien, Mulroney, Martin, and even Harper have all said the same thing about abortion, so what's the big deal when May says it? I imagine it has to do with May being a woman, and the inner-politicking of the feminist movement. Popular women cannot speak freely on certain issues the same way men can, if Rebick is accurate in her criticisms. So 'freedom to choose' then negates 'freedom of speech' which of course negates by default 'freedom of conscience'. I'm no human rights theory expert, but when rights begin to trump other rights, we have problems with our definition of rights. Right?