April 9, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Last week, my colleague Oriyana Hrycyshyn debated late-term abortionist Dr. Fraser Fellows of London, Ontario, at a debate hosted by Lindsay Shepherd of the Laurier Society for Open Inquiry and moderated by Barbara Kay of the National Post.
The room at Laurier University was packed, and fortunately, the censorship enthusiasts who wished the debate to get shut down did not manage to do so. Both police and campus security were vigilant in ensuring that the debate could take place.
I’ve seen Dr. Fraser Fellows debate a number of times, so there was nothing particularly surprising about this debate. Fellows believes that society dictates morality, and that as long as there is a pro-choice consensus, he will continue to perform abortions—up to twenty-three weeks and six days.
Oriyana showed photographs of babies born before that cut-off, as well as a video highlighting the violence of the abortion procedure that Fellows specializes in. Despite the fact that many pro-choice people insist that abortion victim photography is “fake,” Fellows himself has confirmed that the photos of these abortion victims are an accurate representation of the work that he does.
What struck me about this debate, however, was two statements that Fellows made.
After Barbara Kay gave an introduction in which she said that people often thought she was on the pro-life side of the debate simply due to the fact that she has a habit of defending those who are being censored and silenced, Fellows began his opening statement by concurring with Kay.
“I’m aware of our current Canadian leadership, Mr. Trudeau, trying to restrict debate about abortion,” he said. “Obviously, I think that is a serious shortcoming of he and his government.”
It is actually not obvious at all that Fellows would oppose the prime minister on this, and I have to say I was taken aback. Trudeau has been taking a nearly incessant thrashing over his bullying of Canadian pro-lifers from politicians across the spectrum, left-wing media outlets that are usually enthusiastic about silencing pro-lifers, and religious groups of every stripe. But this has to be a new floor for Trudeau: When even a late-term abortionist thinks that your censorious attempts to silence debate on abortion are a “serious shortcoming,” you know that perhaps you may have misjudged the consensus.
The second statement that Fellows made was also interesting. “I am an ardent advocate of freedom of expression and protest,” he said. “I do not mean the women’s right to choice, rather, society’s failure to assist in preventing most abortions from taking place in the first place. What I mean by this is that we have the infrastructure, the financial and educational wherewithal to significantly reduce our abortion rate.”
This flies directly in the face of the narrative that folks like Joyce Arthur down at the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (who has justified violence against pro-lifers) are trying to promote: That abortion is a good thing, and that abortion rights should be celebrated. Fellows, rather says, that society should be trying to drastically reduce the number of abortions. If abortion is a good thing, why would we bother to do that? If abortion was not a morally significant decision, why should we care how many of them happen, much less expend enormous financial resources to dissuade women from making those decisions?
Dr. Fraser Fellows has been committing abortions since abortion first became legal. He has seen the grisly nature of what abortion is—and he does not think abortion is a good thing. He thinks, in fact, that our society is gravely negligent for not trying harder to reduce the abortion rate. And further, he thinks that our Liberal government is out of line for attempting to censor pro-lifers. Perhaps Canada’s abortion extremists, who believe that debate is a terrible thing and that abortion is a wonderful thing, should listen to somebody on their side of the debate.
I certainly did not expect to hear those things from a late-term abortionist.
