(LifeSiteNews) — On May 8, Bruce Banman, a Member of the Legislative Assembly for Abbotsford South, British Columbia, rose to mark Mother’s Day in the legislature in Victoria. “Moms are the embodiment of love, strength, and sacrifice,” he said. “From the moment of conception through the journey of pregnancy and childbirth and throughout the myriad of challenges and triumphs that follow, mothers serve as the nurturing force that sustains life and shapes our future.”
If you are a normal person, that statement will strike you as a sweet and fitting tribute to mothers. If, however, you are an abortion activist, your eyes might have bulged at Banman’s correct identification of the moment a woman becomes a mother: at conception.
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The B.C. Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity Kelli Paddon swiftly released a video on Banman’s Mother’s Day statement to social media, and the NDP followed it up with a news release. Obviously, they asserted, Banman’s tribute to moms was actually an attack on abortion, which is legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy in Canada – a brutal regime supported passionately by the NDP and other progressive political parties.
“At a time when reproductive rights are being ripped away in the United States, it’s extremely concerning to see a B.C. Conservative MLA using anti-choice dog whistles on the floor of the legislature,” Paddon whined, not stopping to wonder whether she came off as a delusional feticide extremist. “British Columbians deserve to know John Rustad’s personal position, as well as hear a clear commitment that he will not allow any B.C. Conservative MLAs or candidates to oppose access to a safe and legal abortion or reproductive health.”
John Rustad, for that matter, stepped boldly forward onto the rake laid out for him by the NDP. “The 1988 Supreme Court decision is clear,” he said in a response statement. “This is not a provincial issue. No politician at the provincial level can challenge that decision.” Rustad ignored the fact that health funding, of course, is a provincial issue; either way, Rustad was clear that he “will not reopen the abortion debate.”
NDP Premier David Eby, who is the sort of progressive politician who wants to campaign on his support for feticide the moment he’s flagging in the polls, responded: “It’s 2024. Someone who wants to be premier of B.C. should be able to say they’re pro-choice.”
The leader of the Green Party Sonia Furstenau joined the discussion by calling on all leaders of B.C. political parties to “affirm their support for reproductive health-care,” and B.C. United Leader Kevin Falcon happily complied, stating: “Women have the right to choose. That’s been the position of our party for a long time and that position has not changed.”
If Canada had a better press, some enterprising journalist might have asked Kelli Paddon, once she calmed down, what it was about saying that motherhood begins at conception that is an anti-abortion “dog whistle.” When, for example, does Paddon believe life begins? When does she believe that motherhood begins? What would have been an acceptable point for Banman to refer to as the “beginning” of motherhood? Would noting the bond a mother feels when a child kicks in the womb for the first time – a point at which it is still legal to have that child’s leg ripped off in the womb – also be an “anti-choice dog whistle”?
Abortion is legal in Canada up until birth. Paddon’s complaint is actually quite revealing; it illustrates that she knows when life begins, and that that fact has real relevance to whether or not we should permit abortion. But none of the leaders bothered to define what abortion actually is, but the “conservative” politicians danced and bobbled when the progressive leaders ordered them to, and so the entire charade played out the way it usually does.
