Report Newsmagazine

Oct. 21, 2002

http://www.report.ca/

A shaky 'social peace'

New polls show that even a high number of youth oppose abortion

By Joanne Byfield

It is conventional wisdom that Canadians are overwhelmingly pro-choice on the issue of abortion. Prime Minister Jean Chretien embraced this belief when, during the 2000 election, he announced there is "social peace" on the procedure. Similarly, the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), a pro-choice lobby group, speaks on its Web site of Canada's "pro-choice majority." But while pro-abortion politicians and their activist allies assert one thing in support of the country's wide-open abortion law, the Canadian public continues to express deep reservations about the procedure.

The proof can be found in the results of public-opinion polls conducted by Gallup Canada. The most recent, made public in late September, shows that, although abortion has been legal in Canada since 1969, a majority of Canadians in two regions of the country consider it to be morally wrong. Overall, just 40% of the 1,003 Canadians polled were opposed to the procedure on moral grounds. But in Atlantic Canada, 57% said abortion was wrong. In the Prairies too, more people said they considered it to be wrong than did right. In Ontario, however, 54% found it morally acceptable. In B.C. and Quebec, support for abortion was highest, at 69% and 68% respectively.

The poll also found that 41% of Canadian women think abortion is morally wrong, compared to 39% of men. Remarkably, 39% of Canadians 18 to 29 years old - people who grew up with legal abortion - said it was morally wrong, compared to 59% who said it was morally acceptable. A new U.S. poll found an even stronger opposition to abortion among young Americans. The University of California at Berkeley's Public Agendas and Citizen Engagement Survey found that 44% of American youth aged 15 to 22 support restrictions on abortion, compared to 34% of those over the age of 26.

Also of note is the fact that, in Gallup's 2001 poll, only 32% of Canadians agreed abortion should always be legal; 52% thought it should be legal only in certain circumstances and 14% thought it should always be illegal. In other words, two-thirds of Canadians oppose the current situation in which abortion is legal up to the moment of birth. Gallup did not ask a similar question this year.

Interestingly, support for unrestricted abortion reached its highest point, 37%, in 2000. Gallup conducted this poll during the federal election campaign, when Mr. Chretien and the Liberals campaigned against Stockwell Day, and made his pro-life beliefs a campaign issue.

CARAL president Marilyn Wilson did not want to comment on the polls without further investigation. She points instead to her group's own poll, conducted by Environics, which routinely finds more than 70% of Canadians think abortion should be decided between a woman and her doctor.

But Garry Breitkreuz, a Canadian Alliance MP who has introduced several private members bills and motions on life issues in the House of Commons, believes the poll numbers actually indicate many Canadians have grave reservations about abortion. "I have found much more concern over abortion among voters than the government says there is," he says.

Moreover, an independent poll conducted in his riding last year found that 56% of his constituents thought there should be protection for the fetus from conception on. Says the pro-life MP, "The poll results do encourage me, I must admit."