Tories Leave Abortion Out of G8 Plan

‘No division’ between member nations despite conflicting approach to funding of maternal health

Joanna Smith in Halifax Susan Delacourt in Ottawa
April 27, 2010

The Conservative government has stated Canada will not spend any humanitarian dollars on abortion as part of its signature G8 initiative to improve maternal and child health in developing countries.

“Canada’s contribution will not include funding of abortions,” Canadian International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda told reporters Monday after arriving in Halifax for a meeting of G8 development ministers.

The declaration – coupled with a similar statement from her parliamentary secretary, Conservative MP Jim Abbott, in the Commons about an hour earlier – came as a surprise after months of vague back and forth without a categorical stand on whether its new foreign-aid focus on maternal health included access to safe abortions.

“Canada’s contribution to maternal and child health may involve various interventions, including family planning, which includes the use of contraceptive methods,” Oda said.

The announcement puts Canada at odds with the United States and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – who spoke out for financing abortion when she was in Canada last month – as well as several of Canada’s G8 partners.

Oda played down the distance between Canada and other G8 countries on the issue.
“They all support Canada’s initiative,” she said. “There is no division on what it includes or (does not include). Canada … supports saving the lives of mothers and children under the age of 5 and that does not mean supporting abortions.”

Dimitri Soudas, spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told reporters in Ottawa Monday that the decision is in line with a recent vote in the House of Commons, when a majority of MPs voted against supporting abortion as part of Canada’s foreign-aid focus on maternal health.

That vote was a Liberal attempt to embarrass the Conservatives into supporting abortion, but it backfired when more than a dozen Liberal MPs were absent or opposed. It now seems to have paved the way for the extraordinary declaration by Harper’s government on Monday.

Oda left open the possibility that other G8 countries might want to finance projects that include abortion, but Monday’s declaration means that Canada will not be part of those aid programs. Neither Oda nor Soudas would say whether this meant that Canada would wind down any current support for abortion-related aid – as former U.S. president George Bush did during his eight years in office. U.S. President Barack Obama reversed that order – known as the “gag rule” – within days of assuming office in 2009.

NDP Leader Jack Layton says that Canada has now put itself on Bush’s side of this divide.
“It’s picking up the banner that George Bush used to carry and I think that that’s not something that would be supported by the majority of Canadians, that’s for sure,” Layton said.

Teresa Chiesa, health adviser for CARE Canada, initially said she had no comment on Monday’s announcement because “it’s been such a political hot potato that I can’t say anything,” but then expressed displeasure along with resignation.

“I think that a lot of women die from this and I think that it’s a problem that we have to take note of,” she said.

“There are a lot of mortalities associated with it (but) if it’s the government’s position, it’s the government’s position.”

Liberal MP and development critic Keith Martin said he was “shocked.”

“The government is being irresponsible in pushing a hot-button issue and it’s unfathomable to me why the government would choose to deprive women in other countries from enabling them to access the safe abortions that they can have in Canada,” Martin said.

While abortion is out, the Canadian contribution could include a range of other things intended to improve maternal health, such as training front line health-care workers, nutrition and micronutrients, prevention and treatment of diseases – including HIV/AIDs and other sexually transmitted diseases – as well as medication, vaccines, clean water, sanitation and family planning.

There was a time when the Conservative stance on whether to include condoms and birth control in the project was unclear, but Oda said Monday that Canada agrees with the international definition of family planning, which includes the use of contraceptives.

“(Family planning) includes a woman’s ability to space and limit her pregnancies, which has a direct impact on her health and well-being, as well as on the outcome of each pregnancy,” she said.

Tories Leave Abortion Out of G8 Plan