Is the sky falling? Are folks in the Canadian media being kidnapped and brainwashed by the anti-choice? Will the Harper government start rounding up women and forcing them to get pregnant against their wills?

I wonder if this is what has been running through the minds of pro-abortion people over the past two months. First, Stephen Harper and his radical right wing Conservatives won the federal election. (It’s interesting to note that most pro-life people are not encouraged by this in that the party has a policy which accepts the status  quo on abortion and Mr. Harper himself has clearly warned his caucus that he will not tolerate those who try to  bring in any pro-life legislation.)

Then, last month the Calgary Herald switched sides editorially. The paper ran an unsigned editorial stating that Canada needs legal restrictions on abortion and urging that the public debate begin. A month later, Jonathan Kay, Comment Editor for the National Post, wrote a column headed, “Canada needs an abortion law.” It may not be the paper’s official position, but it is significant that one of our country’s two national newspapers has openly questioned the current status of legal abortion in Canada.

Before all those pro-abortion women start filing applications to emigrate to China or India, where abortion is not only encouraged but sometimes forced, they should pause and take a breath. The paper that loves to call itself “Canada’s National Newspaper”, the Globe and Mail, will still act as the public relations arm of the abortion industry. The paper was an early advocate of legal abortion in the sixties, lobbying heavily for the law to change.

Furthermore, all four of Canada’s mainstream political parties support the current Canadian position of abortion being legal up to the moment of birth. They also support forcing taxpayers to pay for abortions and appear unconcerned that we’ve reached close to a 40% repeat rate and that more and more women now have two, three, four and more abortions. There are no informed consent laws and young teens are allowed to have abortions without parental consent. It’s easy to do when it’s free and there are private, for-profit clinics out there quite willing to do the job. On the political front, it would appear that there is little to worry about if you are an advocate of unrestricted abortion.

But, there is cause for concern. Public opinion polls are very clear that most Canadians support legal restrictions on abortion. Three-quarters of us agree that women should have clear and specific information about fetal development, health risks and complications and that they should view an ultrasound before they choose abortion. Over half think girls under 18 should have parental consent before they can obtain one. And two-thirds (80% in Alberta) think most abortions should not be tax-funded.

As long as that information was not being reported or talked about, there was little cause for concern. Now, however, the self-imposed media ban on the topic appears to be cracking. Two newspapers in the space of a month have called for a debate, and moreover, have advocated restrictions. Add to that the healthy and loud debates over Roe v. Wade in the U.S., the fiercely fought and widely reported (even in Canada) Supreme Court appointments down south and finally, the ban on abortion in South Dakota, and you can sense that there is a shift going on. It’s like the ice beginning to break up on a frozen lake or river. The ice appears solid but gradually the cracks begin to appear and the spots that were safe to walk or skate on just days ago are suddenly quite treacherous.

Have we reached that point on abortion? It’s hard to tell. I think it’s worth chipping away at the ice though. Mr. Harper may not want to deal with abortion and I understand why. He wants to reassure voters in Canada’s three big cities and in Ontario and Quebec that he is not scary so that they will vote for him when his minority government is defeated sometime in the next couple of years. To that end, he’d like to muzzle his pro-life members.

Let him try. Those of us who support the right to life of all human beings have our own agenda and it is supported by more Canadians than the one Mr. Harper is pushing. I think it’s a good time to pick away at the ice, apply heat and pressure and see if we can’t hurry along the process. Let’s follow up on the demands by the Calgary Herald and by the Kay column in the National Post and insist that our Parliament revisit the abortion question.

The alternative is to keep quiet, hope Mr. Harper and the Tories win a majority government and then try to push ahead on life issues. There are two problems: first, the Tories could lose next time around even though they did not rock the boat; second, they could win a majority but having sold out and accommodated for two or three or four years, they no longer remember or have any interest in the values that got them elected initially.

Let’s take our chances now.