Call me cynical. I think I laughed out loud when I read an editorial in the Globe and Mail last week calling for an open debate on abortion at this week's Conservative convention in Montreal. The piece was titled, “Why stifle debate on moral issues?” and asked why “Canadian politicians are so afraid of discussing moral questions.”

The party, it noted, is split between “moderates” from the old PC Party and conservatives from the old Canadian Alliance. Notice that the Globe uses “moderate” to describe those who support the status quo in Canada, that is, absolute abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy without any requirement for a medical reason and almost always paid for by taxpayers. In other words, the most extreme, radical, pro-abortion position one could hold (barring of course the China solution of forced abortions). That's what the Globe and most other Canadian media describe as the “moderate” position on abortion.

The National Post got into the act as well. Post columnist Andrew Coyne, who has actually written many fair columns on abortion, lamented the attempt by the Conservative Party to suppress debate on abortion. He set out ground rules for a reasoned debate on the subject. His column prompted the Post's Anne Kingston to pen a column agreeing that a debate was needed and quoting admiringly from an article written by Frances Kissling, a pro-choice activist.

As one who has watched the media suppress legitimate news stories and letters on abortion for years, I'm thrilled to see these guys actually mention the A-word in a Canadian context. But, I suspect their interest in seeing and hearing an abortion debate at the Conservative conference has much more to do with news value than a sudden conversion to the notion that abortion is an issue we've censored from our public discourse that now deserves coverage. I think news hounds, having spent a boring weekend at a lackluster Liberal convention two weeks ago, are trying to ensure that the stories and pictures emanating out of Montreal will include noisy arguments and lots of hysteria from the “extremists” on the “fringe” of Canadian society. That would be those who, along with two-thirds of Canadians, think taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay for abortions or that there should be some legal protection for human life before conception.

Why am I so cynical? Well let's see. I've been actively involved with the pro-life movement for about 10 years and with three different groups, both at the provincial and national level. I have watched, and gnashed my teeth, as the media ignored almost every press release we send out. Our national poll results on abortion have never been covered as a news story in the three years that we have been polling. Some columnists have written about the polls but no English newspaper that I'm aware of has run a news story reporting the poll results. All the media ignore the thousands of participants in the March for Life each May in Ottawa but many covered the fewer than 100 abortion supporters who gathered on Parliament Hill last year, two weeks before 4,000 pro-lifers gathered for the March for Life.

The local papers are just as negligent in my experience. We've sent out press releases provincially on our Voter's Guides, poll results on deinsuring abortion, on abortion as a cause of premature and low birth weight babies and a host of other issues. No pickup. Somehow, though, if some troubled, angry guy in the U.S. shoots an abortionist, the media finds my phone number and calls for reaction. Otherwise, you'd never know there was another side to the abortion issue in Alberta.

It is particularly galling to me to read the Globe urging an open discussion on abortion. On June 30, 2004 John Ibbitson, a political columnist for the Globe, wrote, “Mr. Harper must expunge the social conservatives from any position of influence.” He went on in that post-election column to say that at the Tory convention, “Stephen Harper must convince Canadians that he, a western fiscal conservative, is also a socially progressive, environmentally sensitive, comfortably urban leader. And he must launch a policy process that will reflect those values and marginalize everyone who doesn't share them.” Now that's openness for you.

Then there is the Globe's Heather Mallick. We all remember her. She wants Henry Morgentaler to be inducted into the Order of Canada. She viciously criticized three MPs who wrote to disagree with her and to point out the well-documented negative effects of abortion. They were “fools”; their last names Vellacott, Wayne and Steckle “sound like a feed store”; and because two were men and one an older woman “consistently voted worst-dressed MP”, their comments on abortion could be dismissed because they wouldn't be having abortions. When a long-time pro-lifer wrote to Ms. Mallick objecting to her treatment of the MPs, she emailed back this comment: “Elsie Wayne is a moron, like you, and gee, how did I know you'd be from Airdrie?” Should I doubt the Globe's sincerity to open discussion of abortion?

The National Post has a couple of columnists who very occasionally write fair articles on abortion. However, the Post has ignored every press release we've issued and most letters to the editor from legitimate spokesmen of our national pro-life groups. Last year they ran a long column by two women extolling the virtues of the morning-after pill and a lengthy letter to the editor of the same view. When LifeCanada asked to submit a column giving the other side (after none of our letters on the subject were published), we were allowed half the space and then the column ran on a long weekend in the online edition only. Anne Kingston's column, which I mentioned above, called for us to “break through the black-and-white polarities” that usually characterize the debate. Then she described Catholics for a Free Choice president Frances Kissling, a “Catholic leader” and referred to advocates of abortion as pro-choice and the other side as anti-abortion. She simply could not bring herself to call the pro-life movement “pro-life.” But, we want an intelligent and reasoned debate, honest.