03 July 2008

Controversy and the Order of Canada

Retiring Conservative member of parliament Norm Doyle thinks Henry Morgentaler should lose the Order of Canada because Morgentaler has been controversial and that Morgentaler has "divided" the country.

“Dr. Morgentaler, his contribution has been his fight to legalize abortion which has really divided the country, so I don’t think it’s appropriate at all that he be given his order,” Doyle said Wednesday.

Doyle's logic is a little hard to follow here since opinion on abortion is divided in the country.  Morgentaler didn't produce the differences in views or cause them. 

But if you look at a wider implication for Doyle's comments, you'd think he'd be concerned about giving the Order of Canada to anyone who was now or had ever been controversial. 

Controversy divides or is a sign of division, isn't it?

So if we follow the Norm Doyle logic, then which current Order of Canada recipients would have to could up their snowflake?

Maybe this guy?  He's pretty much the poster child for political divisions.

Or if you take a different view of the same issues that first guy tackled, maybe this guy would be on your anti-controversy hit list?

Or how about this guy who got himself into a bit of a controversy over his research work?

And this woman had the effrontery to promote birth control thereby causing controversy and, in Doyle's logic "dividing" the country:

From 1932 until 1966, Dr. Bagshaw spent Friday afternoons as the medical director of Canada's first and illegal birth control clinic. Information was given out, and pessaries, jellies and condoms were dispensed there. Early in her practice she would never have spoken of birth control, but after the Depression that was no longer the case. "There was no welfare and no unemployment payments, and these people were just about half-starved because there was no work, and for them to go on having children was a detriment to the country. They couldn't afford children if they couldn't afford to eat. So the families came to the clinic and we gave them information." She did this courageously despite opposition from medical colleagues and local clergy. She would see any woman who had need of contraception information.The clinic became legal in 1969 and has been supported by government grants.

We can all be thankful that Doyle and his antediluvian thinking are headed to a double-pensioned retirement.

Not a moment too soon, sez some.