Erin O'Toole Quotes
I do not think that abortion services should be part of our foreign aid funding in any way.
O'Toole, Erin. "Conservative Leadership Debate." CPAC, 28 Feb. 2017.
Portugal, a traditional Roman Catholic nation where the Church has always had great influence, had laws banning abortion. However, in a national referendum the Portuguese people voted overwhelming to allow abortion despite the Church’s stand. The Parliament then overwhelmingly passed a law legalizing abortion on demand up to the 10 the week of pregnancy. The President, though opposed personally to abortion signed the bill. This quotation illustrates a common occurrence in industrial democracies whereby politicians will not impose their personal moral views on the laws of society but may well have contrary personal views.
Churches are political organizations too and are subject to the forces of their membership. In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1971 they passed resolutions to assure the right of a woman to have an abortion to protect her health. The position on abortion changed steadily thereafter to even pass Constitutional amendments to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother. See {614356},54122, {614358}, {614359}, {614360}, {614361} for the dynamic history of the change.
John Ashcroft was then the Attorney General and a foe of abortion.
Reactionary Southerners like Helms have always attributed any calls for change in their states to “outsiders” who were “invading.”
Sanger thought of as a radical feminist by many, was actually opposed to most abortions. This was not opposed on Biblical or religious grounds however. She saw most (non-medically indicated) abortions as necessitated by accidental, undesired pregnancies or pregnancies of women who could not economically afford a child. She felt the latter could and should be solved by progressive social and economic policies. And the former, could be prevented by contraceptives where were rarely used as the result of ignorance and the illegality of the sale of most devices.
Erin Michael O'Toole PC CD MP is a Canadian politician serving as Leader of the Official Opposition of Canada and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada since August 24, 2020.
