Macleans interviews Elizabeth (‘Giggles’) May.
The interviewer brings up that nasty old abortion subject.
M: Last year, you made some comments on abortion that attracted attention – namely that you would never have an abortion, “not in a million years,” and that “nobody in their right mind is for abortions.” Is there a conflict between you and your party on this?
EM: The party has the same position. The party’s position is called “pro-life, pro-choice.” What we’re saying as a party, and what I’m saying as an individual leader, is that any civilized society must provide safe legal access to any woman who needs or wants an abortion. But it’s not something someone is for, in the same way that no one is for chemotherapy.
Hey, Liz, I’m for chemotherapy. My husband, a cancer survivor, is really really for chemotherapy. A lot of people are for chemotherapy.
Just like a lot of people are for abortion. Like chemotherapy, it is a medical procedure, necessary in some cases.
Jeebus, somebody buy this woman clue.
Because apparently she can’t afford one herself. As reported by Canada.com, she’s broke and having a hard time getting by on a measly $50K a year.
Sometimes, there just aren’t enough rolly-eye smilies in the world.
It’s amazing how May manages to dig herself deeper and deeper into a hole. First she invalidated the achievements of 40 years of pro-choice activism and insulted feminists with her judgemental comments about abortion last year. Now she has offended people living with cancer.
True, chemotherapy is not “green” and it’s a medical intervention that requires constant adjustments but damn it, many lives have been saved; children, women and men have survived cancer because chemotherapy was available to them.
Could May be metaphorically impaired? Or is this ongoing strategy of comparing apples to oranges a manifestation of frivolous choices?
May’s targeted audience isn’t feminists however; its the middle and the voting moderates of this country – of which the majority of voters sit. Her “nuanced” position that she has on abortion – either because she sincerely believes it or for electoral effect – is aimed at that position and the Red Tories…. not the feminists and the NDP sympathetic voter, because she (rightly) believes) there is more to be gained from that section of voter. I suspect she really doesn’t care too much if Judy Rebeck et. al dislike her position or not.
“… in the same way that no one is for chemotherapy” … Huh? Several huhs all at once. No one is for chemotheraphy? And abortion is like chemotherapy how? (Apart from the fact that “no one” is for it?)
Jon Stewart recently said that he felt as though the entire Department of Justice (“I don’t recall”) was taking a crap inside his head. For a similar experience in Canada, just listen to Elizabeth May on any topic at all.
I’m not sure what you’re saying, Scott. May is not targeting feminists so we shouldn’t expect what she says to make any sense? Just who, in your opinion, is her idiocy appealing to?
Loaded statements there Scott.
A) moderates don’t believe in feminism, ie. Equal pay, equal rights, daycare, reproductive rights. Which is strange as the number of women accessing birth control and abortion must surely include some of those in the mushy middle. Not to mention the numbers of women trying to achieve careers.
B)It is a correct assumption that she is playing to tories. Greens are merely tories who acknowledge the environment needs cared for.
C) it assumes that the mushy, picket fence up their arse middle don’t believe in or agree with chemo. I find that hard to believe.
Thats not what she’s saying at all Debra, or Fern. She’s saying no one likes abortion, just as no one likes having chemotherapy, but they are both at times necessary and legal.
I see nothing wrong with that position or that analogy.
Scott, she said ‘for’, which expresses approval, doesn’t it? And ‘not for’, meaning disapproval. Generally, people do not express approval or not of medical procedures. It’s very odd, in the most generous reading.
And why the fuck do we have to parse everything that comes out of her mouth?
Because, I submit, she’s trying to talk out of both sides of said mouth at the same time.
Well, even if her position on abortion and chemotherapy is sincere and informed by her personal religious beliefs, the manner in which May chooses to express them conveys disdain and contempt for those who are not as ‘high-minded’ as she is.
Funny how she isn’t as harsh and judgemental of corporate interests, as she attempts to schmooze up to them to gain their co-operation in fighting against global warming.
No one likes root canals either but I don’t see any political party making a policy statement about it. Abortion is a legal medical proceedure and any debate about it should be limited to improving access for all Canadian women. The Green Party’s concern with reducing the number of abortions performed in Canada is at best naive politics and at worst a disingenuous attempt to open up the abortion debate that was ALREADY settled. Let the pros and cons of abortion or chemotherapy as medical choices stay in the realm where they belong.
Will Elizabeth May’s wild and wooly quest for another medical intervention as the perfect metaphor next stumble upon cosmetic breast implant surgery?
As a feminist, I’m at odds with a society that promotes perky breasts as a standard for female beauty. Would that give me authority to claim that it’s a frivolous decision, and advocate that access be limited on therapeutic grounds?
No, it wouldn’t.
You guys are crazy. You say you are pro-choice. You scream like banshees over the possibility that the pro-life people (or anti-choicers as you call them) will win the day.
But now I see that you want to regulate pregnancy. What’s up with that? It sounds suspiciously like taking away the choices of women who want to carry their babies to term and give birth. Just how are you going to regulate the pregnancy of someone who is already pregnant? Are you going to decide that she should or shouldn’t continue the pregnancy?
And if you decide that she should NOT continue it? What are you going to do if she responds to this news by giving you the one finger salute and walking away to schedule her next obstetric appointment (with a carefully chosen pro-life doctor, of course).
You so called pro-choicers can be so hypocritical at times. You are constantly crying choice, choice, choice. But their is only one choice that is really acceptable to you.
You want to eliminate Crisis Pregnancy Centers that offer help to women in crisis pregnancies, so that they will have to turn to abortion clinics. Some of you are working to end adoption too. Is it really a choice when only one choice is allowed and all other choices are pushed out and made unavailable?
Now you want to regulate pregnancy. Please explain how that will maximize women’s choices. Thank you.
Pregnancy will be regulated through the law of course. Sure there may be back alley OB’s who will break the law, but they and the women they allow to frivolously choose pregnancy will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Any women who tries to control her own reproduction will be shown pictures perforated uteri, women who have bleed out during birth and other guilt and fear inducing methods will be used to make her see the error of her ways.
Quite right we are working to end adoption also, in fact part of the new manifesto is to extend the right to abortion until one year after birth.
Women’s choices will be maximized when they aren’t spitting out babies and can concentrate on careers.
After all Ceecee pregnancy harms women. Just look at the rates of Post Partum Depression. Ones future earnings and potential for career success are lessened. Not to mention stretch marks, lack of sleep..the list is endless.
No indeed Ceecee we are not denying women choice. We are saving them from themselves.
You people are sick control freaks. You are anti-child, anti-life, anti-humanitarian, and totally sick. You decide that pregnancy is not good for women. Not just that it isn’t good for some women, but all women. You decide that women should not have babies, even if they want them.
You also want abortion legal till one year after birth? And of course, no adoption allowed, just in case someone might want to save, love, and raise one of these little ones.
You people are anti-love and anti-freedom sickos.
Wow, and I thought China’s abortion laws were bad. China doesn’t have anything over you guys. You guys go way beyond China in oppressiveness. Please don’t call yourselves pro-choice, because you are not. You are truly pro-death in a way that most people espousing a women’s right to choose never dreamed of being.
Ceecee my dear much as I would love to keep stringing you along,it is obvious that you are either very young or very misinformed or both.
Therefore, it would be unfair of me to continue engaging you. Take care.
Ceecee, I’m going to pretend for a moment that you are serious. Look over there on the right. See the heading ‘Disclaimer’? Read what’s under that.
OK, now, any words there you don’t understand?
Standing by to enlighten the benighted. . .