Inside Politics

UPDATED: Does maternal health=abortion debate?

by Neil Morrison Posted: February 9, 2010 4:35 PM Last Updated: February 10, 2010 5:26 PM

Over the past week, As It Happens has run an interesting string of interviews on the issue of maternal health.

First, last Thursday Carol Off spoke with one of the key antagonists in this story, Liberal Health critic Carolyn Bennett.

Next up, the protagonist. Or a protagonist. Or perhaps representing the protagonist... was the Minister of International Cooperation, Bev Oda.

You can listen to both interviews in full (starting at 1:23 at this link) and I recommend you do if you're interested in this topic. But if you are pressed for time, let me summarize the most contentious issue this way: 

Carolyn Bennett doesn't think you can talk about maternal health without talking about ensuring access to safe abortions.   Bev Oda is not ready to talk about access to safe abortions but is very keen to talk about improving maternal health.

Which sets up the latest interview, from Monday night (starting at 2:33 at this link.)  Carol spoke to Dr. Dorothy Shaw.  She is the Canadian G8/G20 spokesperson for the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.  She is a key advisor to the G8 on the issue of maternal health. 

Here's how I would summarize her thoughts on the issue: 

Obviously access to safe abortions is part of assuring maternal health.  But it's a bit reckless to make this the sole focus of the conversation since it has the potential to derail the entire initiative.  There are plenty of boxes to tick off.  Let's start with the big ones and work our way down.

That's how I heard it.  Over to your comments for different interpretations.

UPDATE:

Embassy, the weekly newspaper that looks at foreign policy, published an article in today's edition with this headline: "Oda says no abortion, contraceptives support." (Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall.)

This is more definitive than my sense of what the Minister said in her interview on As It Happens. And I'm not sure the article is quite as definitive as the headline.

Is the government's position on this evolving, or becoming more clear?