Statement of Abp. Thomas Collins on Dr. Henry Morgentaler
Posted by Nick Milne on July 9, 2008
His Grace Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, has released a statement on the awarding of the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. It is a refreshingly direct and unambiguous document. The full text follows:
Canada’s highest honour has been debased. Henry Morgentaler has been awarded the Order of Canada. We are all diminished.
A community’s worth is measured by the way it treats the most vulnerable, and no one is more vulnerable than in the first nine months of life’s journey. No person may presume to judge the soul of Henry Morgentaler, but it cannot be denied that the effect of his life’s work has been a deadly assault upon the most helpless amongst us.
Canada glories in the names of Banting and Best, and the other medical heroes who selflessly brought healing where there was disease and suffering. Now it honours with the Order of Canada a medical man who has brought not healing, but the destruction of the defenseless and immeasurable grief. This award must not stand.
I earnestly appeal to all who are tempted to resort to an abortionist, or are pressured to do so by those around them. I urge you to contact organizations such as Birthright, and others who will support you and love you and your precious child. Contact your parish. We are here for you. I pledge to you the support of the Catholic Church. Look to our archdiocesan website at www.archtoronto.org for information concerning places where you may find loving help.
For those who have had an abortion, and bear within your heart the fearful grief, I urge you to contact us, to find love and support in your anguish, and in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, to find the gift of inner peace.
I ask the faithful of the Archdiocese of Toronto, and all people of good will, to protest this act of dishonour. Write, phone, or e-mail the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and your Member of Parliament. Ask that this action be revoked.
This coming Sunday will be a day of special prayer in the Archdiocese of Toronto, for an end to the evil of abortion. I have asked that the following prayer be inserted in the Prayer of the Faithful in all the churches of the archdiocese:
“That the scourge of abortion be lifted from our land, that those who promote it may be brought to a change of heart, that all who are tempted to abortion may be lovingly helped to protect the precious gift of life, and that all who have experienced an abortion may be comforted with the healing gift of love.”
Dr. Morgentaler was granted an honourary degree by my university a few years back, an event that inspired no end of protest. It sort of made me wonder why, exactly, I was putting all of that work into earning the degree when I could instead swan around the country performing acts of gross infamy and eventually just be given the thing for free.
Links to three petitions (one for English-speakers, one for French-speakers, and one for those living outside of Canada) requesting that the award be rescinded in this case are available here.
In related news, the Madonna House Apostolate, a Catholic charitable organization and lay community founded by noted do-gooder and gentle legend Catherine Doherty, has returned the Order of Canada once awarded to their foundress to the Governor-General’s residence at Rideau Hall in Ottawa. Their press release on this renunciation of the award can be found here.
Brian Visaggio said
This Morganthaler fellow seems a little sketchy. Why’d he get this prestigious honor?
Anne said
Dr.Morganthaler is hardly sketchy. He has put his life into this, providing Canadian women with the sometimes necessary choice of obtaining a legal, and safe abortion. Until he came along, many were driven to try their luck with risky “backstreet” abortions, with often fatal results. He was sent to jail for providing this service, and repeatedly prosecuted. It is very telling that several juries refused to convict him of these charges.
Ransom said
It might be faster if you just imported the “crying beaver” emoticon from SA.
brendon said
Dr.Morganthaler is hardly sketchy. He has put his life into this, providing Canadian women with the sometimes necessary choice of obtaining a legal, and safe abortion. Until he came along, many were driven to try their luck with risky “backstreet” abortions, with often fatal results. He was sent to jail for providing this service, and repeatedly prosecuted. It is very telling that several juries refused to convict him of these charges.
Question: If Dr. Morgentaler were providing legal abortions, how could he have been prosecuted for them or have spent time in jail for them? Would these facts not imply that he was, at least some of the time, providing illegal abortions?
Second question: When is an abortion ever “necessary?”
Third question: What abortion isn’t “fatal?”
Anne said
The laws were, in fact struck down, and are no longer in effect.
They were struck down because no jury would convict any more. These juries did include Roman Catholics, and in fact, represent the views of mainstream Canadians.
Abortion is necessary under many different circumstances – as I am sure no reasonable person could condemn any person whose life was endangered by the pregnancy from terminating it. I am also sure, in the case of rape, that most could hardly blame a woman for feeling unable to bear the result of this act. Many people are just barely surviving and feeding their families as it is, without adding another unplanned mouth to the family. In developing countries, more birth control would be the sensible solution to the abject poverty that many live under.
I would venture to say that no woman has ever had an abortion for frivolous reasons – even the safest of abortions is not something to be taken lightly. Counseling is always provided prior to the procedure, informing the patient of all the options available.
brendon said
The laws were, in fact struck down, and are no longer in effect.
This implies that the laws were in effect when Dr. Morgentaler was arrested. If the laws were in effect, then it is false to say that he helped women get legal abortions.
These juries did include Roman Catholics, and in fact, represent the views of mainstream Canadians.
I am confused how this is at all relevant. The argumentum ad populum is a logical fallacy.
Truth is not whatever most people say it is.
Abortion is necessary under many different circumstances – as I am sure no reasonable person could condemn any person whose life was endangered by the pregnancy from terminating it. I am also sure, in the case of rape, that most could hardly blame a woman for feeling unable to bear the result of this act. Many people are just barely surviving and feeding their families as it is, without adding another unplanned mouth to the family. In developing countries, more birth control would be the sensible solution to the abject poverty that many live under.
None of these are descriptions of necessity. They are descriptions of circumstances where abortion may seem attractive, but in none of these cases is abortion necessary. Necessary implies that it could not be otherwise. In each of these cases it could have been otherwise. Thus abortion was, by definition, not necessary in any of these cases. QED.
Moreover, I would certainly condemn a person for abortion in such a case. One cannot kill another, innocent human being simply to make one’s life more convenient, to better one’s state in life, to preserve one’s physical or emotional health, or even to save one’s life. No human being has the right to kill another, innocent human being for any reason. I find that quite reasonable.
Anne said
Such rigid views do you no credit. It is fairly obvious the issue has never touched you personally – I am assuming that you are of the male gender… I wonder if the writer’s mother feels the same way – that is, that his existence is of more importance than hers. (Not that I wish in any way to imply that the writer’s mother ever had reason to contemplate having an abortion) That is clearly what you imply, when you state that one shouldn’t hold one’s own health in any regard. If proceeding with a pregnancy is in fact a complete danger to the mother’s health, would it not be akin to suicide to continue it? If you value life so much, would it not follow that the woman deserves your sympathy, not your condemnation?
Terri said
It has been interesting to read the justifications for giving abortionist Henry Morgenthaler the Order of Canada. Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room, the fact that Canadians are not having enough children to maintain their population. So many individual decisions! Such enormous demographic consequence!
Before abortions became so readily available, infertile couples were able to adopt babies. There were shotgun weddings, but males (and females) knew their responsibility. Now too many men abandon the mothers of their children because there are too many children, and it’s the woman’s fault. Marriages were more stable back then, because everyone knew that the natural consequence of sex was children. Today’s version of the coat-hanger is that women are pitted against their bodies because of the social expectation that they be infertile.
The assertion that Morgenthaler “improved” women’s health is not founded on reality. The Christchurch study in New Zealand, one of the biggest longitudinal studies in the world has been systematically studying the same population of people born in the 70ies, surveying them every five years. When the sociologists financing the research found high correlations between abortion and mental illness, depression and suicide in women, they went to the medical literature to see if these findings had precedents in medical research. Guess what? It’s been so politically incorrect to study the effects of abortion, that there is a dearth of solid medical research on the consequences of abortion. The publicity surrounding this discovery of the suppression of research, by pro-choice sociologists, led the American Psychological Association to withdraw its Briefing Sheet on The Impact of Abortion on Women stating that there were no psychological consequences due to abortion. Their statement had been based upon ideology, not fact.
The women who have had the courage to say “I regret my abortion” are those setting the record straight. Project Rachel’s website lists a long list of the negative consequences of abortion derived from their work with women who seek healing after their abortions. See the fact sheet at http://www.hopeafterabortion.com/hope.cfm?sel=A31Q
Indeed the pressures on women to abort because pregnancy is not convenient to their boyfriends, husbands, mothers and employers is so overwhelming, that it is only the principled opposition of the Catholic Church that makes choice even possible. If the intention is to celebrate choice, the snowflake is going to the wrong person. If the intention is to celebrate Canada, then why are we setting up this misanthropist who has cause our population decline as an example to be followed? This is extremely poor public policy.
In addition, Anne, in supporting “a woman’s right to choose”, you are giving someone else the power over your own life. Right now you think that that is limited to your mother, but, as the euthanasia debate demonstrates, that abortion created a whole new paradigm, and now it is the powerful who determine whether or not the weak deserve life.
khilafah said
khilafah…
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