When Freedom To Sniff Takes Over

If This Is The Best The Supreme Court Can Do, We Are In Trouble

Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled by a 72 decision in favor of
the court of appeal of Manitoba, agreeing it was wrong to compel a pregnant
woman to be confined in order to prevent her from sniffing glue and
endangering the life of her unborn child.

This was ruled in spite of the fact the woman in question had previously
delivered two braindamaged children.

In writing the majority report, Justice Beverley McLachlin made several
arguments. She repeatedly stated it was not the place of the courts to
interfere in such a case, but the job of legislators. She said if the woman
in question had been confined it could lead to the incarceration of other
men and women for "conduct alleged to harm others." She also claimed there
would be a risk that expectant mothers with an addiction might fear state
detection and avoid medical care.

LEGAL STATUS

Another argument was that the issue was not one of biological or spiritual
status, but of legal status. The court dismissed biological evidence that
there is little difference between the born and the unborn and said again
the law was all that mattered.

If this is the best our Supreme Court can do, we are in trouble.

First, let's deal with the right of the courts to intrude into public
policy. Courts and judges have changed the fundamental nature of this
country for a very long time. Just recently, the basic notion of what is
appropriate behavior was revolutionized by allowing female toplessness.
Courts have also intervened to contradict the legislatures on issues of
sexuality, marriage and benefits. Such activism here, but such indifference
on the issue of the unborn.

If the courts had not intervened in the past, Canadian women would not have
been classified as people. In 1929, this ridiculous law was thrown out by a
court with the words: "To those who would say that women are not persons,
the answer is, why not?"

I would ask the same question to those who claim unborn children are not
people. I would ask them, if life does not begin at conception, when does
it begin?

LIMITING THE FREEDOM

As to the idea of limiting the freedom of people who might cause harm to
others, this is hardly a new idea. We do such a thing every day. Regarding
expectant mothers with drug habits somehow avoiding medical care, there is
no evidence of this being the case. Abusive parents, for example, are
caught every day precisely because they have used the medical system.

Then there is the statement that the biological evidence for there being
little difference between the unborn and the born is less important than
legal precedent. That's dangerous ground indeed. When a black man in the
U.S. first tried to change the law so as to be treated as a person, the
court said Negroes were not people because they had never been treated as
people under the law in the past.

Then there is language. The court consistently used the word "fetus" to
describe the child in this case. It used a term that dehumanizes what is
essentially, and can only be, human.

When a pregnant woman puts her hands to her womb and smiles she does not
say, "I just felt the fetus kick."

When we gather together to celebrate a friend's pregnancy we do not
describe the event as a fetus shower and I for one have never put an ear to
my wife's stomach and cried, "Darling, I heard the fetus!"

While we spend large amounts of money on campaigns to tell pregnant women
that "smoking can damage your baby," we have also decided that in the
balance between the right of a child to a healthy life and a woman's right
to sniff glue, the freedom to sniff is the greater and the more important.

Perhaps the woman whose behavior caused all the fuss should have the last
word. She has managed to overcome her addiction and plans to marry the
father of her child. She says she has concerns about the court's judgment
and is "worried about the fetuses out there."

She has cause to be.