You Were Asking?

by Winifride Prestwich

The UN spends a lot on pushing contraceptives in the Third World, while treatments for diseases like TB and malaria are grossly underfunded. What, if anything, does the World Health Organization say? — D.C., Vancouver

The WHO seems to be silent, but at least one of the world's leading medical journals, The Lancet, has addressed this issue in an editorial ("Women in the World," The Lancet, July 22, 1995). The editorial states that "the Cairo formula for achieving population control," (which is stressed in later UN reports) "was to place women and their reproductive needs at the top of the international health agenda." It was the UN's definition of "health" that The Lancet attacked. "Yet health is defined in a surprisingly one-dimensional manner. It seems to exist in a reproductive context only, (and) the notion of ‘health' is distorted beyond all recognition. This intellectual astigmatism leads the UN—and influential (groups) such as International Planned Parenthood—to adopt empowerment and equality to cure all."

The editorial also criticises Halfdan Mahler, secretary general of IPPF, who uses the term "obscurantist opposition" to characterize those who oppose IPPF's agenda—"one that is largely identical to that of the UN." The editorial adds one does not have to be "conservative" or "extremist" (to quote Mahler) to question the assumptions on which the "reproductive health" and "family planning" ideologies are based.

The editorial finishes with two cautions: "the new colonialism of the women's health agenda is a dangerous strategy"; basing policy on politically-correct slogans without in-depth research can lead to disaster.

Would you comment on Chief Justice Lamer's explanation of his Morgentaler decision? — P.A., Montréal

Let us put the chief justice's remarks in context. In an address to law students at the University of Toronto, he was attempting to show that confirmation hearings for justices of the Supreme Court of Canada would be worthless, and tell nothing about how a judge will decide. In support of this view, he added that although personally against abortion, he voted to strike down Canada's abortion law in the Morgentaler case. He explained he thought the majority of Canadians were against abortion being a criminal offence.

The outrage felt by legal experts was clearly evident. David M. Beatty, faculty of law, University of Toronto, wrote a blistering attack on Lamer's statement. He said that the remarks contained "some of the most shocking statements I have ever seen attributed to such a senior member of the judiciary." He added that the views expressed by Lamer would almost certainly have not meant that a confirmation hearing would have ended any hope of an appointment to the Supreme Court. Mr. Beatty continued: "The statement by chief justice Lamer that he would make his decision in the abortion case based on what he thought the majority of Canadians felt is so unorthodox, and so at odds with the way constitutional law is understood, it would have sent shock waves through the profession and the press .... No one I know in the legal profession believes judges should decide whether laws are constitutional or not by taking the pulse of the nation. Judging and polling are different. Judges are meant to ... decide cases logically, from first principles and earlier rulings, not from the results of public opinion surveys."

Another critic pointed out that the chief justice's remarks actually (and certainly unwittingly) provided evidence of the need for confirmation hearings, before judges are appointed to the bench. Louis Paul Desjardins said, "My guess is that, had chief justice Lamer ... said that he would sometimes base his rulings on what he thought was the majority view rather than the law of the land, he would not be where he is today .... (C)onfirmation hearings would serve to disqualify Supreme Court candidates evincing an inclination to, for example, change laws which would better reflect their interpretation of the majority will. That is a responsibility of the people whom citizens elect to serve in their legislative assemblies."

Writing about power in the United States in his book, The Temptation of America, Judge Robert Bork could almost have been speaking of Canada: "The constitution provides judges with the ultimate coercive power known to our political arrangements. In the hands of judges words become action; commands are issued by courts, obeyed by legislatures, and enforced by executives. The reading of the words becomes freedoms and restrictions for us; the course of the nation is confirmed or altered; the way we live and the ways we think and feel are affected."

Any five members of the Supreme Court of Canada have this power. Are they, in fact, representative of the best legal minds of the country? If not, why not?