Award to Morgentaler is an affront to me and many others

HENRY AUBIN, The Gazette:

On the Morgentaler's membership in the Order of Canada. however, I feel no ambivalence whatever.

The membership of the abortion-rights crusader, announced Tuesday, is not only an affront to his pro-life adversaries, it's also offensive to a middle-ground type like myself.

If an organization representing doctors, civil libertarians or humanists were to lionize Morgentaler, fine, I'd have no problem. The organization would be private. It wouldn't be representing me.

But the Order of Canada is a symbolic stand-in for you and me and all citizens. It is the vehicle by which the state honours and celebrates what the Order describes as a "lifetime of distinguished service." I have as much trouble paying homage to Morgentaler as I would to his opposite number in the pro-life movement. He's an extremist, the most vocal proponent of one of the most socially radical causes of our time.

In honouring such a proponent, the Order is also plainly honouring the cause itself. It's one thing to tolerate abortion. It's another thing to applaud it.

The Order thus takes an extreme position on a moral issue that deeply divides Canadians.

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