Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney (photo credit: Jason Franson/ Canadian Press via AP)
Carney’s
view on abortion is deeply problematic
And
should be seen as such by all Canadians, whether Liberal, Conservative, NDP,
Green, or whatever.
By Hendrik van der Breggen
Mark Carney took over Justin Trudeau’s job as Canada’s prime minister on March 14, 2025. Whether Mr. Carney continues as PM depends on the federal election on April 28th. [Edit/update: Mr. Carney won the federal election.] In the meantime, Canadian voters are scrambling to know more about Carney.[1]
Let’s look at PM Carney’s view on abortion. Below I will set out Carney’s view, then I’ll set out my assessment. My conclusion: Carney’s view on abortion is deeply problematic—and should be seen as such by all Canadians, whether “pro-choice,” “pro-life,” Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green, or whatever.
Carney’s view on abortion
In a recent short video from Global News, Carney states his position on the abortion issue clearly and succinctly as follows:
I absolutely support a woman’s right to choose—unreservedly—and
will defend it as the Liberal Party has defended it, proudly and consistently.
I will defend the Charter, proudly and consistently, as the Liberal Party does.[2]
I appreciate PM Carney for being clear and succinct, but his view has serious problems. Very serious problems.
No, Mr. Prime Minister, abortion is NOT a Charter right
I am glad PM Carney wishes to defend the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but on the topic of abortion he’s got a problem: abortion is not a Charter right. It’s not in the Charter, nor is it implied by the Charter.
Contrary to what Mr. Carney and the Liberals would have Canadians believe, Canada’s 1988 Supreme Court ruling did not give women the right to abortion. In fact, “Ultimately, the 1988 Morgentaler decision did not assume a right to abortion, did not create a right to abortion, and cannot be interpreted as implying a right to abortion.”[3]
Yes, there have been some failed attempts by Canada’s parliament to pass laws related to abortion, and, yes, since 1988 in Canada there have been no abortion laws.[4] But, again, abortion is not a Charter right.[5]
All Canadians—especially Canada’s PM—should be clear on this fact.
We need an abortion law (of some sort)
Moreover, Canada needs an abortion law, at least in some cases. Why? Because abortion kills human beings—a lot of them.
Every year in Canada between 90,000 and 100,000 pre-natal children are destroyed by abortion. Compare that to the fact that between 700 and 900 homicides occur yearly in Canada.
Let. That. Sink. In.
Also, presently, abortion in Canada is legal right up to birth. Yes, most abortions occur much earlier, and most doctors don’t do late-term abortions. Nevertheless, a law would be appropriate to protect children in their, say, fifth or sixth month and later. Surely.[6]
Also, a law would be appropriate to protect children from sex-selective abortion, that is, the killing of children merely because they are girls. Sadly, gendercide is popular among immigrants who value boys more than girls.[7]
Moreover, a law would be appropriate to protect children who risk being killed merely because they have Down syndrome. How many Down syndrome babies are aborted in Canada? I asked this question on Google. Google’s AI answer: “While Canada doesn’t collect specific data on abortions following prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, studies suggest that a high percentage of such pregnancies are terminated, with some estimates reaching around 90%.”[8] From what I have heard from friends and neighbours who have children with Down syndrome (and were often advised by doctors to abort), these ghastly estimates seem correct.
Surely, for the sake of protecting young children who are clearly part of the human family, at least some legal restrictions on abortion are needed. Surely, too, whatever their political stripes—and whether “pro-choice” or “pro-life”—most Canadians can find common ground and agree on this.[9]
Defend abortion as the Liberal Party has defended it?
Carney says he “will defend abortion, proudly and consistently, as the Liberal Party does.”
Really? It turns out that such a defence is the height of absurdity—and should be understood as such by all thinking Canadians.
Bear with me, and think.
The Liberal Party defends abortion (a) as a part of “reproductive health and rights” and (b) as “an essential health service.”[10] But such a defence is an intellectual disaster.
(a) Is abortion a part of “reproductive health and rights”? Is this true?
Answer: No, not at all.
Reproduction, i.e., the creation of a child (pre-natal human being/person) conceived via sex, occurs before abortion takes place. The right to reproductive freedom is exercised before abortion takes place.
The late Michael Bauman, Professor of Theology and Culture at Hillsdale College, observes:
When pro-choicers have unforced sex, they are
choosing. That is freedom of choice. When they decide to kill the child conceived
during that sexual encounter, that is freedom from choice. They chose; now they
want to be free from the consequences of that choice, even if someone has to
die.[11]
In other words, justifying abortion via “reproductive health and rights” is an intellectual bait and switch. If unintentionally done, it’s merely a mistake (a big mistake). If intentionally done, it’s a ruse (and evil).
(b) Is abortion “an essential health service”? Is this true?
Answer: No, at least not in general, i.e., not in the majority of cases.
The claim that abortion (in general) is essential health care is false because most abortions are not done for medical reasons. The vast majority of abortions are done not for medical reasons but for other reasons.
It turns out the hard cases—rape, incest, threat to life of the mother—to which many abortion-choice proponents point as justification for abortion account for fewer than 5 percent of all the abortion cases.
In his 2015 book The Abortion Wars ethicist Charles Camosy reports that the number for the hard cases is 2 percent.[12]
But there is more to be said—much more.
Abortion is not even needed medically.
Dr. Kendra Kolb, a neonatologist, stated this in 2019: “There is no medical reason why the life of the child must be directly and intentionally ended with an abortion procedure.”[13]
Yes, treatments for ectopic pregnancies occur, but they’re not abortions per se, if we use language accurately. Yes, treatments for heart disease or cancer can involve pre-term deliveries that might result in the death of a child, but they’re not abortions per se, if we use language accurately. When we accurately define “abortion” as the direct and intentional ending of a pre-natal human being’s life, abortions are not medically necessary.
As Dr. Kolb points out, medical treatments/procedures have different purposes, which need to be made clear with language that accurately describes reality. This is important to remember, especially when we are being told by politicians and others that, in general, abortion is “an essential health service.”
Contrary to what Mr. Carney and the Liberals would have Canadians believe, abortion (in general) is not an essential health service.[14]
Again, for Carney to say he “will defend abortion, proudly and consistently, as the Liberal Party does” (my italics) is to embrace absurdity—and should be understood as such by all truth-seeking Canadians.
One more Liberal defence of abortion deconstructed
But perhaps (probably) PM Carney agrees with former PM Trudeau, who two years ago stated this on his (Trudeau’s) official Facebook page: “[The Liberal] government will never tell a woman what to do with her body.”[15]
In reply, we should notice that in the context of abortion, the issue is not merely about telling a woman what to do with her body. In the context of abortion there are two bodies, not just the woman’s body.
The fact is that the unborn baby is not the woman’s body. It is the child’s body. And abortion destroys the child’s body. And whenever someone chooses to destroy another human body, government has a legitimate interest.[16]
Conclusion
Canadians—whether “pro-choice,” “pro-life,” Liberal, Conservative, NDP, Green, or whatever—should realize that Prime Minister Mark Carney’s view on abortion is deeply problematic. Contrary to what Mr. Carney claims, the facts are these: abortion is not a Charter right, some abortion restrictions are needed, abortion is not a reproductive right, and abortion (in the vast majority of cases) is not health care.
Most abortions are due to social and economic problems. But social and economic problems should have social and economic solutions, not the killing of children.
O Canada, be strong and free, but not at the expense of your weakest and most vulnerable.
May God have mercy on us.[17]
Notes
1. For an overview of Mark Carney on matters other than abortion, see Joe Oliver, “The authors of Canada’s ‘lost decade’ would like another try,” Financial Post, March 26, 2025. For a review of Mark Carney’s 2021 book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, see Peter Foster, “Mark Carney, man of destiny, wants to revolutionize society. It won’t be pleasant,” National Post, June 5, 2021.
2. “Carney says he supports a woman’s right to choose abortion,” Global News, March 23, 2025 (1 minute video, my transcript).
3. See “Under Section 7 Abortion is Not a Charter Right,” Position Paper, We Need a Law, 2019.
4. For two examples of reasonable but failed attempts in 2012 to pass laws related to abortion, see Hendrik van der Breggen, “Reflections on Motions 312 and 408,” APOLOGIA, October 4, 2012. On a more recent reasonable but failed attempt in 2021 to pass a law against sex-selective abortion, see “Sex-selective abortion bill fails in House, but debate reignited,” We Need A Law, June 3, 2021.
5. See again “Under Section 7 Abortion is Not a Charter Right.”
6. According to the results of a DART & Maru/Blue poll conducted for the National Post (reported by the National Post in January 2020) in answer to the question of whether abortion should be legal or illegal in the last three months of pregnancy only 30% of Canadians polled favoured legal late-term abortions whereas a majority of 70% favoured making late-term abortions illegal. (Sharon Kirkey, “As abortion debate becomes increasingly polarized, poll shows the views of many Canadians are more complicated,” National Post, January 31, 2020.)
7. About sex-selective abortion, the following observations from Margaret Somerville (Professor of Bioethics at University of Notre Dame Australia and founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics, and Law at McGill University) are important:
“That unfettered access to abortion should be the litmus test of whether a society respects women and their rights is a long-standing claim of pro-choice advocates and at the heart of their rationale for supporting unrestricted access to abortion. They focus on women’s rights to autonomy and self-determination and argue that such access is required to protect these rights and women’s dignity. But sex-selection abortion promotes the exact opposite values—it expresses a lack of respect for women in cultures in which sons are highly valued over daughters. It also differs from other abortions in that the woman wants a baby—just not a girl. In one study reported from India in which 8,000 consecutive abortions were followed, three were of unborn boys and 7,997 of unborn girls.”
(Margaret Somerville, “The preposterous politics of female feticide,” The Globe and Mail, September 29, 2012.)
8. This is Google’s answer to my question “How many Down syndrome babies aborted in Canada?”
9. Importantly, Canadians should notice that there’s room to be creative here. Because of the polarized political views on abortion presently in Canada, perhaps a politically practical law against abortion could at the very least (1) criminalize late-term abortionists only, not women pressured into abortion, plus (2) help women so pressured (just as Canadian anti-prostitution law criminalizes pimps and johns, not the women pressured into prostitution, plus helps the women get out of prostitution). Or perhaps we could take the view of Canadian lawyer Leslyn Lewis, PhD (a Conservative Member of Parliament who placed third as a candidate for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2020). Her fourfold platform on abortion could easily be supported by people of all political stripes: (1) ban the misogynistic practice of sex-selective abortion (since many girls are aborted just because they are girls), (2) protect women from coerced abortion (who wouldn’t want that?), (3) support pregnant women via government support for pregnancy care centers (which help both mother and child), plus (4) direct foreign aid away from abortion providers and instead to those groups who promote overall health care (which is supportable by all, surely).
Such a law/laws could save the lives
of many children and help desperate women, plus provide political space—political
common ground—to encourage thoughtful, democratic discussion about creating
even better, more life-affirming laws and ways to help desperate women facing
crisis pregnancies. Perhaps it could even be a significant step to making
unthinkable the idea that to solve problems surrounding a pregnancy we should
kill children.
10. The Liberal Government of Canada’s document “Sexual and reproductive health and rights” includes abortion as part of reproductive health services and understands abortion as a reproductive right. And the Liberal Government of Canada’s document “Abortion in Canada” refers to abortion as a “healthcare service.” Also, former Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in “Statement by the Prime Minister on International Safe Abortion Day” (September 28, 2022), states that abortion is part of “sexual and reproductive health and rights” and abortions are “an essential health service.”
11. The late Michael Bauman made this comment on Facebook in 2018.
12. For my review of Charles Camosy’s book, see “Beyond the Abortion Wars (book review),” APOLOGIA, August 8, 2016.
13. Kendra Kolb, “The Pro-Life Reply to: ‘Is Abortion Ever Medically Necessary?,’” Live Action, July 30, 2019.
14. For more criticisms of the claim that abortion is so-called essential health care, see my article “Is abortion really ‘essential health care’?” Mercator, January 26, 2021. In this article I set out reasons for thinking not only that abortion (in general) is not health care but also that it’s logically contradictory and even sexist.
15. Justin Trudeau Facebook page, April 22, 2023 (1.5 minute video). A link to Trudeau’s video (and my criticisms of it) can be found here: Hendrik van der Breggen, “Trudeau’s Defence of Abortion is a Fail—Again,” APOLOGIA, April 22, 2023.
16. At this juncture, Carney (following Trudeau) might argue that the fetus/ unborn child is a part of the woman’s body, so abortion is still justified in terms of the right of a woman to control her own body. However, such a move logically implies absurdities that show this view is false. In fact, the fetus/unborn child is not a part of the woman’s body, though it is (temporarily) connected to it. For more on this topic, see Hendrik van der Breggen, “Aborting Trudeau’s (other) abortion argument,” APOLOGIA, January 30, 2018.
17. For additional thought about the abortion issue, see Hendrik van der Breggen, Untangling Popular Pro-Choice Arguments: Critical Thinking about Abortion (Amazon KDP, 2020).
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Hendrik van der Breggen, PhD, is a retired philosophy professor who lives in Steinbach, Manitoba, Canada. Hendrik’s most recent book is Untangling Trudeau: MAID, COVID, ABORTION, LGBTQ+. This book may be helpful to Canadians for better understanding Prime Minister Mark Carney (and other Liberals) who supported former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
