Feds Won’t Include Abortion In Child, Maternal Health Plan For Developing World

The federal government won’t fund abortions as part of its maternal health initiatives in the developing world.

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda made the government’s stance on the subject clear Monday, after weeks of speculation. Earlier, the Conservatives had said they didn’t want to reopen debate on the issue of abortion.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper plans to make child and maternal health issues the focus of the upcoming G8 and G20 summits in Ontario this summer.

The government has faced criticism both in Canada and abroad for its refusal earlier to state whether abortion would or wouldn’t be included in its maternal health plan, which aims to provide life-saving services to the world’s poorest women.

However, a recent vote in the House of Commons went in favour of not including abortion in the plan. About a dozen Liberals voted in line with their Conservative counterparts, or were absent.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff sparked the vote to prompt the government to offer “the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options, including contraception”, which backfired. His motion was defeated by a six-vote margin.

NDP Leader Jack Layton suggested the government is taking a George W. Bush-like stance. The former U.S. president re-instated the global gag rule, which prohibits American funds going to international family planning organizations that provide abortions or abortion counselling. President Barack Obama reversed that policy shortly after taking office.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn’t mince words about the Canadian government’s refusal earlier to confirm whether it would or wouldn’t include abortion in its maternal health initiative.

“You cannot have maternal health without reproductive health. And reproductive health includes contraception and family planning and access to legal, safe abortion,” she said at a two-day summit in Canada last month.

“I do not think governments should be involved in making these decisions. It is perfectly legitimate for people to hold their own personal views based on conscience, religion or any other basis. But I’ve always believed the government should not intervene in decisions of such intimacy.”

Now that the Canadian government has made its position clear, the debate over abortion is expected to take centre stage at a two-day G8 development ministers meeting in Halifax Tuesday when Oda addresses her colleagues.

In her opening address Tuesday, Oda made no mention of the government’s clarified stance.

With files from the Canadian Press