The Wildrose Alliance, abortion and the bigger agenda

Most people who follow the work of film director Oliver Stone are familiar with his recurring theme of the military-industrial complex, which is basically a catchy way to summarize the virtuous cycle between the war machine and the economy. I wish someone would come up with a similarly catchy phrase for the relationship between social conservatism and big business in politics.

Here in Alberta we’re seeing this relationship play out in the current leadership contest between the relatively centrist Progressive Conservative party and the further-right Wildrose Alliance. The latter party, under the leadership of Danielle Smith, has become a threat to the province’s four-decade PC dynasty on the strength of a lot of promises of smaller government on their watch.

However, just like their right-wing cousins to the south, the Wildrose Alliance is already proving that they are more than willing to use big government leverage to achieve their pet social conservative goals – they’re just a lot sneakier about it. This Edmonton Journal article discusses one reporter’s run-in with the party’s unofficial policy on abortion, to the conclusion that they are not above the delisting of the procedure from the province’s health insurance plan.

Full disclosure: abortion is the one pet liberal issue I still tip slightly to the right on. It’s the result of a religious upbringing and a history of lurid conservative paranoia that pictures a world in which slatternly libertines use second- and third-trimester abortion as a casual method of birth control. However, the common sense side of me recognizes that even if this was the case, delisting abortion would open up a Pandora’s Box of legal, ethical and women’s rights issues. For the most part, I choose not to think about it and generally just hope that most abortions in the province are at least performed in the first trimester (I call it “the less splatter, the less it matters” qualifier).

Although she has wisely avoided the thorny abortion question while on the campaign trail, Danielle Smith made her feelings on abortion clear in a 2000 column for the Calgary Herald, handily reprinted in the above linked article. Bottom line: she doesn’t like it and doesn’t think the people of Alberta should have to pay for it – a position similar to the one I held not very long ago.

Personally, I think Smith’s position comes from her conscience, not from any sinister ulterior motives. I’ve briefly met Danielle Smith and found her to be a genuinely likeable person who honestly believes the Wildrose Alliance agenda would benefit Albertans. Smith may be genuine, but I wonder just how much so her benefactors are. My feeling is that there is some Koch Brothers style social engineering going on behind the scenes.

Think about it – who’s most going to benefit from delisting abortion? It’s certainly not going to be impoverished, uneducated single women – it’s going to be private insurance providers with enough influence (and I’m just speculating here) to spin the political environment in their favour. And history tells us that if there are political ends you want to achieve, there is no easier way than to exploit peoples’ most deeply-held religious convictions.

However, if abortion is delisted, what next? One could argue that the public should not have to pay for a woman’s personal life choices, but where does it end? Do we deny heart bypass operations to obese people because they chose to eat poorly? Heck, I have genetic polycystic kidney disease, but maybe a doctor could find something that I did to precipitate the disease and thus disqualify me for a publicly-funded kidney transplant. You don’t have to look too far down the slippery slope before the government starts looking like the much-hyped “death panels” of Republican talking point lore.

The future of Alberta is going to be an interesting one. I just hope I won’t be forced to move.