Mile Wide, Inch Deep - A Sunday Read

This past October, I completed a book on the personal story of a woman in Darfur, whose entire life was turned repeatedly upside down whenever Western governments made “moral” edicts on those perpetrating the violence in that troubled region of the world.  Actions such as the indictment of the Sudanese President by the International Criminal Court inevitably meant more tragedy for the woman in the story.  The book concluded by stating that it remains unfair for us to make moral declarations when in reality we aren’t there on the ground to assist the woman whose life is inevitably endangered by our pronouncements.That conclusion came to my mind again a few weeks ago as the debate on child and maternal health swirled around Parliament Hill.  Two Conservative anti-abortion MPs submitted an op-ed promoting their stance, which is, of course, their right. They dumped too much water in their wine, however, when they concluded:  “We owe it to pregnant women to provide them with compassionate, caring support so that they do not feel trapped into resorting to abortion, regardless of its legal status.  We owe it to the most vulnerable citizens of the developing world – pregnant mothers and their babies – to provide the resources they need to survive pregnancy.”Their reasoning was simple enough: it’s far better to offer a poverty-stricken woman all the resources she requires for a meaningful life (food, water, adequate healthcare, education, etc.), instead of leaving her in a destitute state in which abortion becomes an option.  Sounds reasonable.  Two MPs challenged their own Prime Minister to keep abortion out of the debate and out of women’s options. The problem was that they were elected representatives in a party that had just finished supporting a $4.5 billion cut from CIDA’s projected budget and which recently just pulled its long-term development funds out of 8 African nations.  These were the very resources desperately required by the women they were talking about.One of the constant temptations in politics is the ability to moralize on very complex matters.  We agonize for the woman in Darfur mentioned earlier, and so we utter strong pronouncements about the country’s president, calling for his indictment.  But we have no intention whatsoever of actually going to Darfur and standing by her side as the effects of our empty rhetoric rain down upon her.  My two Conservative colleagues have the benefit of making moral pronouncements, including op-eds, without ever having to actually deliver the goods.Both religious men, I’m sure the story of the Good Samaritan is a favourite.  But it’s also instructive.  The religious and societal elite repeatedly pass by a destitute man lying in a ditch in his travail without lifting a finger to assist, until at last an outcast himself attends to his needs. Jesus used the story to condemn the sheer emptiness of the morality of his age. Put in simpler terms: if you can’t practice, don’t bother preaching.Well-known Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura wrote in 1925: “Moral justification is a powerful disengagement mechanism.”  Well, that’s what we have here.  Morality can become hypocrisy if it means the sheer acceptance of destitute mothers while we attempt to claim the moral high ground. It's morality a mile wide and an inch deep. We all fail at times in this regard as MPs, but this time it actually costs the women.Possessing a moral conscience costs something, and if my two MP colleagues sincerely value their reasoning, then the first thing they should be doing is decrying what the present government is undertaking by pulling away from the very poorest women in the world they claim to be defending.  Write an op-ed on that, and request your leader to restore the earlier CIDA budget calling for an 8 percent increase per year in aid to these women over the next five years.  Sadly, it won’t happen because that kind of morality costs many things – likely their jobs.