Conscience rights? If you don't like the law, you can quit

April 23, 2012

Article by Clifford Orwin, professor of political science at the University of Toronto and a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution from Friday’s Globe and Mail, Published Friday, Apr. 13, 2012

What will Albertans soon possess that Saskatchewanians and British Columbians won’t? No, not just abundant tar sands but “conscience rights.” That’s if the Wildrose Party forms the next government, for “conscience rights” are the brainchild of its leader, Danielle Smith.

As an Ontarian, I take no position on Alberta elections. I do take one on this issue, however. Not all brainchildren deserve to live, and this one of Ms. Smith does not. You’d think that, if anyone would go for this line of patter, I would. Didn’t I recently offer, on this very page, a ringing defence of religious freedom? Isn’t religious freedom also known as “freedom of conscience”? Why, then, quibble with the seemingly synonymous “conscience rights”?

Read the rest of this article online at The Globe & Mail.