Stephen Harper - Assalogue!

A question was posed here on the site some time ago was, Stephen Harper, ass or idealogue? The answer we (NM&P editorial staff) came up with, after much debate, was both! That required a new word and the word we felt most appropriate was assalogue (sancithole was a close 2nd).

Today, news from Parliment revealed itself to us and we dust that word off and scream it from the rooftops, ASSALOGUE!

The Globe & Mail is reporting that on the issue of the maternal health care initiative, Harper and his fellow sanctiholes ignored the advice of their own civil servants when they excluded funding from organizations that include providing abortion as part of their overall programs to assist women in the developing world. The numbers are staggering and damning from the standpoint of human decency. - The Globe and Mail reports:

Each year, some 500,000 women die during pregnancy or while giving birth, and 9 million children die before they reach the age of five, according to CIDA statistics compiled for the minister.



The document, approved by CIDA president Margaret Biggs, also highlights the fact that about 2.5 million teenagers have unsafe abortions each year and tend to be more seriously affected by complications.


The Harper government chose to target child and maternal health during the upcoming G8 meetings and then behave like the only constituency they answer to in Canada are the Christian right. Canadians favour choice by a margin of 2 -1. As PM of all of Canada it is Harper's duty to respect their wishes and views on such issues - when so many lives are at stake you'd think common decency would triumph over ideology. Maybe assalogue is the wrong word... how's coward sound?