"Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;–and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.” The quote above, taken from the novel Phineas Finn, encapsulates the Overton Window theory that an idea can transition from the unthinkable to even discuss, to acceptable, and eventually be transformed into public policy. In his 1868 novel, the author Anthony Trollope tackles contentious issues in British parliamentary politics such as the political viability of voter reform and the implementation of the secret ballot. It’s nearly one and a half centuries since Anthony Trollope wrote his novel, but his expressions of what is now known as the Overton Window theory can be aptly used to describe the process of social reform in Canada today. Think for example of same-sex marriage; it used to be considered unthinkable and now it’s public policy. In fact, in 1999 the federal government passed a resolution calling on Parliament to use all necessary measures to defend traditional marriage. While this did provoke a de facto debate on the use of the “Notwithstanding Clause”, the resolution wasn’t enforced and only six short years later same-sex marriage became official public policy. For several decades, the abortion debate has been toxic. Efforts at discussing pre-born human rights were quickly suppressed and those who prompted these discussions were labeled as extremists. Using the Overton Window axis, abortion was in the ‘unthinkable’ category. Canadians didn’t engage on the issue and much less so Canadian parliamentarians. How often haven’t we heard it said: “If you want to commit political suicide just start talking about abortion”?
