A Twitter flare up between of a pair of MPs Friday over abortion was a reminder that apart from the policy debate that seems to edge back to the surface now and again, there’s a skirmish on the side. At stake: the political cost of reopening the debate itself.

On Friday afternoon, Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett joined pro-choice advocates in using social media to draw attention to a flier Conservative backbencher Jim Hillyer has been circulating in his Lethbridge, Alberta riding.

The flier asked two questions.

1) Do you agree with Jim Hillyer that our government should not use your tax dollars to pay for abortions in other countries?



and

2) Do you agree with Jim Hillyer that abortion is not a human right?

In May, NDP MP Niki Ashton gave notice of a motion asking MPs to vote on whether access to abortion is a “fundamental question of equality and human rights, both in Canada and around the world”, so the questions — while a little late — weren’t completely out of the blue.

The Harper government made a point of excluding access to contraception services in their maternal and child health initiative, so that’s partly what Ashton was getting at.

When Bennett challenged Hillyer on Twitter Friday for disobeying the prime minister in reopening the debate, however, he responded by arguing it was actually the NDP and the Liberals’ fault: the NDP, for Ashton’s motion; and the Liberals for leader Justin Trudeau’s muddled dictum that all Liberal candidates must be pro-choice.

Of course, he also tweeted that the 1998 Supreme Court decision on abortion “went to great lengths not to close the question”, which altogether made for a some confusion: Is it the opposition’s fault for reopening the debate? Or was the debate never closed in the first place?

Of course, when grouped with moves by other Conservative backbench MPs, such as Stephen Woodworth’s motion to change the criminal code’s definition of a human being, the answer would appear to be yes to the latter.

That said, when Woodworth was asked if he was trying to reopen debate, he preferred to say he was ‘shedding light on it’.

If the debate about abortion is still closed, Canadians are at least getting accustomed to the debate about who’s is trying to open it. All parties have base elements that can be motivated around the issue. But there’s also a risk, particularly for the Conservatives, in opening the debate in earnest.

So nobody will crank this up to a full boil. Instead, we’ve left the pot to simmer and occasionally lift the lid to show some steam.

You can see Friday’s exchange below.

sNews: Jim Hillyer sends out his Christmas Cards early and they're all Abortiony. #yql pic.twitter.com/5bKYu3NK2F — Lethbridge sNews (@lethsnews) July 24, 2014

@Carolyn_Bennett good 2 c u in the alberta trenches. the mail out replies to the question Trudeau 'opened' with his 'bozo eruption' — Jim Hillyer MP (@JimHillyerMP) July 25, 2014

@Carolyn_Bennett if you actually read the 1988 court ruling u c they went to great lengths not to close the question. — Jim Hillyer MP (@JimHillyerMP) July 25, 2014

@Carolyn_Bennett he didn't reopen it. ndp motion 510 does, so did the bozo eruption — Jim Hillyer MP (@JimHillyerMP) July 25, 2014

Your tax-payer-funded fliers is what reopened debate today,sIr @JimHillyerMP ? backbench in motion ? @PMSH promised not to reopen debate — Carolyn Bennett (@Carolyn_Bennett) July 25, 2014