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“Let me be very clear: I am pro-choice. That includes protecting women exercising their rights from intimidation or harassment,” the statement says.

Brown, who had a sterling anti-abortion voting record as a federal Conservative member of Parliament, accused the Liberals of trying to bait him into talking about social issues instead of “creating good jobs, relief for beleaguered middle-class families, and closing the door on waste and corruption.”

Only Premier Kathleen Wynne wants a divisive argument about abortion, Brown said.

It’s probably a bit of both. No doubt the Liberals would be happy to talk about abortion rights instead of, say, electricity prices. Such things are a much bigger problem for the Tories’ fractious coalition of Bay Street types, libertarians and social conservatives than they are for either the Liberals or New Democrats. But the complaints from Ottawa’s Morgentaler Clinic went on for weeks before Naqvi promised to do anything — his staff initially pooh-poohed the notion that a new law was needed, in fact.

Wednesday, Naqvi seemed on the verge of tears as he told the story of the woman who was spat on as she went to the clinic.

“As soon as I learned, in my own community that a woman was spat on for just simply going to get health-care service,” he began, and then paused. “Action was needed. And we worked as hard as we could to get this legislation here …

“That is our No. 1 job, is to protect people. To protect people’s rights. That’s my No. 1 job as the attorney general, and there’s nothing more important to my colleague and I,” he said, indicating Naidoo-Harris next to him, “to our premier and our government, (than) to protect women’s right to choose.”

And yet Naqvi couldn’t resist a counterpunch to Brown’s line that the Liberals want a divisive abortion debate, when a reporter put it to him.

“Let me be very clear. Ensuring women’s safety is not a divisive issue,” he said. “It may be a divisive issue in the conservative caucus, but you can ask any of these advocates, that unfortunately women are being harassed, are being intimidated, are being threatened, just to exercise their right to access health-care services.”

dreevely@postmedia.com

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