Don't let Conservative white men take away our abortion rights.

Do not become complacent about the right to abortion in Canada. Right now there are no laws in Canada regulating abortion. We do not want the politicians to change that.  We are one of the only countries in the world were there are no legal restrictions, and  where abortion is governed by the Canada Health Act.  Sadly regulations and accessibility still differs per province. The reason for this mostly unrestricted access was the work of Dr Henry Morgentaler. He fought the government arguing ALL women should have access to safe abortions in Canada. 

In 1988, the Supreme court of Canada struck down the Abortion law from 1969, which was extremely restrictive. Under the 1969 law you had to present yourself to a committee of 3 people at certain hospitals in large urban centers. If you were a teen you had to bring your parents, if you were married you had to bring your husband. The committee would decide if you should have access to abortion. In some hospitals the committee did nothing but exist. It never approved one abortion.

Depending on your geographical location, it was almost impossible for some women to have access to a safe abortion before 1990. And in some provinces like PEI, there were no services and women typically had to travel to Moncton, NB to be able to obtain a legal abortion. This makes abortions especially hard to obtain for the young and the poor. Still today access is restricted by geographic location. Those in remote communities have to travel far to have access to safe abortions.

When I had an abortion in 1987 - I had to have an illegal one. I was lucky that Montreal had a Morgentaler clinic, near Metro Honore Beaugrand. It cost me $350 and the visit took one hour. No one shamed me, Dr Morgentaler had amazing bedside manner and made patients feel comfortable, with this procedure no one wants to have. If I'd lived in a small village in Northern Quebec, would I even had been aware of the Morgantaler clinic? Would anyone have told me? Or would I have been shamed in carrying an unwanted pregnancy?

While it was REALLY difficult to have the abortion and I had very little time to think once I realized I was pregnant [I was at least 10 weeks when I took pregnancy test - which back then you took your morning urine to a pharmacy and they called back 2 days later] I know by the time I had abortion I was close to cutoff date for first trimester abortions.  I was one of those women who's cycle varied from 14 days to 42 days. I'm also a woman who used birth control and still got pregnant. 

Women's reproductive rights should belong to women/afab. Being able to decide to terminate a pregnancy should be a right every woman/afab person has. Women from my grandmother's generation have died or bleed so much during childbirth, they had brain damage. Both my mom and grandma were told not to have any more children by their family doctor,  as the next one would probably end their life. Having me nearly killed my mom and made her health poor until I was six.  My grandma was scolded often by the parish priest for only having 3 children in the Catholic Quebec of 1930's.

Women pay a HIGH PRICE to carry children they DO want. They should not have to choose between their life and carrying an unwanted child or an unhealthy child or a stillborn one.  They should never be retaken into a police station and interrogated or jailed EVER for miscarrying or safely terminating their pregnancy. One in three women have at least one miscarriage in their life time. It's traumatic enough to go through without others trying to decide if you should be labelled a killer never mind facing legal consequences.  No woman should ever have to justify why she terminated a pregnancy or lost a baby. The emotional scars stay with us for life just from the events itself.

Note, I use the term woman, but please know this rant includes anyone who physically can be pregnant no matter what label you use or how you identify, I am thinking about your rights too.

RIP Dr. Morgentaler

Dr Morgetaler was instrumental in helping get safe abortions for Canadian women. He died at the age of 90. RIP.

Motion 312 got defeated!

Canada hasn't had an abortion law since 1988 when the 1969 law was struck down as unconstitutional.  There is no need for an abortion law.  This is an old worn out topic and I'm not sure why people try to keep bringing it back up.

The thing that pisses me off is often anti-abortionists are male. It's easy to decide for others what they can do with their bodies when it's NEVER going to affect them.

The good part is that some conservative MP tried to pass a motion to bring up the debate as to when life starts as a way to bring up the abortion debate and the motion was defeated.  This is good. At least women of reproductive age in Canada are not going to lose the ability to decide for themselves whether or not to get an abortion.

Besides the presence of an abortion law does not prevent abortions. I had an illegal abortion at a Morgantaler clinic in Montreal in 1986, a few years before the law was struck down.

Sometimes I wonder about the people in Arizona.....

For some reason of late they've been passing strange and stupid laws. The one I read about today where they want to make sure women don't abort fetus' because of gender or race.

I didn't realize that Arizona was part of China, where there is a large preference for male infants and where for a long time, they were only allowed 1 child, so if it was female they would want to abort. As far as I know neither the US or the state of Arizona have restrictions on how many children someone has and really I seriously doubt there is hordes of women aborting specifically daughters.  I suspect the percentage of people who abort because they aren't getting the baby they want is very small. Less then 5%

I'm sure the majority of first term abortions are because women found themselves pregnant. They know little or nothing about the baby they are carrying and have been freaking out over the pregnancy since the day they were 'late'.  They aren't choosing a designer baby, they are choosing not to have a child at that point and nothing more. If statistics show more females then males are being aborted, perhaps they should find out how many of the people who aborted their baby even knew the gender of the baby.

As for race bias, well statistics sometimes don't mean much. It's easy to say, that in a town most of the abortions are of blacks or Hispanics, and that people are being racist. But if that town only has a black or Hispanic population, it makes total sense that most of the aborted fetus will be from those racial backgrounds.  I've never run across a woman who would abort her baby because it is from the same racial background as her.  I'm sure some exist but they certainly aren't very common.

 I'm not sure how this legislation in Arizona will work? Will you need to apply in front of a committee before you're allowed to have an abortion in Arizona, and will you need to get all sorts of needless tests done to prove that you aren't aborting for racial and gender reasons?  A percentage of women who abort find it is a tough decision to make..... they don't need more hurdles to cross to get an abortion in a timely fashion.  Because time is of the essence, it's the safest to abort in the first trimester.

I remember growing up in Quebec in the 70's where abortion was legal only if the life of the mother was in danger.  Those few hospitals who performed abortions had committees of at least 3 people, including doctors who would decide whether or not the application for an abortion had merit. Often if you were a teen, they would want your parents blessing, or if you were married you needed your husbands blessing. Basically few abortions ever got done. 

There was no point in applying for an abortion back then through the hospital. However there was the illegal Morgentaler clinic. You had to pay up front, but the service was really good. You were treated like a human being. No one judged you or tried to make you feel bad. You were treated like it was any other medical procedure, with the best medical care.  Not only did the clinic provide safe abortions but patients  are watched for complications before being sent home, and blood tests are done to see if medication is needed to prevent complications in future pregnancies.

I have to admit, that  Dr Henri Morgentaler is one of my hero's, as he helped make safe abortions accessible to all Canadian women.

This law which has not yet passed in Arizona scares me. Women should not have to justify why they don't want to carry a baby to term to committees.