In the mid 1960s, Bel Kaufman wrote Up the Down Staircase, a novel which Time magazine called “the most popular book about U.S. public schools in history.” Well into the book, a character is introduced at the beginning of a new chapter with this sentence: “Evelyn Lazare is dead.” Because the character shares my name, I was stunned, then even more shocked when Kaufman explained that Evelyn had died after giving herself an abortion with a knitting needle.
Abortion has been a subject I’ve followed ever since.
Now that the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that the COVID-19 pandemic is over and we are no longer inundated with news of the virus, Canadian healthcare news has turned to another topic: abortion.
In Canada, there is no legislation banning abortion. Neither is there a right to abortion.
READ MORE: The inconvenient anti-choice record of ‘pro-choice’ Pierre Poilievre
After years of back-room procedures and roadblocks to safe abortions in hospitals and clinics, in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in favour of Drs. Henry Morgantaler, Leslie Frank Smoling and Robert Scott that abortion procedures should be legal, safe and accessible.
Once Dr. Morgantaler and his colleagues were acquitted of performing illegal abortions, it became easier to obtain an abortion in Canada in a safe manner. But easier does not mean easy. For many women, the need to travel great distances to find an abortion clinic, whether free-standing or in-hospital, remained an obstacle. The approval of the so-called abortion pill in Canada in 2015, improved the access issues and continues to help women seeking abortions.
For many women who were of child-bearing age prior to the Supreme Court decision, the topic of access to abortions brings back memories of botched back-room abortions, often provided by people not licensed to provide medical care, in settings that were anything but appropriate for such procedures.
It is a reminder of friends who acquired infections that compromised their reproductive health. And of others who checked into hospitals for “emergency appendectomies” when sympathetic physicians risked performing abortions there because it was safer. It also brings to mind the many medical students (among others) who performed such abortions – where are these practitioners today?
Now, with the news cycle de-emphasizing COVID, we are bombarded with updates on the restrictions to abortions in the U.S. With the US Supreme Court repeal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the legislation proposed and enacted in various states appears designed to abolish it altogether. It is a frightening reminder of women’s vulnerability.
Of course, the system of government in the U.S. is different from Canada’s. Here, abortion is a non-issue at both the federal and the provincial/territorial levels. Individual MPs and MPPs may be in favour of banning abortions, but no political party has adopted an anti-choice platform.
Still, the decision of the Supreme Court bears rereading some 35 years later. Several points made then are worth remembering when Canadians consider the latest abortion news from our neighbours to the south.
- The interest in the life or health of the pregnant woman takes precedence over the interest in prohibiting abortions, including the interest of the state in the protection of the foetus, when “the continuation of the pregnancy of such female person would or would be likely to endanger her life or health.”
- Liberty in a free and democratic society does not require the state to approve such decisions [about abortion] but it does require the state to respect them.
- The decision whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and in a free and democratic society the conscience of the individual must be paramount to that of the state.
The ongoing American push to ban abortions reflects a decreasing separation of church and state. It also highlights the increasing divisiveness and rivalry between the Republicans and the Democrats. Further, it ignores the polls, in both red and blue states, that indicate that a majority of Americans are in favour of abortion rights, with some limitations. But the legislators cling to their anti-choice agendas.
Not only are the women being denied access to abortions, but healthcare providers, their associates and people as unrelated as taxi drivers who drive women to abortion clinics can be charged with murder in some states.
What has always confounded this writer is that it is largely men who push for these restrictive laws. They go as far as to deny abortion even in cases of incest. Who do these men think impregnated the women seeking abortions? Not other women.
And who will support the women who are forced to continue pregnancies, whether of healthy or compromised children? Not the men who barred the women from abortions. Anti-choice legislation does not discuss support.
Canadians may watch these American anti-choice debates with increasing disbelief and concern. Even if they believe that life begins at conception, making abortion equivalent to killing, politicians in Canada have agreed not to touch the abortion issue at all.
This changed earlier in May, when a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, who opposes abortion, introduced a private member’s bill that could restart the abortion debate in parliament. Cathay Wagantall’s Bill C-311 asks judges to consider physical or emotional harm to a pregnant victim as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
The Criminal Code of Canada lists many extenuating principles to be considered in sentencing. Among the categories are hate crimes, crimes against healthcare workers and police officers, and terrorism. The Code makes no mention of special considerations for a crime against a victim who is pregnant. Notably, it does include impacts related to the victim’s health and intimate partner or family.
Private members’ bills rarely become law in Canada. But to Canadians who pay attention to the abortion news from the U.S., this bill could potentially open the door to the abortion question. Why? Because if criminal sentencing is exacerbated by wounding or killing a foetus, in the process of a crime against the mother, then the foetus is being accorded the same rights as all Canadians. And this is not the case in Canada.
Be afraid, be very afraid…
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