Dear Elizabeth,

I would have written sooner but I have been travelling.

Since I got back, I have carefully reviewed your statements onabortion and I have to say that I am sorry but I will no longer besupporting you or the Green Party in any way.

As you know I was verysupportive of your running as leader of the Green Party and despite mydifferences with some of the platform of the Party I have up until nowfelt that your presence added a great deal to the federal politicalscene. But now you have questioned the most important victory of thewomen’s movement of my generation.

If you had said that you personally oppose abortion but you support awoman’s right to choose, I would have been fine with that. Instead yousaid that a woman’s right to choose, something tens of thousands ofCanadian women fought for for decades, was trivializing an importantissue. It felt like a slap in the face.

Since you have so little respect for me or for the women’s movementwhich mobilized for so long to win this hard-earned right, I hope youwill understand that I ripped up the cheque I had written to the GreenParty and you can no longer rely on me for support.

There is no middle ground on the abortion issue as you are no doubtfinding out. The organized opposition to abortion in this country as inthe United States does not care if women die. Of course, there are manypeople who are opposed to abortion for religious reasons but here I amtalking about the anti-choice activists.

I personally have debatedright-to-lifers for 30 years. There is no dialogue here. They putthe life of a foetus above the rights and even the lives of women.Whether or not you agree with this, by raising the issue in the waythat you did, you contribute to their position.

We had a debate onabortion in this country for decades. Raising the need for furtherdebate as you have done is a serious error in judgment and in theunlikely possibility that Stephen Harper wins a majority in the next election,you could have done irreparable harm.

I have worked on many issues in my life but this is the one where I havesuffered threats up to and including death threats: physical attacks;attempts to get me fired from my job and crass anti-Semitism. I hopeyou understand who you are crawling into bed with here.

I am very sorry about this Elizabeth, but I cannot attribute yourcomments to ignorance of the issue since you were around when the issuewas being debated.

Best wishes for a good holiday,

Judy

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists. She was the founding publisher of rabble.ca , wrote our advice column auntie.com and was co-host of one of our first podcasts called Reel Women....