Anti-choice movement gaining strengths in Canada?

[leftisttransgirl]

Hi all,

I am a regular facebook user. Celebrating Canada’s 140th birthday on July First , the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting corporation) has decided to host the Great Canadian Wish List on facebook. Supposedly, any facebook user can join the Canadian Wish List and create a wish or add their support to any of wishes that are created by other facebook users.

Unfortunately, According to the Facebook wish list contest, the most popular wish right now is to “Abolish Abortion” (with over 3000 supporters)


It seems that the anti-choice conservative extremists have decided to impose their anti-choice anti gender equality agenda on the rest of Canada. I know that the issue of banning abortion is not simply about abortion, it is about restricting the autonomy of females and reinforcing patriarchy and heterosexism in this society, and that’s why I am writing here to let you guys know about this danger we are facing in Canada. (even though it's just a contest done by the CBC and is on facebook)


The CBC states that the most popular wish may receive NATIONAL COVERAGE to argue their case on our national broadcasting program.

I am writing in the hope that people will support us pro choicer in this fight against the rising strengths of the anti-choice movement in Canada.

If you want to help out, but you are not facebook users, you can register for free. It’s simple and easy and you do not have to give a lot of personal information, you can check it out here: http:www.facebook.com

If you already have a facebook account, you can join the wish list, and see the wishes here:

http://yorku.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2392827649

For those of us who believe in CHOICES, the most second most popular wish is to wish for abortion to remain legal in Canada. See the pro choice wish here and click on “add support”

http://yorku.facebook.com/sgroup/subgroup...._oid=2355464304 (http://yorku.facebook.com/sgroup/subgroup.php?oid=2392827649&sub_oid=2355464304)

The third most popular wish is about wishing for a *Christianity revival* and the fourth most popular wish is to ban same sex marriages.

This is unbelievable and I have been trying to tell other people about this contest and I wasn’t successful until after I created a facebook group to recruit all the pro choice supporters.


Because the anti-choice folks have been very successfully in mobilizing their anti-choice friends over facebook and on other sites, we should also consider putting more efforts into promoting this pro choice wish to all our friends so they can join in for the fight.

There is a facebook group specifically created to promote the pro choice wish.
This group is created *just* for the purpose of mobilizing all the pro choice people on facebook. To visit the group , go here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2421536323

The group is created for promotional purpose, as there is no other effective ways of “inviting all your friends” to learn about the wish list contest and how they can support the pro choice wish

[TC]

its a few thousand people on facebook in a country of many millions with the best abortion laws in the world (which is to say, none at all), i wouldn't worry about it.


Despite what the christian pro-life weirdos think, just wishing or praying for something wont make it happen ;)

[leftisttransgirl]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 03:25 pm
its a few thousand people on facebook in a country of many millions with the best abortion laws in the world (which is to say, none at all), i wouldn't worry about it.


Despite what the christian pro-life weirdos think, just wishing or praying for something wont make it happen ;)
Not the Best in Canada.



HEATHER MALLICK
Abortion rights and abortion fights
Court fight over legal payments about to begin
April 20, 2007

Canada's abortion battle legally ended in 1988 when the Supreme Court ruled that women had dominion over their own bodies. Abortion became a woman's choice.

But ever since, the provincial anti-abortionists have continued their mean, small-time work by targeting working-class women. Thus, the problem for Canadian women is not abortion rights, it is access to abortion. And New Brunswick has become a tragedy in this respect.

Fredericton is an attractive capital city of 81,000 on the shores of the Saint John River. The well-kept, beautifully painted big clapboard houses along the shore with their wraparound decks and intricate woodwork make the place seem healthy, wealthy and immensely appealing. The University of New Brunswick has a campus here and the presence of so many young people gives the city its energy.

But in 1989, the New Brunswick government, furious that women couldn't be denied abortions, made sure that women could not get timely access to publicly funded abortions and that poverty-stricken women couldn't get abortions at all. They set up regulations (thus bypassing the legislature and voters) saying hospital abortions had to be performed by a gynecologist, although the procedure is easily performed by a non-specialist. The abortion had to be approved by the gynecologist and one other doctor. Abortions in clinics would not be covered by Canadian health care (this is illegal).

Since almost no New Brunswick hospitals perform abortions anyway, women must discover their pregnancy very early, find a local doctor who'll refer them (difficult), and travel to a city to find another doctor to sign for them (expensive), and then book the operation (sometimes cancelled and impossible to rebook).

She must then go to the Morgentaler Clinic and pay for her abortion. Anti-abortionists bought the house next to the Fredericton clinic, where they try to lure women to change their minds, terrifying them with misleading photographs and false information.

When she escapes these people, she will get her abortion and then make her way home, often shamed and traumatized for what is a perfectly simple procedure elsewhere in Canada (except in P.E.I., where abortions are unavailable).

The obstacle course

Fredericton citizens often see Liberal Premier Shawn Graham around town. He is 38, but he looks 16. This is the man who has followed his predecessors in maintaining the obstacle course for pregnant women. Note that because these abortion rules are minor regulations passed by cabinet, they aren't approved by the legislature. Voters have no say. This is just a little act of cruelty by a cabal, and it could end next week if New Brunswickers made enough of a fuss.

They are starting to. This month, I spoke at a gathering sponsored by the Faculty of Law at the University of New Brunswick, Law Students for Choice, the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and other groups. Law school dean Philip Bryden, a distinguished lawyer, moderated a panel where a nurse, a law professor and a physician all spoke passionately about the mistreatment of women seeking abortions.

I had expected 25 students to show up. Instead there were 290 people, not all of them students, and they overflowed into other rooms as the discussion went on. It was wonderful to hear Prof. Marilyn Merritt-Gray from the Faculty of Nursing, because medical matters are usually left to god-like doctors, not mere nurses. It was illuminating to hear law professor Jula Hughes remark how often one hears the word "shame" in anti-abortion circles. Women are shamed for their fertility, for their sexuality. It hadn't struck me before. I wonder how many girls and women internalize this "shame" that can turn to self-loathing.

A Frederictonian in the audience, who introduced himself to me later as Eric Wright, stood and addressed himself to anti-choice males: "If you guys are so opposed to abortions, don't have one."

I had to laugh. It really is that simple. It's not your business.

Morgentaler steps forward

The Morgentaler Clinic has sued the provincial government, and its court case will begin May 16. At the moment, the young premier's lawyers are arguing that since Henry Morgentaler is not a woman, he should have no standing in the case. It's difficult to find a local woman willing to go to court, so Dr. Morgentaler, 84-year-old former prisoner of both the Nazis and the Canadian government, has stepped forward once again.

The problem has spread across Canada. Since 2003, the percentage of hospitals offering abortions has decreased from 17.8 per cent to 15.9 per cent. That means you only have the opportunity to obtain an abortion at one in every six hospitals.

The same thing is happening in Britain. The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists deplores the growing lack of abortion services. There is much less abortion training in teaching hospitals, and many doctors don't want to perform a task they consider immoral or socially beneath them, the college said. But as one doctor commented, "You can't deal with contraception without dealing with its failures."

And abortion rights were dealt a blow last week when the U.S. Supreme Court, voting on political lines, banned late-term abortions. These extremely rare abortions, always performed for the health of the mother, must now be done by a different method that greatly increases risk to the mother's life.

In the U.S., politicians and lawyers are now making the life-or-death medical decisions once made only by doctors. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision alarming. "In candour, [it is] an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court."

Women are losing control over their own bodies, in Canada, in Britain and in the U.S. But the Canadian fight back begins in a courtroom in May. In the cabinet room of the New Brunswick Liberals, this could be put right with a mere signature.

I shall now use the word "shame" appropriately. Shame on you, Premier Shawn Graham.

Biography
Heather Mallick

[Janus]

Unfortunately, According to the Facebook wish list contest, the most popular wish right now is to “Abolish Abortion” (with over 3000 supporters)
And there are over 25 million Facebook users and probably many pro-choice/abortion advocacy groups as well so I don't think that Facebook should be a proper representation of the anti-choice or pro-choice camp statistics. Based on poll statistics, it seems that the general support for abortion in the US and Canada have remained relatively the same.
abortion rights (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/22/opinion/polls/main537570.shtml)

[leftisttransgirl]

I understand that there is no immediate threat to ban abortion , but we have a conservative government in Canada now.

Also, the CBC is going to give national coverage to the winning group, if the abolish abortion group is going to win, they are going to think they have the momentum and they will press on , and we could see the conservatives passing some restriction on abortion rights if they ever do get a majority government.

That’s why I am encouraging people to join this group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2421536323

Even when the contest is over, the group will still be useful to mobilize the pro choice movement and to counter the attacks from the antii-choice group. Beside, pressing a button is not that hard, when you consider how much time some of us have invested in begging everyone to help out and make them aware of the wish list.

[TC]

And abortion rights were dealt a blow last week when the U.S. Supreme Court, voting on political lines, banned late-term abortions. These extremely rare abortions, always performed for the health of the mother, must now be done by a different method that greatly increases risk to the mother's life.

This is really not accurate though.
The U.S. Supreme Court didn't ban late-term abortions, they simply failed to rule a federal law banning "partial birth" abortions as unconstitutional. Their reasoning was that the law wasn't unconstitutionally precisely because it didn't ban late term abortions, it only banned one type of procedure, intact dilation and extraction, but these only account for a small portion of late term abortions, because even before the "partial brith abortion act", the overwhelming majority of late term abortions in the United States were performed by dilation and evacuation, meaning that the fetus is disassembled in the womb, which is still legal.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3026398.html

Its also just not true that intact D&X ("partial birth") abortions were "always performed for the health of the mother[sic]", they were/are mostly performed as a result of fetal abnormalities not danger to the "mothers" life...

The worst thing about this quote though is the description of "must now be done by a different method that greatly increases risk to the mother's[sic] life." Late term D&E abortions which remain legal where the most common method of elective late term abortion before the legislation and they don't pose any risk to the patient's life (apart from freak anesthesia related risks that exist for any procedure involving anesthesia), the only small risk is to a patient's uterus but thats a hypothetical risk in intact D&X abortions as well. In any case the risk both to fertility (extremely small) and life (virtually none) is vastly lower than the risk one engages in childbirth, induced labour, or the much less common more invasive types of late term abortion...so no one should be worried for their health in having one since the alternatives would be much greater health risks.

I mean, i recognize the political usefulness of scaring Canadians by declaring that they've "banned late term abortion" and that the only legal methods of late term abortion "greatly increases risk to the mother's[sic] life." but thats really unhelpful propaganda for Americans who might need a late term abortion.


http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3026398.html

[Edgar]

So basically a handful of reactionaries managed to skew an internet poll to their favour? Big deal. Let them have their fun on the internet.

And I think that even if Harper and the Conservatives were to get a majority, there would still be little chance of an attack on abortion rights. The Christian right in Canada is just not anywhere near as organized and powerful as they are in the States. In fact, the Christian left has historically been more influential in Canadian politics than the Christian right.