Abortion Gang

I remember the kerfuffle caused when Gwen Jacobs walked down the street topless in Ontario. I was 11 at the time of the court case in 1996 and I remember thinking, good for her. I also remember thinking how terribly unfair it was that men were allowed to walk around topless but women couldn’t. I can’t imagine actually walking around topless but I am glad that I have the right to do so since the Federal law criminalizing it was struck down. This case could be said to be a precursor to the now famous Slut Walks taking place around the world after a Toronto cop ‘confided’ to a group of York University students that the way to prevent sexual assault was to just not dress like sluts. The story became international news and feminists around the world responded with one simple message: women never ask to be raped.

When a woman cannot dress however she wants without be subjected to constant sexual harassment, I will show you a woman who may be forced to have a sex-selective abortion or be murdered for the want of honour. I will show you a woman who is not respected, and is in fact disrespected because she is a woman. Women in the U.S. and Canada are certainly subjected to sexual harassment but the situation in India is extreme. Women in India are raped wearing traditional saris just like women here are raped wearing track pants, but the extreme violence against women in India is captured well by the Indian expression for sexual harassment: eve-teasing. As if sexual harassment is just school-yard teasing.

On the whole, women in North America have greater reproductive freedom due to a range of factors from financial resources to the law, but to trivialize Indian women’s attempts to empower themselves by declaring their right to dress however they please is to continue to oppress them. The author is correct: Indian women do have bigger fish to fry, but it’s a good idea to gut the fish before you fry it.

Slut walks have nothing to do with “self-objectification.” Women are objectified by society. There are native cultures where women walk around naked and that’s just the way it is. Objectification comes from outside, not from the individual woman. To suggest that women dressing so as to “reveal their breasts” is focusing attention on their body parts is the same as suggesting men who walk around shirtless are showing off their “breasts.”

A few months ago I was talking with my friend’s two little girls, 4 and 6. I’m not sure how we got to the topic but the youngest pipes up that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. So I asked her, what do princesses do? She didn’t have an answer for me. So I asked her, wouldn’t she rather have a job where she helps people, like a doctor, or be a lawyer like me. At that stage the eldest declares that she wants to help people.

I tell this story because it is an all too common one. Most little girls, at some point in their childhood, want to be a princess. Society has taught them that this is something they should strive for. Some women never grow out of it and declare they want to “feel like a princess” on their wedding day. My retort is that I want to be the damn Queen and run the show and not be a measly princess, but truly I wouldn’t want either. I admit it, I watched the Royal Wedding. Even still I don’t envy Kate’s position. Diana made being a princess into a legitimate gig in my opinion, but only because she refused to act like a “proper” princess.

I don’t ever remember discussing abortion with my parents, but I always remember growing up truly believing that I could be anything that I wanted to be. Heck, I still believe that. It is because I grew up knowing I was equal and knowing the only thing stopping me from getting what I wanted was me, I respect a woman’s right to choose. Children need to be taught to be anti-choice but they can be pro-choice naturally if we just empower them. As adults, we need to challenge princess culture. Clearly not aggressively with children, but by doing what I did. Asking little girls what a princess does, and offer a suggestion for a job that empowers them. Little girls want to be empowered but we as a society must help them when they are little.

Let’s go slay the princesses, ladies.

It is such a common refrain that it no longer shocks me. Antis tell us all the time that a woman who has sex “asks to get pregnant” and as a result, should have to “live with the consequences,” meaning motherhood. In fact, when it comes to women, we pretty much ask for all the negative things that happen to us. Women are constantly told that if they don’t want to be raped they shouldn’t ask for it by dressing/walking/talking/looking/thinking…“slutty.”

Lawyers in Canada took this refrain to an entirely new low recently. For those of you who are unaware, 3 brave sex workers are in the process of challenging Canada’s antiquated, dangerous and totally useless prostitution laws. Here in Canada, prostitution isn’t illegal, but communicating about it is, so is “living off of the avails,” meaning sex workers can’t hire drivers or security staff, as is running a “bawdy house,” meaning women can’t work in groups for safety. The rules are insane. It forces women to size up their Johns in a matter of seconds before jumping into their cars. It puts countless women in dangerous situations because they can’t work together or hire security. In fact, Robert Pickton, a pig farmer in British Columbia, was recently convicted of murdering 6 sex workers, which doesn’t even scratch the surface of the dozens of women he was charged with murdering. Not many people even blink an eye when they hear of a missing sex-worker because society has just come to accept that that is what happens to “those” women.

The 3 women won their case at the lower court level and now they are fighting an appeal by the Federal and Provincial governments, conservative and religious groups and some misguided women’s groups. It’s been pretty tough going for the opposing groups so far. The panel of judges for the Court of Appeal has been asking some pointed questions of the government lawyers, noting,

“What the respondents are saying is that prostitutes can’t take the security steps anybody else would take in any other business,” Judge Doherty added. “To comply with the law, they have to take much greater risks than anybody else.”

They panel hasn’t been any easier on the lawyer for the conservative and religious groups, who suggested to the court that the risk to the sex workers might be justified,

While the physical risks prostitutes may face as a result of not being able to work in brothels with security staff is a “sad side effect” of the law, the legislation still serves the valid purpose of ridding Canadian society of a morally abhorrent practice, he argued.

Justice David Doherty asked Agarwal if he was suggesting Canada just has to put up with the risk of violence to sex workers as a kind of collateral damage.

“Are you somehow saying that could be justified by the criminal objective of trying to eradicate prostitution . . . . By saying we eradicated prostitution at the cost of ‘x’ number of lives?” the judge asked.

His thoughtful response?

“You’re dealing with complex considerations,” Agarwal responded.

I fail to see how this is a complex issue. Prostitution is a job choice. A choice that isn’t even illegal. But the government has gone above and beyond to ensure that the women who engage in such activities are forced to do so in the most dangerous manner possible. Because  “people” think it’s immoral. Well I think  raising chickens in tiny cages is immoral. That doesn’t mean I should get to make such jobs more dangerous, say by outlawing chicken farmers from using ventilation in their barns. You know, because they are asking to be poisoned. If you see the absurdity in that logic, you must be able to see the absurdity in the logic behind prostitution laws. And by logic I mean idiocy.

Sex workers are not asking the government to step in and regulate their profession to make it safer. They are asking the government to stop making it so dangerous. Abortion rights activists in the US want something very similar. Stop making abortion prohibitively expensive. Stop making women jump through ridiculous hoops to get their abortions. Stop making it so difficult for women to get a safe abortion. Just back the fuck off. We don’t need a nanny state telling us we might regret it one day.

This story leads to my next point: How can we ever expect society to stop telling women that they “ask to get pregnant” when they have sex if we still allow society to tell women they “ask” to get raped and “ask” to get murdered? In what way is it okay to insinuate that a woman who sells sex deserves to meet a violent death? We don’t tell pedestrians that they ask to get hit by a car if they walk beside a road. We don’t say that a woman who dies during childbirth asked to die (unless she got pregnant out of wedlock, then she deserved it). Why do we remove the blame from the real perpetrators when it comes to abortion and sex-work? Why can’t society give women responsibility for their own bodies and stop trying to interfere?

Because then we might stop relying on men and then who knows what will happen.

It is something feminists, male and female, have been waiting for for a long time: male birth control. The pharmaceutical industry, more interested in male erections has ignored our pleas. Well an Indian man has come up with a very promising birth control for men.

Basically, a procedure very similar to a vasectomy is performed but instead of snipping the vas deferens, a polymer compound is injected into the tube.  According to the developers of the method, the compound interferes with the spermatic cell membranes, rendering them incapable of egg fertilizations. Sperm production and male hormones are not affected.  In clinical trials thus far, the method is reported to be 100% effective. There are no reported side effects and not one woman has been impregnated by a treated man.  The developers also report that the method may be reversible with a repeat injection, though this data has not yet been published.  The article suggests that it is about 2 years away from approval in India, although it may be years before rigorous clinical trials are initiated in Europe and North America.

I could go on a rant about how it’s about damn time men were able to share the burden of avoiding pregnancy with women, because it certainly is. Or perhaps the likelihood that insurance companies, and heck the US government, will fund this while women are left to pay for their own birth control, which is certainly a possibility. But what I am excited about is the possibility that this could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

Couples now don’t have to rely on a woman’s birth control or condoms. Couples who want to be doubly sure can have the man treated and then they won’t have to worry about broken condoms or a missed pill. The beauty of this product, RISUG (for reversible inhibition of sperm under guidance), is that it isn’t subject to human error like the pill, it isn’t hormonal like almost every female birth control, and it doesn’t break. U.S. politicians are in a race to reduce the abortion rate by restricting access but I’d bet the farm that this male birth control will do more than every law combined in reducing the rate of abortions. That is of course assuming men are taught about it.

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On May 2nd, Canadians made a horrible decision. Well 39% of the 61.4% (5.8 million of 33 million people) of the population that voted did anyways. We gave Stephen Harper his long-coveted majority.

While he has sworn up and down that his party (ironically referred to as the CPC) won’t touch abortion, nobody in the pro-choice world believes him. His party is full of antis who would like nothing more than to see women die rather than obtain safe, legal abortions. Now that Harper can do just about anything he wants for the next 4 years, the pro-choice world is holding it’s breath, waiting for the first anti-choice bill to be introduced in the 41st Parliament. It will most certainly be a Private Member Bill, which usually means a free vote. But of course nothing is truly free. Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) has just released their breakdown of pro- and anti-choice MPs. Unfortunately there is a large number of, mostly CPC, MPs with an “unknown” stance so the number of anti-choice MPs may very well outnumber pro-choicers or the numbers may be tight. The NDP may be the saving feature because they are a pro-choice party (vs the Liberals who allow MPs to “vote with their conscience”) and the NDP is the Official Opposition. What I am waiting to see is if we learn from America’s mistakes.

Roe v. Wade was not nearly as strong a support for abortions rights as the Morgentaler decision, but that doesn’t mean we won’t fall prey to the “concessions” made with the antis – giving up the rights of low-income women so that wealthy women still have access to abortion. The problem, as is most evident now than ever, is that if you give an anti an inch, they will take a mile. We have been diligent in Canada, us pro-choicers, in protecting our abortions rights, but there is only so much we can do. Now it is up to the MPs in the house to not concede one millimeter. They cannot agree to one concession with the antis because that one concession, over time, will inevitably snowball into the situation we see in America.

Our government is bound and determined to not learn from America’s “war on drugs” and mega-prison mentality. Harper is hell-bent on remaking those mistakes. The pro-choicers in Canada must stand their ground. We must not accept one single concession. We must demand more. More access, more prevention, more freedom. We must not look to “agree to disagree” or appease the antis. We must look them in the eye and tell them they can take their “moral high-ground” and stick it. We are going to demand abortions access in the most remote areas; we must demand more support for those who choose abortion. Pro-choicers in Canada must fight fire with fire. We cannot give in because as soon as we do, as soon as we concede one point, we lose everything.

Write your MPs and let them know your stance on right to access. The antis certainly make their presence be known, so make yours be known as well. Pay attention to the Bills that come before the house. Be diligent. Fight every single one as if it wants to thrown women in jail for abortions because that is what will come if we don’t.

Most of us have seen the video of Indiana State Rep. Eric Turner (R) expressing his “concerns” with the rape exception for HB 1210, which would make most abortions illegal after 20 weeks. He stated,

I’ve been thinking about this since the story broke. We know that women have died to get an abortion. Women self-aborted or had abortions by unlicensed practitioners in back alleys before abortion was legal. Even while legal, but often prohibitively expensive or with numerous hoops to jump through, women have died in unsafe clinics like ‘Dr.’ Kermit Gosnell’s in order to obtain an abortion. We know that a desperate woman will do anything to get an abortion – including risking her own life. Place yourself in the shoes of a woman in Indiana who finds out at 16, 17 or 18 weeks that she is pregnant and she needs an abortion. Maybe I didn’t know, maybe you ignored the signs because you were desperate for it not to be true. Somehow you’ve gotten to 20 weeks and abortion is only legal in 2 circumstances: rape or incest. Now you have a few choices: 1) carry to term, 2) self-abort and risk your life, 3) say you were raped. Option 3 gets you what you need without risking your life. Damn right you are going to do whatever you need to do to get that abortion; damn right you will say you’ve been raped.

I started having sex when I was 17 and even with all my sex education, I let my partner tell me that the pull-out method was good enough. At the time, I went from always being busy with extra-curricular activities, to sex, drugs and booze in a matter of months. I was upset and desperate for attention, so I bought it. After a scare with a late period, I decided I needed birth control. I tried to talk to my mom about it and asked her to take me because I needed it to “regulate” my period. She said I was fine. So I took the initiative, found a doctor and got it myself. Since then I have been exceedingly diligent with my birth control. Looking back, I know I am so unbelievably lucky I didn’t get pregnant during the 6 months I was having unprotected sex.

To all the women out there with inconvenient dreams, never stop dreaming and never stop fighting. It is just as much a tragedy when a woman is forbidden from reaching her dream as it is when a man is forbidden. You are entitled to every dream you can dream — dreams are never inconvenient.

I was having a conversation with a friend who borders on being anti-choice. She might be better described as personally pro-life. She has some misconceptions about abortion that I’ve had a hard time refuting. Generally because she is one of my most important friends, we don’t discuss it. That might seem a little strange but some things are just more important.

The last time we were discussing abortion she was criticizing Dr. Morgentaler because he has all these clinics and he is making money from them (she said). I had been discussing his lawsuit against the New Brunswick government, which is an attempt to force the provincial government to follow the law and pay for abortions at his clinic. She said that the only reason he was doing it was for the money. Somehow making money by providing abortions is wrong. At the time I found myself defending Dr. M saying that he didn’t make money from his clinics. Looking back, I realize that was a stupid argument. Not only did I discredit myself by talking about something I don’t know about, but I perpetuated the problem.

Abortion doctors make money. At anywhere from $500-$1000+ per procedure, they are making money. It is doubtful many of them do it just for the money since many risk, at minimum, harassment, and at worst, their lives. Even if they don’t do it just for the money, they aren’t doing it for free. Some make a living off performing the procedure. In most parts of Canada where the doctors charge the provincial healthcare system for the procedure, they are probably making pretty good money. After all, they are doctors. I think that the pro-choice movement needs to own this. If we in any way concede that it is wrong for abortion doctors to make money for performing abortions, we are implicitly admitting there is something wrong with abortions. We must support the rights of doctors to make a living performing abortions. There is nothing wrong with this fact. We must own it.

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I can usually be certain that any anti I run into is going to turn out to be a giant hypocrite. I despise hypocrisy. I work very hard in my own life to not be one. I actually chastise myself for my own hypocrisies even if they are, by objective standards, inconsequential. I do not hold anybody to a higher standard than I hold myself. As we are all well aware, the typical anti only cares about the fetus. They want to “save” the fetus simply by outlawing abortion, not dealing with any of the underlying causes of abortion. Most are opposed to birth control, sex ed, healthcare, etc. Many are also supportive of the death penalty and war. They are a bundle of hypocrisy and I can’t stand it. I ended up in a polite discussion with a well known anti, let’s call her Janet. I will admit, I broke one of my cardinal rules and I personally attacked her by calling her “crazy.” It will be days before I forgive myself for that because I refuse to engage in people who attack me personally and I did it to her. Moving on. I am here to admit that I have the tiniest bit of respect for this anti.

I am incredibly critical of many people and groups, specifically the right-wing and antis. They are both bundles of hypocrisy and hate. I am the first person to attack Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, but I am also the first person to give him credit where credit is due. To me, that is part of not being a hypocrite. I will also criticize my own “side,” be that pro-choicers or the Liberal Party. This particular anti is so far the only one who (claims to) support birth control, healthcare and comprehensive sex education. I don’t have any details and she may still qualify all of this, but the fact that on the face of it she supports actual methods for combating abortion, I can say that I have some respect for her. She denies that legal abortion is safe, saying it’s a Planned Parenthood conspiracy, but in theory that is just a matter of who you believe. She states her goal as using “birth control and sex education so no one wants/needs an abortion.” While I cannot support her belief that a fetus is more valuable, or even equally valuable as, the woman, I can support and respect her for any work she does related to birth control and sex ed. We are all well aware of the uphill battle anyone faces when trying to get comprehensive sex ed taught to students and birth control accessible. Her and I ultimately diverge on the morality of abortion, but we aren’t that far apart.

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The pro-choice world got some terrible news this week with South Dakota’s new laws that would make it a “justifiable homicide” to kill an abortion doctor in certain circumstances. We also got some good news: Lifesite News (LSN) Canada is being sued [links to LSN] by Fr. Raymond Gravel in Joliette, Quebec.

My law degree is in common law, which basically means I am schooled in the law of Canada except Quebec, which uses a combination of the common law and French Civil Code. This means that I am extrapolating and using various sources to fill in the blanks of my knowledge. I also don’t read French. That being said, I hope to provide valuable information about what is happening and Fr. Gravel’s likelihood of success.

The first appearance is in Joliette Thursday January 17 in the Court of Quebec, Civil Division [Dossier 17-003784-103]. From LSN,

Fr. Gravel … is suing us for libel. Among other things, he argues that he isn’t pro-abortion, but he has said in the past that he is “pro-choice.” He’s demanding $500,000 in damages – which, coincidentally, is a full year’s budget for us. That would put LifeSiteNews out of business!

Luckily for us, defamation laws (includes slander, speech and libel, print) in Canada do not apply the “actual malice” test used in the U.S., meaning it will be much easier for Fr. Gravel to be successful. Quebec’s law on defamation is a mess. There is not actually legislation that makes defamation a tort, as there is in every other province, and instead it is based on Article 1457 of the Quebec Civil Code, which is known as the general rules of extra-contractual responsibility,

Every person has a duty to abide by the rules of conduct which lie upon him, according to the circumstances, usage or law, so as not to cause injury to another.

Where he is endowed with reason and fails in this duty, he is responsible for any injury he causes to another person by such fault and is liable to reparation for the injury, whether it be bodily, moral or material in nature.

He is also liable, in certain cases, to reparation for injury caused to another by the act or fault of another person or by the act of things in his custody.

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