Uptown magazine January 24, 2008

A generation of Canadian women have grown up knowing that, should they become pregnant, abortion is one of several options available to them - but this hasn’t always been so.

Jan. 28, 2008, marks the 20th anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in Canada. On this day back in 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada declared the existing law unconstitutional because it violated a woman’s right to “life, liberty, and security of the person,” protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The decision was a victory for Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the physician who had brought the case to court after being prosecuted repeatedly for performing abortions. Morgentaler opened clinics throughout the country in the ’70s and ’80s - including one in Winnipeg in 1983 - despite the fact it was illegal to do so. The clinics were repeatedly raided by police and targeted by protesters; Morgentaler was also arrested numerous times and once served 10 months in jail.

The decision also validated the work of countless other Canadians who, for decades, had been helping women access services, or publically lobbying for change. One such protest, dubbed the “Abortion Caravan,” involved over 500 women who travelled to Ottawa in 1970; 35 of them chained themselves to the parliamentary gallery, shutting down the House of Commons for the first time in history.

Now, 20 years after the Supreme Court decision, some might argue the public debate is settled and that abortion is a non-issue.

But is it?

“The logical next step after our right to have it has not been fully realized yet,” says Shelly Blanco, chair of Manitoba’s Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

The informal network has been organizing and advocating since 1971 - more recently, it lobbied the provincial government to fund abortions performed outside hospitals (as of 2005, all abortions are now covered and available for free); it also helped in the planning process for a new women’s health care clinic that opened in Winnipeg last spring. Run by Women’s Health Clinic, the clinic offers abortions as part of a comprehensive range of services.

Even though abortion is extremely common today - in 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 100,763 abortions were performed in Canada - Blanco notes the word itself is still taboo in many circles.

“That is an indication that somehow, in our psyches, it’s not normalized in the way that we understand it needs to be,” she says.

Indeed, some women who choose to have abortions continue to be stigmatized for it, says one local health care worker who asked to remain anonymous.

“The women’s private experience is the same… They still struggle alone. They’re still ashamed, they’re still embarrassed,” she says.

Likewise, some abortion providers continue to be targeted. Morgentaler’s Toronto clinic was fire-bombed in 1992 and, in 1997, 66-year-old Dr. Jack Fainman was shot though a back window of his Winnipeg home by a sniper - one of three Canadian doctors thought to have been targeted by American James Kopp, who was eventually convicted in the U.S. for the 1998 murder of a doctor in Buffalo, N.Y.

Accessibility continues to be a major challenge in Canada - a reality reflected in a report released last spring by Canadians for Choice, a national sexual health research and education organization.

As part of the study, research coordinator Jessica Shaw called every public hospital in Canada, pretending to be a 20-year-old woman who was 10 weeks pregnant and considering an abortion. She then documented whether services were offered and how she was treated by the person who answered the phone.

“A hospital is supposed to be a main point of contact when you’re looking for health-related services, so how hospitals respond to questions that are health care-related is very important,” she explains.

Shaw found only 15.9 per cent of Canadian hospitals currently provide accessible abortion services - a decrease from 2003, when a similar study was conducted.

In Manitoba, only two out of 52 hospitals had accessible services. Both were located in southern, urban centres, underscoring the difficulties facing women living in rural and northern areas of the province.

Shaw also says more Manitoba staff members were judgmental and disrespectful towards her than in any other province.

“Over 60 per cent of the hospitals in Manitoba didn’t even want to talk to me once they found out I was calling about abortion service,” she says. “There were several times where people would say, ‘Yes, I could find the information, but I’m not going to,’ and that would be the end of the conversation.”

Throughout the study, Shaw was occasionally referred to organizations run by people morally opposed to abortion. One such place in Winnipeg told Shaw that abortion is linked to breast cancer, that 35 per cent of women “have visitations from their dead babies,” and that “any problems you have in the future could be caused from your abortion.” None of these statements are true, and the health care worker who spoke with Uptown says it’s important for people to be aware that this type of misinformation is out there - especially online.

Madeline Boscoe is a registered nurse who does policy and programming work for Women’s Health Clinic. She says the CFC study doesn’t paint an accurate picture of the situation in Manitoba, since some women choose to have abortions outside hospital settings, and since most don’t call a hospital switchboard to access health services.

Instead, women tend rely on word of mouth, she says - talking to friends, doctors, teen clinic staff or others.

Boscoe says Manitoba’s referral network is “well-developed and robust,” and advises women with questions to call HealthLinks, a 24-hour hotline staffed with nurses who can assist in accessing services (in Winnipeg, call 788-8200; outside of Winnipeg, call 1-888-315-9257).

Currently, the wait time for an abortion in Manitoba is around three weeks. The vast majority are performed within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and like any other medical procedure, minors don’t need to have parental consent, provided they’re of sound mind. The actual abortion procedure ususally takes about 10 minutes.

To this day, Canada has no legal restriction against abortion. The federal government has no official position on the issue, and abortions are now treated like any other medical procedures.

At least, in theory.

“The legal right to be able to have an abortion becomes a moot point if you can’t find one,” Blanco says.

“So, while there’s a generation of people who maybe assume that that choice is there for them, they could, at some point - certainly right now in rural Manitoba - find that that choice actually isn’t really there. It’s there legally, but it’s not there for real.”

This article was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 and is filed under Human Rights, Women. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.