Abortion
victory in
Canada
"THE MOST important victory for women's rights in Canada since we won the vote." That is how the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) has described the January 28, 1988, Supreme Court decision that declared the Canadian abortion law unconstitutional. ANNE MacLELLAN BRUNELLE
T HE DAY of the decision was bit-
terly cold but there were pro-choice supporters out in front of the Morgentaler Clinic from 7am to await the announcement. It came at 10.30am. Chants of "We've won" and "The people have spoken, the clinics will stay open" could be heard blocks away. The activists were aware that five judges in Ottawa are not the people of Canada, but this decision was imposed on the court by mass pressure. The ruling was not given lightly, it was wrested from them. The movement had indeed won.
In 1969 the Trudeau Liberals passed a law under the Criminal Code of Canada which declared that abortions were legal only if done in a hospital and if a Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC) deemed that the life or health of the woman was at risk. The TACs were made up of three doctors who met in secret and had no direct contact with the women whose lives they were affecting. The decision of the TAC could not be appealed. This law was called an "historic compromise" between the demands of the anti-choice forces who called for all abortions to be illegal, and the pro-choice forces who were calling for full ac-
For a time the different Federal and Provincial governments were able to win the battle for public opinion by presenting themselves as the sane middle between two fanatical groups at opposite poles. As time passed, however, the message of OCAC and other pro-choice groups across the 24 demand that a woman have the right to country got through: it is not fanatical to International Viewpoint • March 21, 1988 control her own body, her own reproductive capacity, and the right to decide when and if to have children. And that must include the right to terminate a pregnancy.
Access to abortion still restricted
While this Supreme Court decision -analogous to the Roe and Wade decision in the United States, which stated that legal restriction of access to abortion is a viola ion of the right to privacy — has given the women of Canada the right to make their own choices on abortion, it does not guarantee access in terms of funding
Several provincial governments have already moved to limit access. In Alberta and Nova Scotia the governments have stated that they will only fund abortions that are done in hospitals that have functioning Therapeutic Abortion Committees, even though they face court challenges as to the legality of this regulation in the face of the Supreme Court decision.
In British Columbia, right wing Social Credit Premier VanderZalm has gone one step further. He has declared that BC Medicare will not fund any abortions unless the woman faces death and she demonstrates a need for financing. He flatly refuses to see that this is a return to the two-tiered healthcare system wherein women with money are able to get safe, medical abortions and working women and poor women end up at over-crowded emergency rooms, or are forced to have babies they do not want or
In Prince Edward Island the problem is somewhat different. The provincial government has accepted that abortions can be performed, but the hospitals in the province have refused to do them. To date, no doctor has offered to set up a free-standing clinic.
Call for constitutional "rights for the foetus"
In Ontario, Health Minister Eleanor Caplan has announced that Ontario Medicare (the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, OHIP) will pay for abortions done in hospitals and in free-standing clinics, like the ones run by Doctors Henry Morgentaler and Robert Scott. Unfortunately, the OHIP payment that will be made will only cover the doctors' services. It will not cover counselling, nursing care and so on which are covered in the regular funding of a hospital. (If a woman who does not have OHIP coverage chooses to have an abortion in a hospital, it will cost her approximately C$1,000; if she has the abortion at the Morgentaler Clinic her cost will only by C$300, and she knows she will be cared for in a completely nonjudgmental, supportive environment.)
On the federal level, right-wing lobbyists and politicians have been calling for new legislation to restrict abortion. This has taken several different routes. One, similar to the current threat posed by the Alton Bill in Britain [see accompanying article], is a call for a limit on the number of weeks of pregnancy during which an abortion can be performed. Other anti-choice forces have demanded that the federal government use the "not-withstanding clause" of the Canadian constitution to override the Supreme Court ruling and enforce the old law. However, the biggest threat is the demand to enshrine in the Constitution the "rights of the foetus", which will subordinate the rights of women to the the rights of the "pre-
The women's movement in Canada has always called for fully-funded, community-based women's clinics, where a wide range of healthcare needs will be met, including abortion. As it is apparent that the Supreme Court decision did not grant us this, it is good that we have more than twenty years experience to show us the way forward in
Building alliances with the workers' movement
There have been many debates about how to go about winning abortion rights. Many different strategies and tactics have been put forward in the movement. Some groups have favoured lobbying and writing letters to politicians. Others have put their faith in the courts. There were groups that recog nized that both politicians and judges can, and must, be forced to make reforms that are advantageous to the working class. These are the women that have advocated the strategy that was used in Quebec in the 1970s and again in Toronto over the last five years: mass action. Without minimizing the importance of Dr Morgentaler's heroic contribution, (he challenged the law by opening up his "illegal" clinics), the victory was won by getting as many working people as possible into the streets for rallies, demonstrations, pickets and tribunals.
This strategy has taken the abortion rights movement into the Ontario Labour Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress, into the anti-racist movement and into women-of-colour groups, into groups of disabled women and the women's healthcare movement. It has shown the movement's ability to find and win allies in all sectors of the workers' and women's
With the pro-choice struggle entering a new phase, it is now essential that the lessons of the recent past not be forgotten. Pro-choice forces must go back into the streets to demand full access and funding from all the provincial governments, demand that the federal government keep its laws off women's bodies and not pass another law that will restrict choice on abortion in any way. Victories for the women's movement and the workers' movement may be few and far between these days, but a victory for one is still a victory for all. *