Holding Our Rights Close
I sat in my bedroom; the mid-day sun cast shadows into the room when I found out about the nearing threat to our reproductive rights through Instagram stories and tweets along with everyone else. The news turned a knot in my stomach, as I’m sure it did yours. The family of women I live with would later come together to scoff in disgust, relaying information and angered sighs. University students, fraught with fears about going off into the real world, are faced with the understanding that this world’s stature on bodily rights is ever-changing. With tangible consequences, it is imminently important to not undermine the significance of a drafted Roe v. Wade turnover.
In today’s age, information, and the consequences of that information, spreads like wildfire whether it was intended to or not. In tune with the Roe v. Wade case’s leaked introduction in January of 1973, recent attempts to overturn the legislature have been made public through the leaking of the Supreme Court’s 98-page draft. Roe v. Wade set a precedent for reproductive rights under the Constitution of the United States in a similar way the R. v. Morgentaler case has. Regardless of whether the initial drafting of a Roe v. Wade turnover signals a back-tracking in cultural attitudes regarding reproductive rights or a new, more powerful pronunciation of long-held attitudes, it has become clear that the safety and security of our community's medical access continue to be threatened by heteropatriarchal discourse.
Canada and the United States are two sides of the same coin, sharing policies and legislatures between eerily similar political platforms. Tied by colonial linkages, the potential of Roe v. Wade being overturned in the United States culturally and socially implicates the discourse and legal action surrounding abortion in Canada. The Canadian government, often timid when concerned with reproductive rights and the larger conversation of sex, has curated a degree of legal morality in which abortion laws could be easily implemented in the case those in political power deem it necessary, however unjustly so.
Akin to many other forms of sex and body-based legislation in Canada, the far and close history of reproductive rights is inherently complex. While the landmark case of 1988, R. v. Morgentaler, declared that the Criminal Code’s position on abortions was unjust, the Supreme Court of Canada has yet to implement a constitutional right in replacement that would work to secure rights to safe abortions since the decision was initially made thirty years ago. Despite Justin Trudeau’s claims to the status of our rights, there is no constitutional right to abortions under our most supreme form of law. We are left in a position where the security of our rights is vulnerable, and the potential to overrule R. v. Morgentaler through the implementation of anti-abortion legislation is not as far out as I once believed.
Bill C-233, brought by Member of Parliament Cathay Wagantall, was denied in the summer of 2021 in a 248-82 vote. In June of 2021, Minister Maryam Monsef of the Commission on the Status of Women stated that this instance was the seventh occurrence since 2007 in which a Member of Parliament from the Conservative Party has attempted to limit reproductive choice. Out of the 119 seats elected for the conservative party in 2021, 81 conservative Members of Parliament voted in favour of this ruling. This bill shed a light on the Conservative party’s high and ongoing interest in controlling reproductive rights. The dismissal of the Sex Selective Abortion Act, seeking to ban doctors in Canada from performing abortions based on the presumed biological sex of a fetus, was another reminder of the ongoing threats to our reproductive rights.
The accessibility of abortions in Canada, a basic healthcare need for many that may get pregnant, contains its own complex issues. In both the United States and Canada, abortion access can be dictated by one’s postal code and geographic parameters, as well as the term of the pregnancy. For those seeking abortions in rural and remote communities across Canada, abortion clinics are far and few between. After 20 weeks, many must travel provinces or kilometres farther to reach one of the three service providers in British Columbia, Southern Ontario, and Quebec, potentially increasing costs significantly. Particularly impacting Indigenous women, girls, and non-binary folks in Northern Canada, the lack of adequate health care provided for Indigenous communities has produced devastating effects on maternal health.
Despite many regarding Canada as a country contingent on ensuring the right to choose, our communities have not been supported to enable secure and safe access. Today, vulnerable individuals face the worst brunt of inaccessibility to practicing their reproductive rights. The systemic inequalities in access to abortion among Canadians are most often noted as a confluence of patriarchy and heteronormativity. The heteropatriarchy, an ideology stemming from Indigenous knowledge, informs such inequalities by complicating access to abortions for the most vulnerable individuals. Lives are explicitly put at risk when their right to health care is denied, and it cannot be ignored that the inaccessibility of abortions in Canada plays a role in the current state of mortality rates.
The leaked Roe v. Wade overturn draft, as well as the discourse surrounding the document, not only threatens access to safe and secure abortions, but also the centuries of work put towards dismantling medical biases also pertinent to individuals seeking abortions. In the case that the court alters its final decision, the existence of a drafted overturn functions as enough underground turmoil for some to increase the breadth of their anti-abortion rhetoric. No less, this month’s events signal the ongoing conversation surrounding reproductive rights and the imminent need to move it forward. Many long dedicated to the right to choose and many who had locked away their activism have come to the forefront of media attention to condemn the draft.
In the days until the Supreme Court’s final decision is made in early June, there lies a period wherein the world must let it be known that everyone deserves the right to choose, not only the privileged. While the right to make choices about your body expands far past the medicinal sphere, this industry operates as one long primed to disadvantage and harm Black, Indigenous, and Women of Colour under heteropatriarchal ideals. In holding our rights close to the heart, we must vote for Members of Parliament and other electoral candidates whose platforms support our ability to choose. In the upcoming elections, protests, and movements, it is prudent we consider how the stirring of anti-abortion legislation may implicate Canada’s R. v. Morgentaler case.
I do not have a personal story to share; however, an experiential anecdote is not a prerequisite to care for bodily autonomy. I know many who have received abortions, coming from one of the few environments in Canada privileged with accessible health care. Yet this positionality doesn’t play a factor in my concern for our reproductive rights, but instead in my experience with it. For the safety of our communities, ourselves, and those we hold close, all policies that inhibit bodily autonomy must be lifted. We must vote for candidates, parties, and platforms that care for your right to make choices regarding your body–in any and all circumstances.
Header Illustration by Sadie Levine
