TORONTO — Pro-choice activists are urging Canadian women who support abortion to shake off their complacency for fear of losing the right they fought so hard to win.
Contrary to popular belief, getting an abortion in much of Canada remains difficult and expensive, despite a Supreme Court ruling decriminalizing the procedure some 13 years ago.
“We’ve become very, very complacent in this country since the 1988 Supreme Court decision,” Marilyn Wilson, executive director of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, said Tuesday.
“Women assume that abortion is there for them when and if they need it, and they can readily access it.”
But that’s far from the case, said Dr. Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s best-known abortion doctor and a champion of the pro-choice movement.
Government-funded abortions at private clinics still don’t exist in Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Morgentaler told a news conference Tuesday.
Those provinces are violating the Canada Health Act and deserve stiff federal penalties, Morgentaler wrote in a letter to federal Health Minister Allan Rock.
“This is an intolerable situation and puts the lives and health of women at risk by delaying or denying access,” the letter reads.
“We count on you as federal minister of health to enforce the Canada Health Act and to strongly penalize those provinces which choose to oppress women.”
Without paying for a clinic abortion, women must usually wait four to six weeks to get the procedure done, compounding the risk to the health of the mother at a rate of 20 per cent per week, Morgentaler said.
