Morgentaler's Order of Canada

[jawnbc]

On Canada Day morning, something unusual happened in the Canuck media: there was speculation about someone being named a member of the Order of Canada. And no doubt making Dr. Henry Morgentaler a Member of the Order will stand as one of the most controversial.

Because Dr. Morgentaler's lifework has been about providing women access to abortion. Over 20 years, this Auschwitz survivor set out to end a bloodbath of women's mysery at the hands of the back alley abortionist. He performed the procedures, went to jail, and kept agitating socially and legally until the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the existing abortion statute in 1988. He is a brave man. I am pleased he has been honoured before he died (he's in his 80s).

I want to make something clear here: I think abortion is terrible. I know and love women who have faced the decision to end a pregnancy. None did it cavalierly or callously; in fact, those who've shared in detail with me their stories found the experience heartbreaking. Abortion isn't fun.

But so is being tossed into the streets by your fundamentalist family for being a slut. As is bringing a child into your abusive partnership as you are trying to muster the means (spiritual and economic) to get yourself free. Or finding out that trick who raped you also knocked you up.

Or realizing a stoopid, careless decision to leave it in the drawer, or missing a few pills, or getting a little too drunk, makes it clear you cannot bring a child into this world and care for it. And there's no one to help, either.

I don't believe in abortion "on demand". There are dangers in aborting viable fetuses babies. There is a no turning back point. Sometimes things are what they are. But in Canada, rather than having a series of convoluted, mindlessly detailed laws made up by zealots, we trust our physicians to develop policies that use science and data to determine when and how best to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Ditto access to a medically safe abortion: if someone is biologically capable of becoming pregnant, I think they alone get to decide if they terminate that pregnancy. Everyone else simply gets to have an opinion.It is unacceptable to me that women be put in those positions because they have the Easy Bake Oven™, only to have others endeavour to tell them what they must do.

For me, Henry Morgentaler isn't an abortionist so much a feminist--or a true humanist. He believes that when women die trying to get abortions, fetuses still die. How does that help anyone? I would be heartbroken if my mother or sister or sister-in-law or cousines or aunts or nieces or friends died during such a desperate act.

In a perfect world, birth control would be infallible and rape would cease to exist. We're not there yet. Abortion is terrible. The experience of taking the decision. Women who do aren't.

And don't get me started on those right-to-life demonstrators who shriek "give us your baby" but never seem make any effort to pick up the disabled or non-white ones languishing in care. When you clear up that backlog (and no returns; if you bore it you'd have to keep it too), dust off those signs again....

Comments

[siobhan63.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

[urbear]

I'm astonished, and very very very pleased. Dr. Morgentaler dedicated his entire career to his cause, and found it an uphill battle every step of the way.

Not that I think abortions are nifty things that every woman should experience; I'm with you on that. They're awful, but often necessary. As President Clinton once said, abortions should be safe, legal and rare.

[puzzld1.livejournal.com]

Very well said. I have never had to face that decision. I did spend 4 years working at Planned Parenthood. I also work now with a couple of kids who live in the double hell of the foster care system and autism. Send me some right-to-lifers. I have plenty of the formerly unborn that I could sure use a hand with.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

It always gets me with some of the rabit demonstrators who scream about being right to life and I ask, "so why aren't you voting to elect people who will pass laws to make it possible for women to get some help while they get on their feet if they decide to have a baby?" They seem to enjoy holding an innocent child hostage to a situation. I find it even more immoral (and I say this as a Catholic) to do nothing to help a Mother and child.

I have met very few women who view abortion as a trip to the nail salon. I am not in favor of them but I am pragmatic. Women have been finding a way to get them since the dawn of time. Well off women were able to find a sympathetic/quiet doctor who would do it right for a fee. But in many ways I would rather have it be legal so it was done by the right people for a reasonable fee vs. fleecing some poor person into a nasty situation.

[cuboz.livejournal.com]

As usual, a well thought out and educated opinion, and I have to say that I whole heartedly agree on your stance, and Canada's way of dealing with the situation...

They've obviously taken Religion out of the equation - which as usual, causes a WHOLE lot of trouble in the States, when those Right-wingers bomb clinics and KILL people! How incredibly contradictory and hypocritical is THAT!?