What Winning Looks Like in Reproductive Rights

This is what winning looks like when it comes to reproductive rights. Here is a lovely article describing how teen pregnancy and abortion rates in Canada dropped 36.9% between 1996 and 2006. 36.9%! Wow. If anything deserves my most seldom used punctuation mark, the exclamation mark, this does.

The study is from the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada and Alexander McKay, one of the reports' authors, credits this incredible decline to Canada's "balanced, sensible approach to adolescent sexual health." McKay says that, "Generally speaking what you find is that the more a society has an accepting attitude toward the reality of adolescent sexuality, the lower the teen pregnancy rate is. Canadians tend to have a more relaxed attitude towards adolescent sexuality than people in the United States.” Canada has a teen birth and abortion rate per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19, of 27.9% while the United States' rate is 61.2%. The United States' emphasis on abstinence only education has clearly not worked. This coupled with a lack of universal health care and poverty have meant higher teen birth rates. McKay says, "The United States has large, well-entrenched pockets of inner city poverty and that clearly is linked to higher teen pregnancy rates." Further, he notes “In those communities where young women feel optimistic about their educational and employment opportunities, the [teen pregnancy rates] tends to be lower.”

There is a lot of good news in this story. This is what winning looks like. This is what success in the pro-choice movement looks like.

Here is another success story. Teens in Toronto can now simply text for accurate information on sexuality, thanks to a new program by Planned Parenthood. Their new text messaging service lets teens connect directly with trained peer volunteers for personalized answers to their sexual health questions via text message. Fantastic! (Another exclamation mark!)

Access to accurate and timely information on sexuality and unrestricted access to the full range of reproductive health services from contraception to abortion allows women to reproduce consciously and willingly. This is a good thing.

All of us who are involved in the reproductive rights movement in Canada need to take a few minutes of joy from this study. Good work.

Winning goes far beyond the necessary defeat of ridiculous motions like 312 and the short term battles we are sometimes forced to fight with those who wish to take us backwards. This summer, once again we will have to witness what the anti-choice are all about. They have announced something they are calling the "new" abortion caravan. Co-opting and perverting the message of the original Abortion Caravan of the 1970s, the very same Abortion Caravan that contributed to de-criminalizing abortion in Canada, they are going to send a fleet of  fetus-mobiles across our great country, offending as they go, and try to take us backwards. It's going to be an ugly summer of bloody fetus porn and misinformation. I have no doubt that the insanity of this particular tactic will send people running from them. Sometimes they make it so easy.

In their fights against access to health services and their spreading of misinformation, the anti-choice show us what losing looks like. Their despicable and offensive tactics, their insistence on limiting access to information, their preference for abstinence only education, their desire to bring an end to all abortion, will only increase teen pregnancies and the abortion rate. They want to drag us into American style culture wars, those endless and embarrassing assaults on human rights. It's hard for me to understand how they can't comprehend the evidence that is in front of them.

Winning comes from sustained work to improve access, work that has taken place over decades, work that included the real Abortion Caravan, work that is done in doctors' offices and clinic offices and in Planned Parenthoods and affiliated sexual health organizations, in the Bay Centre for Birth Control and in the Calgary Sexual Health Centre, in advocacy organizations like Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and in research by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. This is the long term work that we have done, work that is demonstrating long term, positive, results including a decline in abortion rates.

This is the work that helps all of us win.

Is M-312 nothing but a Distraction from the Omnibus Budget Bill?

Sometimes it's hard to tell if Art is imitating Life or Life is imitating Art.

Canadian Playwright Michael Healey wrote a satirical play called "Proud" which is about a fictional Prime Minister who bears a remarkable resemblance to Stephen Harper. The Globe and Mail published an excerpt of "Proud" in which the PM asks a backbencher to put forward a pro-life bill to distract Canadians from his real agenda. Oh dear. As soon as I read it, I felt the truth of it. That's the great thing about fiction, how it can sometimes get at truth that, ironically, non-fiction can't reach. 

Meanwhile, in real life, here we are waiting for the second hour of debate on an anti-choice motion being floated by a backbencher, Motion M-312, while Stephen Harper pushes through Bill C-38, a bill that changes so much in Canada it boggles the mind. This bill has everything but the kitchen sink in it. Besides a budget which apparently is buried in it somewhere, here is a partial list of what
Bill C-38 includes: 

• massive changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. According to Davis LLP, this is "one of the most fundamental shifts in Canada’s regulatory and environmental policy in its history." This is the part of the bill that seems to have attracted the most attention. A close reading of this bill indicates the Harper government really has a hate on for anything "environmental."
• amendments to 60 different acts, including changes that weaken and undermine the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Protection Act,  the Energy Board Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Nuclear Safety Control Act (the latter two described in earlier links)
• cuts to water programs and the monitoring of effluent. See the Green Party for more on this.
• the end of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy
• severe cuts to ecological oversight and research at Parks Canada and many cultural and heritage programs. As one Parks employee put it in an article by Anne McIlroy, this is a "lobotomy" of the parks system.
• the end of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy
• the end of several acts including the Fair Wages and Hours of Work Act
• cuts to workers' eligibility for Employment Insurance. If this passes, if a worker on EI won't take a job, any job, that the Minister of Human Resources deems suitable for them, they will no longer receive benefits. In the past, workers have been able to look for work in their field and work at a comparable salary to what they had. Laid off from a high tech firm as a software developer? Get used to the phrase, "Would you like fries with that?"
• the removal of independent oversight from 12 key government agencies—including the Northern Pipeline Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Canada Revenue Agency
• changes that give final say over pipeline project approvals to Conservative cabinet ministers regardless of environmental impacts
• changes that exclude concerned citizens from assessments of major projects like the Enbridge pipeline
• the end of access to primary health care for refugee claimants
• the implementation of controversial changes to pension eligibility, meaning Canadians will not retire until age 67
• implementation of yet another round of cuts into the CBC, this after the CBC has already undergone one round of cuts, and ironically, at a time when the organization seems to be doing quite well with the public according to former president, Richard Stursberg
• the end of audits of internal government departments while $8M is added to audit capacity to harass charities suspected of political advocacy
• changes the regulations in agriculture, including how downer cows are assessed and whether they can be put back into the food system. In the past dead cows were excluded from the food chain. Now, apparently, someone will glance at them and decide it they are fit to eat, throw them in the back of a truck and add them to the live cows that go into the slaughterhouses. The bill paves the way for private contractors to perform food safety inspections. This change particularly grossed me out. I might become a vegetarian after all.

As Andrew Coyne recently wrote in the National Post, "Omnibus bills are not unknown.... But lately the practice has been to throw together all manner of bills involving wholly different responsibilities of government in one all-purpose “budget implementation” bill, and force MPs to vote up or down on the lot. While the 2012 budget implementation bill is hardly the first in this tradition, the scale and scope is on a level not previously seen, or tolerated." He goes on to say, "There is no common thread that runs between [items in the bill], no overarching principle; they represent not a single act of policy, but a sort of compulsory buffet."

There has been critique, of course. Elizabeth May calls it "The Environmental Destruction Act." Many are noting how the bill is bad for democracy because it rolls so much into one bill, limits the time for debate, obfuscates the individual issues by slipping them into a bill too long to really comprehend, that it guts environmental protection and so on. The NDP tried to get the bill split up so some of these radical changes could be considered individually, but the CONs have a majority, so this will not happen.

But Canadians are all sleeping through this.

In a recent column, Richard Poplak writes that with Omnibus Bill C-38, we are at the cusp of a moment in history. Canadians have to decide if they will protest this bill, a bill that is sure to pass with a majority CON government. As Poplak says, "Good policies? Bad policies? Doesn't matter. Properly, each of those items should be sent to committees and considered individually. That's how our system is designed to work. What the Conservatives have engineered isn't illegal, merely rotten - another in a long line of tricks defiling the democratic process." Proroguing Parliament comes to mind. While I personally agree with ending the production of the penny (another item in this bill), even this should see some debate. That's what Parliament is for. But in Harper's government, a government allergic to transparency according to Poplak, our Parliamentary tradition of debating key public issues is dead.

Meanwhile, what is being debated? Motion 312. A distraction, for sure. And we are protesting it with all of our strength and capacity. And protest it we must, because if I don't have control of my body, little else matters. But, if the CONs really wanted a personhood bill, they would have thrown it in with C-38. Just sayin'. That is why I am convinced that M-312 is exactly what Healey describes in "Proud," an attempt to distract us from the real agenda.

So much to protest, so little time.

And here's another meanwhile. Meanwhile, in Quebec, the students protest tuition increases. As Poplak notes, this is one of the biggest protests we've ever seen in Canada, in a province with a history of protest. Now going far beyond the original issue, the protest has become a more broad scale renunciation of the Charest's government attempts to infringe on personal freedoms and the right to express dissent. Quebec students are showing us the way.

We need to Occupy this.


Go petitions has a sad little petition with about a hundred signatures on it right now. Avaaz has one that is attempting to reach 500. Sad. Change.org has one that hasn't met 200 names yet. Honestly, what is wrong with us?   Here's a link to the Green Party's petition, one that you print, sign and send in. Maybe they are doing better. And anyway, hard copy petitions mean more in Parliament, so Go Green. But for heaven's sake, protest this bill. If you have time to protest M-312, take an extra minute to do something about Bill C-38. Please. It matters.

Now, to finish the story of Healey and "Proud." When Tarragon theatre in Toronto, a theatre to which Healey had been playwright-in-residence for eleven years, refused to produce the play on the grounds that it may be libellous and defamatory to the real Prime Minister, Healey resigned from Tarragon. As a recent article in the Globe and Mail described the situation, "A playwright writes a play about a famously controlling prime minister with a reputation for punishing people who cross him, only to have the play refused by producers who fear being punished by the famously controlling prime minister."

I hope  Michael Healey finds the cash to produce "Proud." May I be so bold to suggest that like me, when you can't find a producer, DIY. Sometimes, it's the only way to get your work out there. I think this is a play Canadians need to see and I hope I get the opportunity to see it.

While Healey works on that, the rest of us can put together some DIY activism. Get busy.

Next debate on M 312 scheduled

ARCC has confirmed that the second hour of debate on M 312 is now scheduled for June 8, with a vote scheduled for June 13.

Okey dokey.

Danielle Smith and the politics of division

Just for fun, and because there is nothing as satisfying as saying "I told you so," let's have a look at Danielle Smith in the media. The way she is spinning her problems now is enacting not just one but two of the things I've talked about in this blog before. One, she says "urban elites" are against her. We can assume the addition of "elite" to urban makes it derogatory, because in the right wing world, there can be nothing worse than being elite, reading Harper's in an independent coffee shop while drinking a non-fat chai latte, or having the kind of social and cultural analysis that can be gained through a Liberal Arts education. Here she goes again with the narratives of persecution. I can't help thinking it's not that smart to point out that smart people don't like you much. The second problem she is once again enacting is her tendency to blame the media. As I've said before, bad policy results in negative media attention; it's not a liberal plot. And in this case, bad policy also resulted in a poor election performance. It's not the urban elites or a liberal bias in media that brought down Danielle Smith. In fact, if we were to go back and study the election coverage, there is a case to be made that if there was media bias, it was favourable to Smith. I also had a good laugh when, the day after the election, Smith admitted she and her party might have to take a second look at their policies. Not their fundamental beliefs mind you, just their policies. I'd suggest you all take a few Liberal Arts courses and look at your beliefs too.

Of course, there is one other I told you so to be had, and that is never mess with abortion in Canadian politics. After the Wildrose loss and the decimation of Stephen Woodworth in Federal Parliament over M312, maybe we will finally be able to move on from this divisive strategy. It is never appropriate to threaten the rights of a whole group of people. All of us in Canada should be secure in our rights whether we are women or gay or immigrants or Liberal Arts students. On that, here is my recap of what abortion meant in the Alberta Election in an April 30 guest blog of mine on Abortion Gang. Of course the media is concentrating on the "bozo eruptions" of the homophobic Hunsperger and the Caucasian Ron Leech as well as Smith's own bizarro decision to out herself as a climate change denier when they tell the story of the fall of the Wildrose. But we all know where it started - abortion, conscience rights and the promise to shut down the Alberta Human Rights Commission. It was this trifecta of issues that created the first chink in the Wildrose armour.

I'm hoping we're past playing the politics of division. Perhaps as long as we have a first past the post system the politics of divide and conquer will win out. But a girl can dream.

Audit Hijinks

The Feds announced today that they are cutting out internal auditors in four regional development agencies and giving that responsibility to another department already facing a shrinking budget.  According to PSAC, the union representing the auditors, this will make losing, rather than saving, taxpayer money more likely. Apparently, the government doesn't need to audit itself, what with it being so transparent and all. We shouldn't worry our pretty little heads about what they are doing. We shouldn't worry about Bev Oda living large in London or the F-35s. They've got it all under control. 

Generally, I wouldn't pay much attention to this particular news item, except that in the Federal Budget, the Cons promised to add $8M to the budget to do another kind of audit, a kind of audit that they feel is way more important than looking over their own shoulders. They're spending an extra $8M to audit - wait for it - charities. They want to make sure that Canadian charities don't exceed the 10% rule, that is, that they don't spend more than 10% of their budget on anything that smacks of politics or advocacy.


The 10% rule has always left charities in the unenviable position of being able to treat the symptoms of whatever ill they are designed to address but not the cause. So a charity can give coats to needy families in the winter or send their children to camp, but they can do little, if anything, about why they are living in poverty in the first place. According to a diplomatically phrased advisory on Charity Village, "While Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stressed there are no changes to the actual rules relating to charities, there will be serious adjustments surrounding enforcement. "Quite frankly, we've had a lot of complaints and concerns expressed by Canadians that when they give money to charities they expect the money to be used for the charity's purposes, not for political or other purposes," Flaherty said Thursday. Flaherty also alleges that there is foreign money floating around too that is worrisome. Maybe this is the same money Joe Oliver was so concerned about, the gajillions of dollars being used to undermine Canadian industry.


There has been plenty reported already about charities who feel this particular $8M is directed at them because, frankly, they've been too effective at highlighting things the Cons don't want brought to our attention. David Suzuki has stepped down from the board of his own foundation because of concerns that his personal advocacy work will be counted against the Foundation. This is yet another not so subtle way of squashing dissent in this country. There's nothing like an audit to waste the time of the very limited staff at your favourite charity, get them bogged down in endless paperwork and utterly subjective evaluations of what constitutes political action and what doesn't, instead of doing the good work they are established to do.


I have a sneaking suspicion that the Cons won't be auditing the Fraser Institute (yes, it's true - you get a charitable receipt when donating to the Fraser Institute) but will more likely be auditing the Suzuki Foundation and various progressive organizations across Canada. Let's all keep an eye on what happens to all the sexual health organizations. Any guesses?

My Canada includes Women's Rights

Today I am grateful for all of the Canadian women and men who have stood up for women's rights and affirmed my right to bodily autonomy, security of the person, affirmed my right to express my own conscience and control my own destiny. Thank you to all who spoke in the House of Commons against Woodworth's regressive motion. Thank you to Niki Ashton who connected her words so eloquently to the work of her feminist fore-mothers. Thank you to Hedy Fry who managed to demonstrate the absurdity of the motion while assassinating the government's record. Thank you to Francoise Boivin for your passion. Thank you to Gordon O'Connor, Conservative Whip, who clearly stated all the failings of the motion and affirmed that Canadians do not want to go back in time. Thank you to all of you who were so eloquent and passionate.

I have always been against debating abortion. Human rights are not up for debate. But here we were, fighting the most regressive and misogynist forces in our country, debating. Although part of me wanted to block out the spectacle and wished MPs would stand in the House, refuse to speak and even turn their backs, I have to admit I watched intently and was moved by what was said. A few times, I was moved to tears. To hear my values stated in our House of Commons was powerful for me. As my American ally Charlotte Taft reminded me, we have to engage when our rights are threatened. But I'm glad I didn't waste a lot of energy "debating" the antis over the years, whose minds will never change, and had the energy to get fully involved when it counted. I've also always said, as activists, we have to be smart about where to put our energy.

This does not mean I am grateful the debate happened or that I am in any way pleased that Mr. Harper allowed it to go forward. There is no reason to put women or any group of people in a position in which they feel threatened and unsafe, in which they feel their rights may be taken away. Women my age and older often complain that young women take their rights for granted. Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't all of us? To a very large extent, we should be secure in our rights, secure in this country, secure that our government isn't plotting against us. I fault Mr. Harper for putting so many Canadians in a position where they are insecure and feeling unsafe. And it is not just women. Dissenting groups beyond Status of Women Canada feel the chill, especially environmental groups. I will continue to fight for a Canada in which progressives are heard and our agenda is mainstream.

This Motion 312 business isn't over. There will be another hour of debate, and I won't be relieved until this next incursion on our rights is voted down. But I am grateful, grateful to our MPs who spoke on our behalf and grateful to all of our allies.

Happening on the heels of the defeat of the Wildrose in Alberta, I feel doubly happy. My Canada is a Canada in which I am respected and in which I feel safe and my daughter is safe. I am grateful. I belong here.

An American Perspective on Pro-Choice Strategy for M-312

A couple of days ago, I was doing an interview with Julie Lalonde and she asked me how I would respond to people who say our activism over M-312 is over the top considering most people think it will never pass. I replied that I wondered what our American sisters would say about their early activism on personhood bills and early incursions on what has turned out to be a full scale war on women. I wondered what advice they would give us. After the interview, I decided to actually ask this question of an American ally, Charlotte Taft. Charlotte Taft is the Director of the Abortion Care Network, an organization for independent providers and abortion care allies. In her long history with reproductive justice she has been a consultant and counselor with Imagine, and was the director of Routh St. Clinic in Dallas TX.  This is what she said.

On What's Happening in the United States now:

Taft wonders why those creating all the anti-choice legislation in the US are "so intent on robbing women of any semblance of adult authority." She goes on to say, "My observation is that if the Republican Taliban has its way only corporations and fertilized eggs will be recognized as people with any rights!"

On "Relax, it will never pass":

Taft says, "'It will never pass' is a dangerous conversation. In this country all that had to happen was that a radical group (I won't call them conservatives because they are not) got elected in enough numbers in enough different states that they were able to dominate the legislative agendas. Absolutely unbelievable things have passed! I can't even keep the states straight--but we now have legislation on the books that protects from lawsuits doctors who lie to their patients about potential fetal abnormalities if the doctor thinks the woman might choose abortion. We have legislation in more than one state that currently requires clinic staffs and physicians to lie to patients about issues such as connection between abortion and breast cancer. We have had legislation passed that required any woman seeking an abortion to first be 'counseled' in an anti-abortion fake clinic. The list goes on. All of these are pieces of legislation that could never possibly have passed in the 21st century. And they did."

I read this as a clear validation of throwing everything we have at every single incursion, no matter how small, into our rights. We all have to understand that the US is a cautionary tale for us.

On Personhood Legislation:

With personhood bills passing all over the US, many of us felt that Mississipi's rejection of a personhood bill was a great win. However, Taft says, "In Mississippi the so-called 'personhood' legislation was defeated largely because a few women who were able to have children because of in vitro fertilization got very active and publicly told their stories. There was other opposition to the legislation, but I really think it was those stories that defeated the bill. In a few other states they are now putting forward similar legislation that somehow has a waiver of humanity for in vitro fertilization. That makes no sense, but it doesn't mean they might not get away with it. Apparently in this country there is no requirement for legislation to be either Constitutional or even to make a shred of sense. We have legislators arguing for anti choice legislation on the grounds that they raise livestock and this is how they deal with pregnant cows or pigs. I KID YOU NOT! I can't even choose a century that it seems we have slid into."

Again, this is good information because it indicates the lack of logic that goes into their perspective. They are doing this to end abortion, not because they are concerned about fetal personhood. If they were concerned about fetal personhood, they would be consistent. The fact that they are now trying to make exceptions to personhood so the IVF industry doesn't end reveals personhood bills for what they really are - an attack on women's rights, not a protection of the embryo/fetus.

On Nature and Biology:

Taft is always excellent on reminding us how these personhood bills fly in the face of nature itself and how personhood arguments appear ridiculous when looked at in terms of how bodies actually work. She says, "Since I've always been told that only about 40% of fertilized eggs ever implant in the wall of the uterus, it is clear that god, or nature, or biology is the greatest abortionist of them all. The personhood people have not explained whether women would have to hold monthly funerals for their sanitary products in case a corpse is residing among the cotton. Will the 17 1/2 year olds be able to vote and drink because their personhood started at conception and not birth?  You can only imagine a million more ridiculous issues that would be created. But sadly, I think in the right state it could pass."

This is said with humour, but the dark side of her comments is clear. I wonder, if Woodworth gets his way and the fetus is a person, does it get to vote? If so, does the woman incubator (because that is all she will be) get to be the vessel through which the embryo vote is expressed? Will she use her arm to mark an x on behalf of the fully personed embryo? Or will Woodworth steal the embryo vote, and count all unborn persons as votes for himself because women can't be trusted? Can embryos only vote "OfStephen"?

On the Radical Handmaids:

Taft says, "I love the Radical Handmaids!!!  We MUST have humor along with our outrage. This is a war on women--not a war with women. After all, we are unarmed!"

I always say what the anti-choice don't have is a sense of humour and they can't handle it when faced with it. Humour brings life to our activism and keeps us energized. And the hats are fabulous. 

My sincere thanks to Charlotte Taft for her words of wisdom. We can all benefit from them and feel energized to keep up this fight.

I also want to put a plug in here for Niki Ashton, whose words in the House literally brought tears to my eyes. You can see it here. (If you do not speak French, keep listening. Ashton is bilingual and her second remarks are in English.) Niki, you are a rockstar, and that CONman who responded to you was too smug for words. Clearly, Parliament is a game to him and he doesn't give a crap about the issue. As Justice Minister, you'd expect him to understand that women's rights are at stake here, but I see nothing to indicate he cares. We've all gotta know that Harper and the Harperettes approve of this motion. My fingers are crossed for today.