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.

Woodworth's Misogyny

To Stephen Woodworth and your cabal of fetus fetishists. (Who are they? Check out this video at Creekside and also check out the full list of anti-choice MPs at ARCC.)

Why do you hate women? Why are you and your anachronistic patriarchal cabal trying to force your opinions up my vagina? Why are you forcing Parliament to waste time on a question that has been settled for decades? Give it up, man. It's over. If you get your way, this issue will end up in the Supreme Court and be struck down AGAIN as it has been every time it has been presented since Morgentaler.  Why is my Parliament wasting its time and my money debating a motion that is premised on the denial of women's most basic human rights, the denial of my daughter's most basic human rights, the denial of MY most basic human rights?

Why can't you see the evidence in front of your eyes, and know that denying a woman the right to an abortion only results in driving the procedure underground and bringing harm to women. Are you trying to find ways to harm us? Why do you deny the science and the surveys and the studies and the irrefutable evidence that criminalizing abortion does nothing to reduce its incidence? How can you be so blind to fact?

Why are potential people, clumps of cells no bigger than a few milimeters, more important to you than actual women?

If I can't control my body, I am not free. I will not be enslaved. I will not be enslaved to you and your failing, desperate, patriarchal, misogynist ideology of control and colonization. You don't get to decide what I do with my body. Only I get to decide that.

You would never allow another to control your body, to take away your most basic rights. But this is just women we're talking about here, so you don't care. You feel we can't be trusted. You feel you know what is best for us, that you can make blanket statements about what's right and wrong in our lives without knowing us, without knowing the intricate, intimate details of how we have to live our lives every day, balance our relationships and our budgets and our families. You think none of this matters. You think you know what's best for us. You think you can intervene in our relationship with our Gods and our consciences. You can't. You don't have the right.

When my Parliament uses its power and energy to deny my rights and the rights of half the Canadian population, I am outraged. Outraged. Why do you think it is reasonable to demand that another person give over control of their body to YOU and people who think like you? You know that petition you are sending around, the one that you're putting up in publicly funded schools and having Catholic school children sign, the one that shows a woman's pregnant belly and cuts off her head? I've got to hand it to you. The symbolism is perfect. Your petitions' graphics, let alone the content, show you don't care about women, don't care about me. You've broken that woman into parts, objectified her, made her pornographic. The woman in that picture is nothing but an incubator to you. My daughter is nothing but an incubator to you. I am nothing but an incubator to you.

Why are you obsessed with women's bodies? What is wrong with you? Why can't you go about your business and leave me alone? Don't you have better things to do? Couldn't you dedicate yourself to solving climate change (if you believe in it), or finding people jobs, or building housing for people in poverty, or making sure everyone in Canada eats tonight? No, instead, you are dedicating yourself to your woman-hating agenda. And I have to wonder, what happened to you? Did someone hurt you when you were little and ruin your sense of eroticism and any possibility you have of enjoying a healthy sexual relationship? Did someone convince you sex was a chore done only to procreate? Do you think that clinging to patriarchy is the only way you can be powerful? What happened to you that you are willing to trample the rights of women?

The patriarchy wants to control women in reproduction, always has, always will. It's the ultimate tool of oppression and coercion against women. Isn't it time to find a way to live as equals? How many more generations will we have to wait until people like you are gone?

You do not have the right to impose your values on me. I have values, and they are just as strong and important and vital to me as yours are to you. The difference between you and me is I'll never try to shove mine up another woman's vagina, or down another man's throat. Believe what you want. It's a free country, and I'm pro-choice. I support your right to believe any stupid thing you want to believe. But I'll never support your efforts to force others to abide by your twisted, erotophobic, anti-sex, misogynist, patriarchal bundle of human-rights affronting crap that your motion represents.

You are waking a sleeping giant. Women are not things for you to possess and command. You are about to find out, we are warriors.