Another article in support of Dr. Moregentaler's important honorary appointment
Listening to: Venetian Snares vs Mommartz oben unten
"Morgentaler worthy of national honour: He won women back control of their bodies"
by Paula Simons, The Edmonton Journal, Saturday, July 05, 2008
It's been 20 years since Canada decriminalized abortion -- thanks largely to the crusading work of women's health advocate Dr. Henry Morgentaler. For decades, Morgentaler challenged and defied Canada's laws, risking his freedom, his reputation, and his own life, to provide women with safe and timely abortions.
He fought unceasingly for the rights of women to control their own bodies and their own health, for their right to professional medical care in times of personal crisis.
Today, Canadian girls and women can no longer be forced by law to carry a fetus to term. Whether they are victims of rape or incest or spousal abuse, whether they are suffering from addiction or poverty, mental or physical illness, whether they are too young, too old, or just too overwhelmed, women now have the right to decide whether to have a child.
Today, our bodies belong to us, not to some judge or politician or hospital committee. A person who finds herself with an unplanned, unwanted, untimely, or unbearable pregnancy is no longer compelled to give birth against her will or her best interests.
That doesn't mean such a decision is ever easy. Every abortion is a symptom and symbol of personal tragedy. It does mean, however, that women get to make this most private, personal and painful of decisions for themselves, relying on their own freedom of conscience to guide them rather than the will of the state or the permission of some paternalistic hospital board.
Yet even though abortion has been legally available since 1988, it's obvious from the reaction to Morgentaler's appointment to the Order of Canada this week that it remains a painfully divisive issue in this country -- and that he remains a polarizing figure.
Would it have been better to leave him unrecognized, rather than ignite a fresh round of controversy? After all, the tempestuous, sometimes violent, public debate over abortion had largely died down in this country.
Was it, perhaps, a strategic error on the part of the Order of Canada committee to stir up all those powerful emotions again, and to give anti-abortion advocates a whole new platform for their cause?
On balance, I think the answer is no.
Not all Order of Canada appointments should be safe and uncontroversial. Sure, we could only give out the medal to rock stars and hockey players and well-heeled philanthropists, people whose appointments would ruffle no feathers.
Yet the Order of Canada shouldn't just be a reward for pop culture celebrity or financial success.
It should also honour the social rebels who bucked the system in defence of human rights and civil liberties. Fighting the status quo, standing up for controversial principles and minority rights, rarely makes one popular. But then, the Order of Canada shouldn't be a popularity contest or Miss Congeniality prize.
And in Alberta, at least, the fight for a woman's right to a safe and timely abortion is far from over.
Only four communities in the entire province actually provide elective abortion services: Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Peace River. If you live in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Camrose, Hinton, or Fort McMurray, never mind a smaller centre, you cannot get an abortion at a local hospital, no matter what your rights.
Instead of living up to their responsibility to provide their citizens with equitable access to basic health-care services, most of Alberta's old health regions simply refused or failed to provide women the care to which they were legally entitled.
It's an outrage -- one I can only hope against hope that the province, which recently collapsed all the regions into one superboard, will soon address.
Three years ago, Capital Health stopped performing elective abortions at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The hospital performs fewer than a hundred medically complicated or urgent abortions each year. All other terminations are done at a private clinic -- Woman's Health Options, the Westmount clinic founded by Dr. Henry Morgentaler.
This one clinic, purchased from Morgentaler by a group of local doctors this March, serves patients from across northern and central Alberta and Saskatchewan. It performs more abortions than any other health facility in the province: between 5,800 and 6,000 a year. About one-third of those patients come from outside the capital region.
While women with Alberta health - care coverage don't have to pay for the procedure itself, out-of-town patients do have to pay for transportation and accommodation. The Edmonton clinic tries to make it affordable, by arranging special room rates with nearby hotels. Woman's Health Options also has an emergency fund to help the most desperate women pay for hotels.
Still, for women who live outside Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie or Peace River, accessing a timely abortion can be an ordeal, especially for those with limited means, trying to conceal an unwanted pregnancy from family, friends, or employers. For them, the battle for women's rights that Henry Morgentaler waged for so long is still not won.
I don't expect everyone in the country to celebrate Morgentaler's Order of Canada, or to welcome the emotional debate his honour has provoked. But I do think his appointment serves as an urgent reminder that we must never take a woman's right to control her body for granted. The best way we can honour Morgentaler's legacy isn't with a medal. It's by taking up his fight.
psimons@thejournal.canwest.com
"Morgentaler worthy of national honour: He won women back control of their bodies"
by Paula Simons, The Edmonton Journal, Saturday, July 05, 2008
It's been 20 years since Canada decriminalized abortion -- thanks largely to the crusading work of women's health advocate Dr. Henry Morgentaler. For decades, Morgentaler challenged and defied Canada's laws, risking his freedom, his reputation, and his own life, to provide women with safe and timely abortions.
He fought unceasingly for the rights of women to control their own bodies and their own health, for their right to professional medical care in times of personal crisis.
Today, Canadian girls and women can no longer be forced by law to carry a fetus to term. Whether they are victims of rape or incest or spousal abuse, whether they are suffering from addiction or poverty, mental or physical illness, whether they are too young, too old, or just too overwhelmed, women now have the right to decide whether to have a child.
Today, our bodies belong to us, not to some judge or politician or hospital committee. A person who finds herself with an unplanned, unwanted, untimely, or unbearable pregnancy is no longer compelled to give birth against her will or her best interests.
That doesn't mean such a decision is ever easy. Every abortion is a symptom and symbol of personal tragedy. It does mean, however, that women get to make this most private, personal and painful of decisions for themselves, relying on their own freedom of conscience to guide them rather than the will of the state or the permission of some paternalistic hospital board.
Yet even though abortion has been legally available since 1988, it's obvious from the reaction to Morgentaler's appointment to the Order of Canada this week that it remains a painfully divisive issue in this country -- and that he remains a polarizing figure.
Would it have been better to leave him unrecognized, rather than ignite a fresh round of controversy? After all, the tempestuous, sometimes violent, public debate over abortion had largely died down in this country.
Was it, perhaps, a strategic error on the part of the Order of Canada committee to stir up all those powerful emotions again, and to give anti-abortion advocates a whole new platform for their cause?
On balance, I think the answer is no.
Not all Order of Canada appointments should be safe and uncontroversial. Sure, we could only give out the medal to rock stars and hockey players and well-heeled philanthropists, people whose appointments would ruffle no feathers.
Yet the Order of Canada shouldn't just be a reward for pop culture celebrity or financial success.
It should also honour the social rebels who bucked the system in defence of human rights and civil liberties. Fighting the status quo, standing up for controversial principles and minority rights, rarely makes one popular. But then, the Order of Canada shouldn't be a popularity contest or Miss Congeniality prize.
And in Alberta, at least, the fight for a woman's right to a safe and timely abortion is far from over.
Only four communities in the entire province actually provide elective abortion services: Calgary, Edmonton, Grande Prairie and Peace River. If you live in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Red Deer, Camrose, Hinton, or Fort McMurray, never mind a smaller centre, you cannot get an abortion at a local hospital, no matter what your rights.
Instead of living up to their responsibility to provide their citizens with equitable access to basic health-care services, most of Alberta's old health regions simply refused or failed to provide women the care to which they were legally entitled.
It's an outrage -- one I can only hope against hope that the province, which recently collapsed all the regions into one superboard, will soon address.
Three years ago, Capital Health stopped performing elective abortions at the Royal Alexandra Hospital. The hospital performs fewer than a hundred medically complicated or urgent abortions each year. All other terminations are done at a private clinic -- Woman's Health Options, the Westmount clinic founded by Dr. Henry Morgentaler.
This one clinic, purchased from Morgentaler by a group of local doctors this March, serves patients from across northern and central Alberta and Saskatchewan. It performs more abortions than any other health facility in the province: between 5,800 and 6,000 a year. About one-third of those patients come from outside the capital region.
While women with Alberta health - care coverage don't have to pay for the procedure itself, out-of-town patients do have to pay for transportation and accommodation. The Edmonton clinic tries to make it affordable, by arranging special room rates with nearby hotels. Woman's Health Options also has an emergency fund to help the most desperate women pay for hotels.
Still, for women who live outside Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie or Peace River, accessing a timely abortion can be an ordeal, especially for those with limited means, trying to conceal an unwanted pregnancy from family, friends, or employers. For them, the battle for women's rights that Henry Morgentaler waged for so long is still not won.
I don't expect everyone in the country to celebrate Morgentaler's Order of Canada, or to welcome the emotional debate his honour has provoked. But I do think his appointment serves as an urgent reminder that we must never take a woman's right to control her body for granted. The best way we can honour Morgentaler's legacy isn't with a medal. It's by taking up his fight.
psimons@thejournal.canwest.com