[ISL] "After 35 years, abortions are finally available in P.E.I."
Anne Kingston of MacLean's interviews Lianne Yoshida, the doctor who has begun performing the first abortions in decades on Prince Edward Island.
Q: Did you face protesters on Tuesday?
A: No. There were protests after the centre was announced last year. We’ve had peaceful protest in Halifax. Protesters aren’t allowed on hospital property; they have to be on the sidewalk, so there’s a parking lot in between. In Ontario, there is a “bubble zone” law so protestors can’t protest at clinic doors.
The support the government has given to this clinic is great; they’ve put together a great group of people to organize and plan. It’s not an abortion clinic, it’s a women’s health and wellness clinic. I like that they put it in that context.
Q: Why is that important?
A: Women who get abortions are also women who are mothers and women who have gall bladder problems and women who need contraception. It’s important not to separate that. And I think a lot of the anti-abortion people say: “Well, we like mothers, but we don’t like women who have abortions,” and actually it’s the same people. We still have these false divisions about women being “good or bad”-the virgin or the prostitute. That discourse is so simplistic. So women might need abortions, they might need to get contraception, they might need STD screening.
Q: Did you face protesters on Tuesday?
A: No. There were protests after the centre was announced last year. We’ve had peaceful protest in Halifax. Protesters aren’t allowed on hospital property; they have to be on the sidewalk, so there’s a parking lot in between. In Ontario, there is a “bubble zone” law so protestors can’t protest at clinic doors.
The support the government has given to this clinic is great; they’ve put together a great group of people to organize and plan. It’s not an abortion clinic, it’s a women’s health and wellness clinic. I like that they put it in that context.
Q: Why is that important?
A: Women who get abortions are also women who are mothers and women who have gall bladder problems and women who need contraception. It’s important not to separate that. And I think a lot of the anti-abortion people say: “Well, we like mothers, but we don’t like women who have abortions,” and actually it’s the same people. We still have these false divisions about women being “good or bad”-the virgin or the prostitute. That discourse is so simplistic. So women might need abortions, they might need to get contraception, they might need STD screening.