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Why the US ‘War on Women’ can’t be ignored by Canadians

Thomas Jefferson once said that “the price of liberty is eternal vigilance”.  It certainly seems so when one looks at the current state of women’s rights.  Even in supposedly progressive countries, it has been a sad and scary year for those of us with a pair of X chromosomes.

As Canadians, it might be easy to simply point at the United States and shake our heads at their seemingly backward policies towards women. The US is the place where the state of Texas requires women to undergo trans-vaginal ultrasounds before having access to abortions and where radio commentator Rush Limbaugh slut-shames activists like Sandra Fluke. Where all-male committees are formed to discuss women’s health issues as it pertains to the dreaded ‘Obamacare,’ and where women need to worry about insurance coverage being denied, or even being fired, if they  use birth control for anything other than therapeutic purposes.

Perhaps it’s not entirely surprising to see this kind of attitude about women’s rights in countries with highly religious populations. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran almost go without mentioning, however, the control over women and the refusal to allow them to make decisions about their own bodies is not the exclusive domain of extremely Islamic nations.

In the Republic of Ireland, abortions remain illegal unless the mother’s life is in danger and ‘the morning after pill’ is accessible only by prescription. Recently in Brazil, a country with similar abortion laws to those of Ireland, a nine-year-old girl became pregnant with twins after being repeatedly raped by her step-father. Her mother and doctor were excommunicated from the Catholic church for making the decision for her to have an abortion; a decision that ultimately saved the girl’s life. Her rapist, on the other hand, was not excommunicated. According to Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, in an interview with Italian Newspaper La Stampa, “It is a sad case, but the real problem is that the twins conceived were two innocent persons. Life must always be protected.” Not, apparently, the life of a 9-year-old girl who’d been sexually active against her will. The Independent in the United Kingdom reported Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, the archbishop for the girl’s hometown where the abortion took place, stated that while “a heinous crime” had occurred, “the abortion, the elimination of an innocent life, was more serious.”

We continue to believe none of these stories apply directly to us. This is Canada. Our anti-abortion laws were struck down in their entirety in 1988, and nothing has since been put in place to replace them. It’s a free-for-all for ‘careless hussies’ up here with government-funded access to a birth control and abortion all but assured by our constitution and the Canada Health Act. Canadian abortion pioneer Henry Morgentaler is greeted not with threats and bombs at his clinic, but was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2008. When police officers make off-colour comments about how women can prevent rape by “not dressing like sluts”, we initiate Slut Walks, a kind of ‘take back the night’ walk in provocative clothing. In this country, our bodies, our choices and our sexuality, they’re all ours.

It’s here that I’m reminded of that price of liberty Jefferson mentioned. We Canadian ladies have to be on guard, both to ensure we all enjoy equally the rights we share under the law, and to make sure they aren’t taken away in future. Especially under a government whose socially conservative agenda is barely concealed. One need only look no further than the 2010 G20 summit held in Toronto, where hosting Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper agreed only under immense pressure to put maternal health issues, including abortion rights and access to contraception, on the agenda and then set the tone by refusing to endorse funding for medically necessary abortions in impoverished African nations. More recently, the MP for Kitchener Centre, Stephen Woodworth, attempted to reopen the abortion debate in our House of Commons. While he was flatly stonewalled, the fact that he felt comfortable doing so speaks volumes of the potential direction Canada may be heading, unless women are aware and ready to speak out.

The current Conservative government are not the only ones to blame for declining women’s rights in Canada. There are many issues in this country which are systemic. Women in Prince Edward Island have had no in-province access to abortion since 1982, when the province’s two hospitals in Charlottetown – one Protestant, one Catholic – unified. One of the conditions of the merger was that the new hospital would not provide abortions. Islanders needing an abortion can go to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a provincially-funded abortion with two doctors’ referrals. Without the referrals, women can pay upwards of $800 for an abortion at the Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, New Brunswick. It is issues like these that should give us cause for concern in Canada. We must not think we are immune to an erosion of rights.

In reference to the recent attention paid to women’s rights, American Pastor Jesse Lee Peterson gave a sermon where he said that “back in the good old days, men knew that women were crazy and they knew how to deal with them. Women are voting in the wrong people.” While I don’t believe any such prominent public figure has spoken out in such strong terms in Canada, perhaps in some ways, that’s more concerning. In the United States today, ‘the enemy’ is obvious. It is a radio commentator suggesting a women’s rights activist is a prostitute because she wants health coverage for contraception. It is forcing women to undergo rape with a medical instrument in order to have access to that which we take for granted in Canada. But that’s just it, we take it for granted. The insidious is often more dangerous than the visible foe.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” A great man once said it, but it’s women today who should take note.

Writer: Sarah Heaney Daigen

Important read. And to add to this, I’m tired of seeing/hearing people say women in developed countries, especially in Canada, don’t need to worry about fighting for their rights nearly as much as women in less developed countries. For the above bolded passage and numerous other reasons, women in Canada still need to remain vigilant about protecting their rights and continuing the fight to secure things like more accessible daycare, equal pay and stop violence against women. 

Yes in total agreement to all of this, especially the mention of violence against women. It’s next to impossible, sometimes, to get restraining orders against people here. I know women who have gone to the hospital literally beaten and bruised and  and judges wouldn’t grant them restraining orders because it was ‘his word against hers’ and other bullshit reasons. I know women who have been stalked here and the police can’t/won’t pick the offender up because he hasn’t made any threats. YES, THAT HAPPENS HERE. And this is in metropolitan southwestern Ontario!!! Rape convictions are also still relatively small and assault with a deadly weapon can get a person 90 days in jail, time served or just weekends. My abusive ex-boyfriend had done at least 3 terms for assault and assualt w/ a weapon (two of which were against women) and never saw more than 3 months in jail at a time. This is only going to get worse now that the government has demanded several of our jails close (including parts of the Federal Pens in Ont and Quebec), as our jails will become overcrowded and unable to hold convicts.

Anyone who says that women still have all of their rights and are protected here is full of shit. They need to open their eyes and see what’s going on and what could potentially come to us.