Twenty years ago today, the SCC decision R.v Morgentaler gave women complete reproductive autonomy. No abortion law: it's a point of pride to me that Canada is considered by some to have the western world's "most radical" (most interference-free) abortion "regime". In Canada, there is no "regime" -- it's a decision between a woman and her doctor, and the state has no business in the wombs of the nation.
Most Canadians would agree -- let women and their doctors decide, there's no reason for the state to interfere. Predictably, a vocal authoritarian minority who'd legislate our very assholes if they could, disagrees. The last twenty years of choice has been accompanied by twenty years of being hassled (and worse) by those who mistakenly think it's their business to dictate our reproductive decisions. The word "debate" keeps coming up: debate? What debate? The "debate" over whether women have the right to self-ownership (makes me sick just to type that) ended on January 28, 1988. In my "Thank You Dr. Morgentaler" post of last year, I said:
"I'm adamantly pro-choice for one reason: my reproductive life is nobody's goddamn business but mine. I'm totally capable of making the right decisions about it and every other aspect of my life, and believe all women are equally competent. There's no "discussion", there's no "debate", there's only "fuck off and mind your own business"."That's the crux of the so-called "debate". And further:
Reproductive freedom is a hard-won human right. I fought for it the first time around, and if the rabid anti-choicers want to start sniffing our crotches or humping our legs (or even biting us) again, we'll slap them down again. As long as women have a right to control their own lives, abortion on demand is here to stay. Thank you, Dr. Morgentaler!Reproductive freedom is here to stay, one can avail oneself to it or not, that's the essence of Choice. It's the individual's decision, not the decision of the state, or the church, or Lifesite, or "R.E.A.L. Women", or the assorted fetus fetishists, zygote zealots and embryo enthusiasts who prowl around clinics "counseling" pregnant women by calling them sluts and hell-bound whores.
I am mine. And that's where it ends.
UPDATED: to add picture of Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson, and a link to LGM, where you can read her elegant phrasing of the decision.
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