On January 28 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada that made abortion a criminal offence. The decision in Regina v. Morgentaler was significant because it was based, not on a legislative technicality or flawed legal process, but on the fundamental incompatibility of that provision of the Criminal Code with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Dr. Henry Morgentaler for his courage and determination in persisting in his defense of and commitment to women's rights. As a result, application of the Charter principle of the right to life, liberty and security of the person (Section 7) was clarified not just with regard to abortion, but also in respect of other challenges to individual liberty and security.
Also, we owe a debt of gratitude to the many persons who have worked with Dr. Morgentaler and other caring physicians like him, who have been engaged in "pro-choice" advocacy and service delivery organizations, and who have contributed to public policy in government and elsewhere, for their efforts to protect these rights from assault. The threats come in two forms.
As most of the articles in the recent series of anti-rights diatribes in the National Post illustrated, those opposed to reproductive rights are impervious to the reason through which those rights were asserted and confirmed. And as this is written, deceitful advertisements for OPTIONS BC are still running on television, shielded by the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council that apparently regards the misrepresentations in those ads as reflecting a disagreement among experts. We don't know who the "experts" are on which the Council is basing its reluctance to remove this misleading material from the air. You might like to ask the Council yourself (www.cbsc.ca). Options for Sexual Health has prepared a comprehensive review of the reputable medical literature on the subject, available on request.
Access to abortion is still inconsistent across Canada. As long as women anywhere face the prospect of third party review of their entitlement to the procedure, lack of clinical facilities and therapeutic options, or unreasonable financial or logistical hurdles, their right to reproductive choice is compromised. This is not about privilege: when one person's rights are denied, we are all affected. Moreover, as research like that done by the Youth Sexual Health Team at UBC reveals, there are still significant barriers to sexual health services in general in many areas, services that could reduce the need for the option of abortion. Since OPT has demonstrated that it is possible to deliver high quality services in all settings, we need to examine what issues and people are impeding access in these areas.
In a group discussion recently, the celebration of Dr. Morgentaler's victory came up. One of the group, in her mid-twenties, asked. "Who's Dr. Morgentaler?" While the question took some of us older folks aback, it also highlighted the need to be just as persistent as he was, particularly in the continuing education of young women and men about the protection and defense of sexual and reproductive rights. Those rights don't begin or end with access to abortion; they are embedded in many aspects of our relationships with others, from the right to choose our partners and the right to give or withhold consent, to the right to be free from coercion or violence and the right to have the knowledge that is essential to protect our health and wellbeing. There is work to be done on all these fronts.
Thank you, Dr. Morgentaler. We owe it to you to keep working hard.
