Time to drop provincial obstacles to abortion

Some provinces impose conditions that limit eligibility

It’s an ill wind that blows no good, or so the saying goes. But if the ill wind is the re-energizing and intensifying of the destructive confrontation over abortion in the United States in the wake of the leaked draft of the Supreme Court judgment striking down Roe v. Wade, it is hard to see the good.

Public protests began within hours of the leak, and mass demonstrations on both sides of the issue will inevitably build during this mid-term election year. Recent history has shown how quickly abortion demonstrations can turn to violence. American democracy is facing one of its greatest challenges.

That’s the ill wind in the United States. Demonstrations are bound to spill over into Canada because such fights always do. But the situation here is completely different. Canada is profoundly pro-choice; according to opinion polls, at least 75 per cent of us believe in a woman’s right to choose; we are perfectly content to be a nation without an abortion law. We have not had one since the Supreme Court’s 1988 Morgentaler decision, in which the court struck down the old criminal law, finding it to be a “profound interference with a woman’s body and thus a violation of her security of the person” under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The sky did not fall. Despite dire predictions from right-tolife groups, Canadian women did not rush out for legal abortions; in fact, the abortion rate in this country is lower than it is in the United States, despite the multiple obstacles pregnant women face in an increasing number of states. Abortion here is treated like any other medical procedure, governed by provincial/territorial and medical regulations (about which more in a moment). There is no chance of abortion being recriminalized, no matter how loudly social conservatives cry for it.

The ill wind from the United States can, potentially, blow good in Canada, both for the Liberal government and the opposition Conservative party.

To start with the Liberals, it is one thing to say there is no longer a legal or constitutional barrier to abortion, it is another thing to make the removal of the barrier a practical reality for thousands of women. Some provinces use their jurisdiction over health care to limit access to the procedure. Some fund abortions in hospitals but not in clinics. Prince Edward Island funds the procedure in one hospital only, in Charlottetown. New Brunswick uses geography to impede access; it permits abortions in three hospitals in Moncton and Bathurst, but not in Saint John or Fredericton. Other provinces impose conditions that limit eligibility for the procedure.

The Trudeau government has been talking about fixing the access problem ever since it came to office in 2015 but has done nothing. Now, however, distressed by the abortion uproar in the United States, it is stirring. It is promising to use its spending power in the Canada Health Act to reward provinces that remove impediments and to penalize those that don’t. It is also promising — and this may be trickier — to rescind the charitable status of anti-abortion organizations that provide “dishonest counselling” to women. (What unfortunate soul, one wonders, will be tasked with determining dishonesty?)

As to the Conservatives, the ill wind could present an opportunity to get their act together and to recognize that hatred spewed over abortion in United States has no place in Canada. This necessarily assumes that Conservatives’ desire to be elected in a pro-choice country will one day outweigh their passion for pointless ranting among themselves.