Canada anti-abortion rally hopes for rights rollback
A few thousand anti-abortion demonstrators held an annual rally in front of Canada's Parliament Thursday, as the deeply polarising rights issue flares up in the United States.
They waved placards that read "Pray to end abortion," egged on by organisers on megaphones who were often drowned out by a smaller counter protest group of mostly young women chanting: "Our body, our choice."
Emily Helferty, 23, said she hopes a leaked draft opinion that showed the US Supreme Court's conservative majority preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case enshrining abortion rights in America, will mark "a turning point" in the debate in favor of a ban.
"I think that would be great. I mean, a lot of people have been praying for this for a really long time," she said, flanked by her parents.
The landmark 1973 ruling guaranteed abortion access across the United States. In Canada, a 1988 top court ruling struck down restrictions on abortions.
Thirty-one-year-old deacon Marc Gaudet was also optimistic, saying: "I'm really prayerful and hopeful that this will rekindle a renewed sense of the dignity of all life."
But rally organiser Jack Fonseca was more guarded, telling a news conference a day earlier it would take "many years" to bring in a ban on abortions in Canada.
"We first have to get a majority of pro-life MPS in Parliament, and that still won't be enough," he said, noting that 80 percent of Canadians are in favour of abortion rights.
At the rally, several protesters in favor of abortion rights wore red dresses like characters from the dystopian television series The Handmaid's Tale, about a totalitarian society that subjects fertile women to child-bearing slavery. It was based on Canadian author Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel.
A man waved a placard that said: "Let's make Margaret Atwood fiction again." Others read: "Abortion is health care" and "Reproductive rights are human rights."
At a news conference, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evoked the concerns of the group in favor of abortion rights, saying women around the world are "very worried that there is going to be a rolling back of significant gains that they have made, that we have all made, in women's rights."
His liberal government has pledged to defend those rights, and possibly codify access to abortions in Canada.
Croatians rally for abortion
Thousands of people meanwhile rallied in Croatia against the neglect of women's health on Thursday, prompted by the case of a woman who was denied an abortion although her foetus had serious health issues.
The demonstrations, dubbed "Enough", were held a day after a medical commission eventually allowed her the procedure, amid nationwide outrage over the case.
"We will force the health system to respect women," prominent Croatian women's rights activist Sanja Sarnavka told several thousands of people who gathered in the capital Zagreb's main square.
"Enough, Enough!" chanted the demonstrators, some carrying pink banners that read "Enough of denial of medical procedures", "Enough of clericalism in gynaecological clinics" or "Enough of jeopardising women's health".
The rallies were aimed at showing "solidarity with all women whose... rights to health guaranteed by Croatia's laws are being violated on (a) daily basis", the rights groups that organised them said.
In the European Union country where Church-backed conservatives aspire to curb the right to abortion, the procedure is legal until the 10th week of pregnancy.
After that period it can be performed if the health of the mother or foetus is seriously jeopardised, as well as in cases of rape or incest.
But abortion is becoming more restricted as rising religious pressure sways doctors to refuse it citing moral grounds.
Mirela Cavajda's unborn child was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour in late April, in the sixth month of pregnancy.
Doctors told the 39-year-old, who already has one child, that the foetus would either die or if born would have serious defects, she told local media.
They advised Cavajda to seek help in neighbouring Slovenia.
Four public hospitals in Zagreb refused to terminate her pregnancy without explanation or saying they could not confirm the diagnosis or lacked the necessary conditions.
But, after an MRI scan of the foetus's brain showed a deteriorated situation, a medical commission ruled Wednesday that both medical and legal preconditions for the procedure had been met.
During the rally at the Zagreb's main square, Cavajda's emotional public letter on her nearly monthlong agony was read.
They "have let me down. Both the system and the doctors I trusted until then", she wrote.
Cavajda's lawyer Vanja Juric voiced hope earlier Thursday that "no other woman would have to undergo a torture that Mirela had to go through".