Legal Abortion in Canada Unlike Term Paper

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The "No New Law!" campaign then shifted its focus to the establishment of freestanding clinics and insurance coverage for women who needed the procedure. Because provincial governments regulate health care in Canada, pressure was put on them for publicly funded clinics. Pro-choice activists also pressured the federal government to approve RU-486 for Canadian testing.

Although criminal sanctions are no longer in force, improved equal access has been disappointing. Rich women have always had access to safe abortions and always had a choice, but working women have not. Their choice was inhibited by the state's involvement. Weir (1994) states the women now who have the greatest difficulties are women of colour, rural women, women from under-serviced areas, poor women, unemployed women, women with disabilities, and women whose first language is not English. How much money women have and what kind of work they are employed in makes a huge difference in their ability to access abortion services.

Access to legal abortions is regulated under provincial health policies (Palley, 2006). The Canada Health Act requires provinces to provide equal access to health care facilities. The national policy since 1995 has been that abortion is a medically necessary service, but this policy often gets undermined by the politics of provinces and territories and intense pressures by anti-choice interest groups. Canada's federal government is limited in its powers and only allowed to sanction provincial violations of the Canada Health Act (with financial penalties). The federal government does not usually interfere with provincial health affairs. Palley (2006) states, "Also, the federal government at the national level has not utilized sufficient financial penalties to ward off substantial lack of compliance with respect to provision of abortion services in many of Canada's provinces and territories" (p. 565). This perhaps explains why inequality of access to services still exists.

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Despite the fact that feminism has many factions and a plethora of tendencies and positions, on this issue they are in agreement, and there is a general consensus among feminist organizations. All agree that freestanding abortion clinics are central to providing care and service to women with unwanted pregnancies. They see them as central to resisting state control of reproduction. Unlike the therapeutic abortions, which were required in the Criminal Code, freestanding clinics provide elective abortions. The power thus shifts from the state to the woman herself. The therapeutic abortion system preserved the idea that abortion was a criminal act and only permissible when necessary because of exceptional circumstances and danger to the woman's health. Feminists moved the decision into the hands of the woman.

After the 1988 Court decision, feminist acitivists defended abortion clinics from antichoice harassment. When new clinics appeared, they built local support groups. They lobbied to include clinic abortions in provincial disbursements for health care, and they took up fundraising for legal cases (Weir, 1994). CARAL worked to move the context of abortion into the arena of family-planning with "better and more equal access to counseling, contraception, and education" (p. 258). PCAN, which is more leftist, wants a network of "community-based reproductive healthcare centers that would provide birth control, counseling, and other services" (p. 258).

True choice involves much more than abortion rights. As Weir points out, social policies that support women, including prenatal education, universal daycare, parental leave, community midwives, affordable housing and economic equality, are needed in order to ensure real freedom of reproductive choice......

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