campaign to defend Canadian abortion clinics
The question of abortion has been dominating political dis- law states that after a woman and her doctor have agreed that an abortion is required they still need the approval of a hospital ian news magazine Maclean's described the situation in its July committee (Therapeutic Abortion Committee - TAC) usually
•Canadians everywhere are taking a stand on the rights composed of three other doctors, none of whom may perform and wrongs of having an abortion....On shopfloors, in school- The law states that an abortion can only be perrooms and at political meetings across the formed if the woman's life or health is at stake
[is ] no longer being treated as a marginal — if highly volatile cussion in Canada over the last few months.
The weekly Canad-
25 issue, these terms are defined — so they can be interpreted either in a
- political issue.' very broad way, either along the lines of the World Health
The spark to this debate was the opening of two indepen-
Organisation belief that a woman's health is endangered if her
'social wellbeing' is threatened, or very restrictively, that she dent abortion clinics, in Winnipeg and Toronto, staffed by, others, among will die or commit suicide if she continues the pregnancy.
world famous when he spent ten months in jail in 1975 for hav-
This system makes it very easy for the opinions of doctors or ing performed illegal abortions in his Montreal clinic. However, local communities to determine whether women in that area can in the course of his three trials in Montreal no jury would conhave a legal abortion in their local hospital. It is not compul viet him and finally his stand established the right of women in sory for a hospital to set up a TAC, and only 30 per cent have the province of Quebec to abortion on request, in state clinics
In small hospitals, where there are not even four funded by the health insurance scheme, medicare, in the major doctors on the staff, it is obviously impossible to do so. The cities at least.
situation is particularly bad in rural areas.
The functioning of the clinics in Winnipeg and Toronto is federal government committee of inquiry concluded that this contrary to the 1969 federal abortion law in Candada.
system had led to 'much inequity' for women seeking abortions
Penny DUGGAN
The restrictive nature of the law is not the only obstacle Canadian women face.
Hospitals are restricting the number of abortions they perform under pressure of the need for
Beeconomic cutbacks.
cause abortion is considered 'non-essential surgery there are fewer beds availthe abortions.
nation, abortion
Morgentaler became done so.
This
Neither of
A 1977 report by a
HOS able for it.
There is also the activity of the fanatical right to lifers' to contend with. They have managed to put a lot of pres- WOMEN MIST sure on hospitals in some areas and severely restrict the numbers of abortions performed. For example, in Moneton, New Brunswick the hospital stopped doing abortions for six months in 1982 under the pressure of a campaign aceusing doctors of carrying out a 'silent holocaust'. And according to the Toronto Star *even a raped and pregnant 12-year-old can't find a legal abortion [in New Brunswick] because of intimidated doctors and fanatic lobby groups.' (November 4, 1982). However, a Gallup poll in 1982 showed that 72 per cent of Canadians thought that the decision on abortion should be left to a woman and her doctor.
Although the situation in Toronto is not the worst in Canada it is deteriorating. Judy Rebick, a leading figure and spokeswoman of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) explained how the situation is getting worse:
'We've talked over the last two years about the problems of access [to abortion] in terms of women having to wait a long time, having to spend money above medical insurance premiums, and abortions only being available to women with both money and connections. In the last 14
EGACI ABORTIOL
PROTECTS
WOMANS
"RIGHT,TO LIFE
AGAIN
(DR) two months every hospital in Toronto has severely curtailed or stopped doing second trimester abortions. That means not doing abortions after fourteen weeks. This has created a total crisis in the city, where women who find out they are preg nant too late, or who can't get an appointment with a committee in time, can't get an abortion anywhere in the city of Toronto or province of Ontario?
The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics was set up in September 1982 when women involved in the community health movement, community workers and lawyers decided that something needed to be done about the deteriorat-
DECIDE THER FATE
THE CHURCH
NOT
NOT THE STATE
ing situation, and that the long term lobbying for a free-standing clinic (1)
like Morgentaler's in Montreal had got nowhere.
They decided to set up the sort of clinic he had in Montreal and carry out a campaign as had occurred in Quebec. Dr
Morgentaler was approached for help, which he agreed to give, and another doctor, Dr Smoling also agreed.
1. OCAC defines free-standing clinic a clinic outside of a hospital where abortion are performed on an out-patient basis where a woman is treated with care and dignity.
Some sixty women's groups were invited to a meeting in September which was very well-attended and OCAC set up from there. The coalition realised that a campaign to change public opinion and establish the right of the clinic to exist needed to have mass public support. The group decided to mobilise this support as quickly as possible.
FIRST STAGE IN MOBILISING MASS SUPPORT
The opening date for the clinic was set for November 1982, and a mass rally scheduled for November 18, preceded by a series of newspaper advertisements.
Dr. Morgentaler addressed the mass rally, whose size and scope showed for the first time the potential mass movement that
Although the clinic opened in November, it was evicted, and new premises not found until spring 1983.
In the meantime OCAC continued with its work. Although OCAC supports the clinic which it sees as a test case, it is a completely separate, broader coalition fighting for the legalisation of free-standing clinics and repeal of the federal abortion laws, which include abortion in the criminal code. This requires a longterm political education campaign, intervening in the Ontario Federation of Labour, working with women in the New Democratic Party, and going to other and organisations to get their
Judy Rebick summarised the success of this aspect of the campaign:
*In a year we've been able to completely turn around the whole debate on abortion, from a debate that the press treated as a religious struggle - the way they report the struggle in Northern Ireland — while we understood it as a political struggle. Well, that's the way the press has always reported the abortion hysterical, emotional, religious, heartrending we've managed, by focusing on the question of choice and women's rights human rights, to turn that completely around in the course of a year.
THE CHANGE IN PUBLIC OPINION:
AGAINST ABORTION OR FOR CHOICE
*From my own personal experience I can say that if I went up to someone at a labour convention a year ago and said "I'm from the OCAC" I'm against abortion, they'd say, "Oh,
Today I don't get that response anymore. I get the response, "Well, I'm against abortion, but I'm for choice. I'm in favour of a woman making her own decision." So, the publie education has been really profound.'
New premises were found for the Toronto clinic and it opened again in June 1983. Almost immediately - within two weeks - it was raided by the police. This raid was also a month after the Winnipeg clinic opened by Dr Morgentaler had also been raided.
The police burst into the Toronto clinic one morning, on July 7, roughing trying to interrupt the Although they were prevented from doing that, they did enter the operating room while a woman was on the
Women patients were treated in an intimidatory way and forced to talk about what happened in the clinic. This evidence' is being used in charges against Morgentaler, Smoling and another doctor for 'procuring miscarriages, which can carry a life sentence.
In the preliminary hearing the government's role was revealed quite clearly. The Crown Attorney, who is undoubtedly getting his instructions direct from the Attorney General, asked for bail to be refused unless the doctors accepted his condition that they would not go near
In turning down this request by the prosecution, the judges made a rather significant landmark decision. The two judges talked of the need to avoid turning the doctors into martyrs, and of the social issues involved, arguing that the doctors should not be treated as criminals. As Judy Rebick pointed that social factors such as demonstrations and public support affect the judiciary, but they never admit it!'
During this period the anti-choice organisations remained quite. They relied on the Ontario Attorney General Roy McMurtry to deal with the question for them. This turned out to be a big political mistake as the pro-choice campaign was able to have a monopoly in the press, and had very positive coverage. were some isolated actions by individuals which the anti-abortion groups neither took nor denied responsibility for. These
On the day the Toronto clinic opened, June 15, a man attacked Morgentaler with a pair of
Later an individual set fire to the women's bookshop in the same building as the clinic.
first organised demonstration against the clinic took place in August, organised as People Against Abortion
Despite four days of advertisements in the Toronto Star and bussing people in from towns all over Ontario, it only mustered 1,000 people.
### CONSISTENT SUPPORT
In contrast, public support and mobilisation in support of the clinic has been high, and demonstrations have attracted many people who have never been on a demonstration before. A rally was organised a few days after the fire, to politically pin the blame on the anti-choice groups for stirring up that sort of attack, even if they were not directly responsible. Some 2,000 people attended although it was well into the summer period.
the police raid 150 people gathered spontaneously outside the clinic within an hour. It was a large and militant showing, mainly of women as has been the case consistently throughout the campaign, with good support from men too. They sat on the steps, refusing to allow the police to remove equipment
The following day over 5,000 people attended a rally - at 24 hours notice and in the middle of summer. This was a very militant anti-government demonstration.
According to Judy Rebick, 'People were not there for a picnic or to see their friends, they were there to fight. It was clear in the way they chanted and marched. We can say that in the last one-anda-half months in Toronto we have had more demonstrations on abortion than we had on anything in the last year.'
The Toronto Star published a poll which showed that following the raid 62 per cent of the people in the city supported the clinic. This was an increase of 3 to 4 per cent from before the raid. Some 80 per cent objected to the way the police handled the raid.
### GOVERNMENT RESPONSE:
DIFFUSING THE MOVEMENT
The tactics that the provincial and federal government will use to combat this movement seem to be that they will try and diffuse it by granting piecemeal reforms. In August Judy Ercola, a federal minister, stated that there is a problem with the abortion law, the problem of access to abortion. Ercola and cabinet minister Mark McGuigan have both made statements to this effect, although the provincial government have not yet recog
Thus, the minister stated that access was needed but not the "barber shop' approach, as she called it, of Morgentaler. Possibly such a reform would be to make it compulsory for hospitals of a certain size to have TACs. The Manitoba provincial government attempted this approach, promising to set up an abortion clinic in a hospital, although this
Since the raid the OCAC have added the demand Drop the charges against the doctors' to their central slogan of legalisation for free-standing abortion clinics. It also takes up the theme 'keep the clinic open. At present the clinic is open only for referrals and counselling although it is hoped to restart a full service as soon as
The central slogan of legalisation has succeeded in uniting every group in the women's movement, whether socialist feminist, radical feminist or liberal feminist, any organisation that has anything to do with the women's movement, in a way that has rarely been achieved. these groups are working actively to build the campaign. There has been tremend. ous support from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), its president Cliff Pilkley, and the OFL Women's committee. However, there has not yet been organised support from the union movement in terms of mobilising their membership, although a large number of union women have come to the rallies has a strong orientation towards winning support from the union movement, and
major labour leaders have spoken at all the rallies.
The membership of the labour-based New Democratic Party has also given support. At the federal convention in July a resolution was passed condemning the conspiracy charges brought against Morgentaler in connection with the operation of his Winnipeg clinic. Manitoba has the only NDP provincial government in Canada. The policy of the NDP leadership is that, although the party is pro-choice, it is not in favour of breaking the law. However, the NDP Women's Committee have been fighting strongly for support for the clinic and there is a big struggle inside the party. It was a major victory for the OCAC that Ontario NDP leader Bob Rae spoke at the rally following the raid on the Toronto clinic, although he dissociated himself from the question of the clinic, and said he had come to talk about the question of choice on abortion.
POLITICAL DEBATE IN NDP:
PRO-CHOICE BUT PRO 'LEGALITY'
This debate is raising important political issues within the NDP, such as: should the NDP support illegal actions? The NDP leadership argue no, while party militants, particularly trade-union militants, point out that the union movement would not exist if laws had not been broken, that you often have to break unjust laws to change them, and you have to support social moments on all these issues. The central issue should not be the rule of the law, but whose law it has been.
Although the NDP government in Manitoba is directly responsible for the harassment and closure of the Winnipeg clinic organised opposition within the party has not been so great as in Ontario. It would have been possible for the provincial government to approve the clinic as a hospital within the confines of the existing laws but they did not do so.
The next stage of the campaign is to develop it as a cross-country campaign. Already there is regular co-ordination between campaigns in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario who have common demands, literature, badges, etc., and focus on the test cases around the Winnipeg and Toronto clinics.
The next action is the cross-country day of action for choice on abortion on October 1. The demands for this initiative are: defend a woman's right to choose, remove abortion from the criminal code, legalise free-standing abortion clinics. Actions are already planned in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, Montreal, Halifax, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw. The organisers are receiving news of other actions daily.
This will be the first cross-country action by the women's movement since the abortion caravan in 1970.
The struggle to win, defend, and extend the right of women to abortion has beer one of the major struggles of the women's movement internationally. The 16 breadth of support for the campaign in Canada indicates that tremendous advances have been made in winning mass nece of he more today l
Canada:
It's the most important struggle the women's movement has participated in during my history in the movement. THE MOST IMPORTANT STRUGGLE
'First of all I think the question of abortion is a fundamental question to women's liberation. Reproductive rights are fundamental because if we can't control whether or not we have children, we can't control our lives, even within the confines of capitalism. Obviously, the best solution is complete and universal birth control, but since that doesn't exist we need access to abortion.
*The attack on abortion rights is the tip of the iceberg in the attack on democratic rigats. This movement is in the vanguard of the fight against such an attack - against the effort to roll back our rights in the context of the current economic crisis. Because of the support we've won we can turn what began as a defensive struggle into an offensive one. By winning the clinics we can go on to establish the right to abortion for women.
Secondly, this has important implications for the working class as a whole, not only because half of the working class is female, but right now abortion is only available to women with money. So, really, the struggle is for working class women, for the poor, because those are the women who are denied access now. So, in a more general political sense, this struggle for women's rights and human rights, against the take-backs, directly benefits the whole working class.
"Thirdly, we haven't often seen in Canada a social movement, independent of the union movement, stand up to the government in this way. Our movement has refused to back down, despite intimidation on various levels, from police opening our mail, to death threats, to police raids, to threats of life imprisonment.
"This is both an inspiration to the labour movement to fight in this way, and an example that there are other sectors, beyond the union movement, in society prepared to fight. The coalition today between labour and the various social movements in British Columbia against the viciously anti-labour legislation and cutbacks budget is a further indication. Certainly, here in the abortion rights struggle, we have a coalition between the women's movement and the labour movement on a controversial issue - one that is not strictly workplace related.
Finally, the effect of this campaign on the women's movement has been to unify and politicise it. A lot of debate has occurred over the past year on strategy and tactics. Women who two months ago said to me "I don't believe in demonstrations. They don't have any effect," can see that we have a demonstration, and a week later a judge says, "I don't want to turn these men into martyrs, given the social climate, so I'm going to let them go." How can anyone say that demonstrations have no effect? In this case we see the effects so dramatically, in a way that's rarely seen, because the issue is so hot, and it is having a huge impact on masses of people.'
Mitterrand launches
Liberation Front of Corsica), the French nine of the main leaders of the Consulte sultation Bureau for the Nationalist Committees), the legal organization of the nationalist movement, and charged them with reconstituting a banned association and spreading false information.