Comments on: Bad Ass Women’s Activist of the Week: 20 Years of Legal Abortion in Canada Edition

By: patrick

patrick — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:53:48 +0000

I think that it is a salient point to note that though Harper and this incarnation of the Tories (I miss the PROGRESSIVE Conservatives, they may have been jerks but least they weren’t wannabe Texas fundie loons) haven’t looked to repeal or roll back the R v. Morgentaler by means of new legislation. Of course that issue could come up if Harper gains a majority. Hopefully the desire to maintain or gain seats in Quebec will mute that possibility as secularism and social liberalism now appear to be what Quebecers/Quebecois consider to be their foundational values (see the reasonable accommodation debates of the past year).
Canada has a long way to go in realizing sex and gender equality but the Morgentaler decision was a key one for our future.
By the way, anyone in Victoria, there’s a film festival about abortion coming up. I thinks its called “A Womb With a View”. Probably worth checking out.
Thanks for the article about Canada, Cara. It set my nationalist Canuck heart aglow.

By: Ran

Ran — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:04:34 +0000

The legal concepts of “mootness” and “liveness” — the Court will only take a case if it’s become relevant and still is — are well established. However, an exception is made in the case that the same putative right may be re-putatively-violated with the same parties, in which case the previous putative violation is deemed to satisfy mootness, and the possibility of repetition is deemed to satisfy liveness. The with the same parties part is an interesting one — in WWII there was a case the Court refused to hear, of a suspected spy executed without a fair trial, because the guy was already dead so there was nothing they could do about it — so they didn’t address the question of whether the Government could do it again.

(That said, I don’t know about Roe specifically.)

By: Cara

Cara — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:29:04 +0000

No, Merp, she didn’t. There’s no way that you could get a case to the Supreme Court that quickly. In fact, the district attorney tried to get the Court to throw out the case on the basis that it was no longer relevant because Roe had already given birth. Thank god, the Court was smart enough to realize that if that was the standard, they would never have an opportunity to look at the case and dismissed the motion. I think that they allowed it to be refiled on behalf of all women in the jurisdiction of the specific law in question. I can’t image that they would be so rational and fair today.

By: merp

merp — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:49:35 +0000

Wait, what? Roe didn’t have her abortion? Huh… what happened there?… guess I can go find out for myself sometime… anyway, that’s something to think about this early in the AM.

Yeah, I live in one of the mentioned provinces w/out a clinic. I’m not sure, but I’m assuming a person could get an abortion at a hospital, though, and it’s not horridly impossible to get to one of those. The lack of women’s centres (clinics, I suppose they’re called) where I’m from is a f-ing shame, since there is certainly a need. Oh, Canada.

By: Ran

Ran — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:59:02 +0000

It is worth noting, however, that Canada is apparently the only Western country that has no federal laws restricting abortion — that’s right, none. That includes abortions after 20 weeks, the most contested and likely to be restricted elsewhere, and amazingly enough they are still only performed for extreme fetal deformity that would result in death or stillbirth or for the health of the woman.

That’s good to know. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, but it’s reassuring anyway.