No New Law on Abortion

"Keep your laws off my body”

by Treena Khan and Michelle Smith Canadian University Press

They came marching through downtown Ottawa to the rhythm of 500 chanting voices.

”One, two, three, four, open up the clinic door! Five, six, seven, eight, don’t tell us when to procreate!”

As the crowd approached Par- liament Hill, a woman watching the procession from the sidewalk spat on one of the marchers. The protestors, many of them stu- dents from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa, walked on.

The pro-choice movement has had its share of problems. Pro- choice yroups have lacked the vis- ibility and apparent strength of the pro-life movement, which has staged emotional and dramatic campaigns across North America for the rights of the unborn.

And until January 1988, it lacked the force of the law.

But the events surrounding the abortion debate this past summer have instigated a massive mobilization of the pro-choice movement.

The Chantal Daigle case fo- cused national attention on a woman’s right to choose, when her boyfriend launched legal ac- tion to stop her from attaining an abortion. Daigle finally won the case in the Supreme Court of ~ Canada.

Saturday’s country-wide Day of Action was in support of Cana- dian women’s right to choose, condemning the possible intro- duction of abortion legislation by Parliament.

More than 17,000 people took part in pro-choice rallies in more than 31 cities across Canada Oct. 14th, around the theme ”Don’t lose the ~ight to choose.”

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= Thursday, October 26, 1989;

By 6:30 p.m., the crowd in Ottawa was nearly 2,000 strong. They yelled, cheered, sang, and waved placards and flashlights in the air for the television cameras to see.

With the moon rising over Parliament’s East Block, the chanting and cheering of the excited crowd reverberated throughout Parliament Hill.

Children playing soccer on the west field of the Hill didn’t seem to notice the intensity of the speeches from representa- tives of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Ontario Fedetation of Students, Canadian Federation of Students’ Pacific Region and oth- ers.

"Since the Chantal Daigle case this year, the pro-choice movement’s gained a lot of sup- port — the pro-life’s lost a lot,” said Pierre Beaulne, a member of the Carleton Pro-Choice Net- work.

A middle-aged couple on the fringe of the crowd kept their gaze fixed on the speaker, each firmly gripping the sides of their sign, reading ”No New Law!”

And while the Daigle case has converted people to the pro- choice side, and stirred-others out of apathy, these two are long-time fighters.

Gwen Norminton has been a member of CARAL since 1974. "That was the year I had an abortion —- in New York,” she said. Norminton had undergone a tubal ligation in Ottawa two years before.

"I already had two sons,” she said. ”I didn’t think I could han- dle yet another child.”

The operation, however, did not prevent Norminton from be- coming pregnant again.

She returned to the doctor who performed the tubal ligation, but he wasn’t sympathetic.

™My doctor was very pro- life,” she said with a trace of anger. ”I told him I couldn’t han- dle another child, and all he said was, "Yes, you can.”

Norminton

eventually brought him to provin- cial court. ”Valium and I took him all the way to Toronto,” she said. ”I wanted him to phone all the women that he had performed the operation on and inform them that his operation didn’t work.”

Normantin had no reserva- tions about having an abortion. ”I had a miscarriage between my two sons,” she said in a trembling voice. ”I just started bleeding, and it just came out in the toilet.

What I saw wasn’t a child. It was not a human being.” Nor- mantin didn’t ask her doctor to perform the abortion, already aware of what his feelings were about it.

She could not go to another doctor in Ottawa, either, since, at that time, the law required each woman’s case to be presented to a hospital board for approval.

”T couldn’t wait for the whole process, while this fetus was get- ting bigger and bigger. And I didn’t want to be turned down,” she said.

She found a doctor who could have performed the abortion, but he had a two-week waiting list.

She then turned to the now- defunct Association for the Re- peal of Canadian Abortion Law (ARCAL), a counselling group, for support. They recommended an abortion clinic in New York.

So we told the children we were going to Montreal for the weekend,” said Norminton. ”I cried all the way there and all the way back because my govern- ment wouldn’t allow me to have an abortion in Canada.”

She said she wasn’t the only one going to the United States for the operation.

”There were six other women from Ottawa with me in that clinic in New York that week- end,” she said. ”And I let the politicians know that later.”

Norminton turned to her hus- band, Ted, who was standing back and letting her tell her story.

”And this guy has supported me all the way,” she said. Norminton said she was satis- fied with her decision to have the abortion.

”T had no guilt feelings,” she said. ”I went home and the neigh- bors brought the children to me and I cried for joy because there was so much relief. Whatever en- ergy I had, I could give my love to them, I didn’t have to spread it any further. I knew I couldn’t.”

Fifteen years later, Norminton stands with the rest of the crowd gathered on the Hill, rallying against the possibil- ity of a new law which would re- strict abortion rights.

"The politicians are hitting on the kids, the teenagers, say- ing they’ll just-use abortions as a method of birth control,” she said.

But Norminton doesn’t agree with the government. ”The abor- tion I had was by a suction method,” she recalled. ”I could still feel it, in my mind, for a long time after that. Only people with a low mental capacity would want $e go through fuat over and over.”

Norminton said women still need to have access to abortions. ”No birth control method is per- fect,” she said. ”I have friends - one who was on the Pill, one who was using an I.U.D. (intrauter- ine device) — who both got preg- nant.”

Norminton’s voice, which had become louder and higher, sud- denly grew quiet. ”The anti- choice people put forth this con- cept of putting a child up for adoption. Not everybody can do that. There’s no way I could have gone through the emotional nine months, give birth, and then give it up,” she explained.

She surveyed the chanting crowd around her. ”Then I re- alized that the moral issue was whether what I was carrying was a child or not. And I knew from the miscarriage that it was not,” she said.

You can kneel and you can = ay, But women’s rights are here to stay!

A woman in a red cloak walked through the crowd, draw- ing ironic smiles from the crowd.

”There’s a handmaiden in our midst,” said CARAL spokesper- son Cindy Moriarty, her voice booming over the loudspeaker. People looked around with know- ing faces.

The cloaked woman repre- sented the handmaidens in Mar- garet Atwood’s novel The Hand- maid’s Tale.

Forced to keep their entire bodies concealed from head to toe in red cloaks and to wear white hats with wings that block pe- ripheral vision, Atwood’s hand- maids represent women’s status in repressive societies where the notion of choice never arises. With all the singing, poetry read- ings, and speeches that were de- livered throughout the evening, the enthusiasm of the crowd never waned.

Ending‘ with singer Tracy Chapman’s song, ”Talkin’ Bout A Revolution,” the pro-choicers’ day of action appeared to reiter- ate pop musician’s words that a new revolution was beginning.

Michelle Hurtubise, an orga- nizer with the University of Ot- tawa’s Pro-Choice Network, used a megaphone to blast the mes- sage that the pro-choice move- ment had been reactivated.

"It’s not going to stop with tonight,” she said.

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