Choice to Order

Why I am glad that I live in Canada: not because I shall ever need to avail myself of a legal, provincially funded abortion, but because the majority of Canadians support the concept of a woman's right to choose.

Dr. Henry Morgentaler – Auschwitz survivor, Canadian physician, controversial activist for the rights of women to choose abortion – has been awarded the Order of Canada. This is the latest, and most prestigious of a series of awards honouring his service to women.

Morgentaler has endured repeated arrests, physical attacks, and the bombing of his abortion clinic. All his arrests resulted in acquittals. The 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Morgentaler et al. v. Her Majesty The Queen 1988 (1 S.C.R. 30) ended all statutory restrictions on abortion in Canada. The decision was based upon Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states that: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

"Everyone", of course, applying to sentient children and adults and not to fetuses.

Needless to say, the minority anti-abortion lobby is bitterly trooping out the predictable, tired old arguments about "murdering babies".