The abortion rights movement in Canada focuses on establishing abortion within provincial health regimes to ensure it is available in all regions, especially for those who otherwise could not afford it. The only federal abortion-related law introduced in recent years has been conservative-deprived bills that would ban certain types of abortions or criminalize the killing of a fetus in an attack on a pregnant woman. Passage of the Newfoundland and Labrador Abortion Access Act. This law requires protesters to maintain a legally established distance from abortion clinics. In 1982, there were 66,319 legal abortions in Canada. [33] The interpretation of the 1969 Act varied considerably between physicians and hospitals, resulting in unequal access. The norm was the physical or mental well-being of the woman, which should be decided by the Therapeutic Abortion Committee of a hospital. However, it was not necessary for a hospital to have a TAC to assess women. Only about a third of hospitals had one.
Some committees have taken a Liberal stance and accepted most of the motions, while others have blocked almost all the motions. Access to legal abortion was easy in large metropolitan areas, but much more difficult outside of major cities. In the province of Prince Edward Island, the only therapeutic abortion committee was closed and, after 1982, there were no more legal abortions in the province. [34] Therapeutic abortion committees often took days or weeks to make their decisions and pushed a pregnancy further than it would otherwise have been. Women had not been seen by the committee and had no right to appeal a decision. Proponents of abortion rights believed that the choice should be made by the woman and not by a group of doctors. [35] On October 19, 2012, anti-abortion protester Patricia Maloney expressed concern about 491 cases of live birth abortions between 2000 and 2009. The discovery, reported to Statistics Canada, did not include detailed information on the survival time of each fetus after removal or the number of fetuses that could have been saved. Canada, unlike the United States, does not explicitly have a law that affirms or denies the legal rights of a baby who survives abortion.
On the 23rd. In January 2013, Conservative MPs Wladyslaw Lizon, Leon Benoit and Maurice Vellacott wrote a letter asking the RCMP to investigate the number of 491 live birth abortions that meet the definition of homicide in the Criminal Code. [97] [98] When CBC and The Canadian Press used the phrase “investigate all abortions performed after the 19th week of pregnancy,” Vellacott accused the media of false statements and acknowledged that abortion is perfectly legal in Canada. [99] The CBC/Canadian Press article was subsequently corrected. [97] The decision received approval from Dr. Eike-Henner Kluge, former director of ethics and legal affairs at the Canadian Medical Association, said physicians should “do their best for what a person is now in the eyes of the law.” Dr. However, Douglas Black, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the situation was not a murder situation, but rather that fetuses “die, sometimes in their mother`s arms, depending on the circumstances.” [98] Mifepristone, one of the drugs used for medical abortion, is approved by Health Canada. The product is sold in Canada under the name Mifegymiso®.
PIP: Since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the federal abortion law in 1988 on the grounds that it endangers women`s health due to arbitrary delays and unfair inequalities in access, pro-choice and pro-life organizations have vigorously defended their positions. Currently, there is a legal vacuum in which abortion is not included in the penal code and women are at least theoretically able to make decisions regarding abortion. Several attempts by conservative forces to recriminalize abortion were narrowly rejected because they failed to protect a woman`s right to life, liberty and security. There is no evidence that this legal vacuum has led to a sharp increase in the number of abortions.