The Minister for the Status of Women, Martine Biron, plans to make the right to abortion in Quebec a “sacralized” untouchable by enshrining it in a law. However laudable the original intention may be, the minister should change her mind and concede, as lawyers, experts and women’s groups claim, that not only is the legislation not necessary, but that it would also risk opening up the leads to a weakening of the right to abortion.
History is full of hot lessons that call for caution. At the hands of governments misguided about women’s free choice, even a seemingly robust law can be undone. With an ultra-conservative majority firmly established in the Supreme Court of the United States, the judgment Roe v. wade flew to pieces just a year ago, leaving American women’s right to free choice over their bodies at half mast.
Quebec, obviously, is far from this disaster scenario, with on the contrary a political class totally for the free choice of women, all allegiances combined. But the warnings issued by the Barreau du Québec to Minister Biron exude common sense: first and foremost, a legislative addition or a law to reaffirm the right to abortion is not necessary, because the access to voluntary termination of pregnancy in Quebec is neither threatened nor failed in the depths of a “legal vacuum”. Secondly, and above all, legislating could open the door to possible limitations of this right, which in the end would completely destroy the original intention. In The duty, expert Louise Langevin wisely recommends not to “wake the sleeping bear”. Even today, groups of women are imploring Martine Biron not to throw this stone into the pond.
At this time last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself changed his mind after flirting with the idea of legislating the right to abortion. The detractors of his project had expressed exactly the same reservations to him: rather than solidifying a right otherwise unthreatened, because it is protected by the Charter, the existence of a law would only risk weakening it under an anti-choice government. , exactly as we have seen in many American states.
The anti-choice threat is not a pipe dream in Canada. Since 1988, the year abortion was decriminalized, attempts to curtail women’s freedom of choice in reproductive health have been multiple, and have taken the form of dozens of private bills introduced mostly by conservatives. The last one has just been defeated in the House of Commons. It was Saskatchewan Conservative Cathay Wagantall’s Bill C-311, which, on the spurious grounds of “public safety” — calling for harsher penalties when a pregnant woman is the victim of a crime — attempted to for a fourth time to establish the rights of the fetus by subtly targeting the mother.
Others have rightly pointed out that if Mme Biron wants to make a significant, symbolic and sacred gesture for the right to abortion, even though she is interested on the ground in the accessibility of services, which are not, in the opinion of all the groups working on the front line, distributed equitably across Quebec. For that, there is no need for a law. Resources, political will and good intentions should suffice. Of all this, Martine Biron seems not to miss.