In 1989, I was 16 and I was not a feminist. But that year, I had to become one. In this Quebec that we thought was progressive, where we often heard that feminism was no longer necessary, to be put away in the mothballs with the hippie ponchos of the 1970s, two events marked women with a hot iron: the Chantale Daigle affair and the Polytechnique massacre.
Series Disobey: Chantale Daigle’s choice which has just landed on Crave opens with the TV announcement of the Polytechnique shooting while Chantale Daigle arranges the Christmas tree with her family. A necessary nod, because these two events are linked in the collective memory of Quebec feminists. They remind us that attacks on women are repeated. I would like to write that in 2023, all this is a thing of the past, but current events prevent me from doing so. In Iran and Afghanistan, everything is done so that girls do not have access to education. In the United States, the right to abortion has experienced an unprecedented setback with the reversal of the judgment Roe v. wade. And at home, conservatives would like to reopen the debate.
But let’s go back to 1989, “the year of all dangers for the women’s movement”, has already written Francine Pelletier. Abortion had just been decriminalized with the Morgentaler decision, and we thought it was an acquired right until a certain Jean-Guy Tremblay asked for an injunction to prevent his ex-spouse, Chantale Daigle , to have an abortion. This story, which would go all the way to the Supreme Court, was definitely worth telling, because even though I followed the case at the time, I learned a lot from the show – and I didn’t. only saw the first two episodes.
Among other things that the right to abortion can turn around on a dime in the hands of lawyers and judges who can interpret the texts of the law in a twisted way.
But sometimes all it takes is a particular case to become aware of the breaches and plug them up – let us recall that very recently, an aberration in the Civil Code was corrected when a sexual aggressor claimed paternity of a child born of rape in daring to ask for a DNA test. From now on, no rapist will be able to afford such indecency in Quebec. The audacity of these men who use justice to maintain their grip on their victims is limitless, it seems.
I remember that in 1989, we saw anti-choice activists appear, wondering where they came from, when it seemed to us that we had just turned the page on this subject. This led to the largest demonstration for abortion in the history of Quebec. It was also at this time that I started having nightmares in which I was pregnant, but it was too late to have an abortion.
Because there is a painful suspense in this affair, since as the procedures multiply, Chantale Daigle must wait with a fetus which she does not want which grows in her belly. It’s amazing to see this again today in a series very well written by Daniel Thibault and Isabelle Pelletier, directed by Alexis Durand-Brault and carried by excellent performers – Éléonore Loiselle plays Chantale Daigle with sensitivity and Antoine Pilon performs brilliantly the thankless task of playing Jean-Guy Tremblay.
What is particularly moving is to see a modest 21-year-old young woman face a medical and legal power that has little concern for her fundamental rights, when she has just emerged from a toxic relationship with a violent man.
Chantale (with an e), whom I then saw as a “madam”, was only five years older than me and was plunged into a legal and media whirlwind despite herself, in addition to becoming a symbol of the right to ‘abortion. Something was at stake there and concerned all women. Far from letting it go, Chantale Daigle will go to have an abortion in the United States just before the decision of the Supreme Court, which had thrown everyone on the ass and hence the title Disobey. I can’t wait to see the next episodes.
Looking back and through this production, I have even more respect for this woman, now a mother of four children and leading a discreet life. I even wonder why we didn’t do a series on this subject long before. Fortunately, a new generation will be able to discover this aberrant but fundamental story. And from a Chantal (no e) to a Chantale (with an e), I just want to say: thank you.
Disobey: Chantale Daigle’s choiceon Crave