Tuesday, January 15, 2008

A little reminder...

In less than two weeks, Canadians will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in our beautiful, so-progressive-I'm-hiding-my-head-in-the-sand country.

Here are two reading suggestions.

The first is an interview with Dr. Henry Morgentaler, to whose efforts and altruism we, Canadian women, mainly owe our reproductive freedom.

The second is an article from the Globe and Mail, by Judith Timson, where she criticizes the mainstream media for depicting abortion as negative, traumatizing or -worse - non-existent. Namely, she takes on the movies Knocked Up and Juno, which both deal with the topic of unwanted pregnancies, which both understate the physical and social impact of an unplanned pregnancy, and which respectively do not mention abortion and quickly dismiss it as an unthinkable option.

Ms. Timson's article makes two majors points. First, such films are at odds with reality. For instance, in Québec, one out of three pregnancies end up as abortions. So - get it? - abortions do exist, and they're not exceptional at all.

Secondly, the mainstream media dismisses the validity of the choice to terminate a pregnancy - as well as the importance of the mere fact that it is available at all. She rightly points out that, not so long ago, teenage girls who got pregnant had to illicitly travel to obtain abortions out of the country, or go through illegal and unsafe procedures.

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