A Call to Action Against Legislative Assaults on Reproductive Freedoms

If you find yourself in Montréal this Sunday, there will be a protest against the recent legislative assaults on the reproductive freedoms of Canadian women.

The protest was originately against Bill C-484, but the people behind it decided to broadened its purpose, given that the upcoming elections have effectively put C-484 on hold - for now - and given the other crazy right-wing anti-abortion legislative initiatives that have surfaced recently.

Come and join other feminists and like-minded citizens at 1:30 p.m. in Parc Lahaie (corner of St. Laurent and St. Joseph). Bring signs, t-shirts and catchy slogans.

In the mean time, do visit the organization committee's website.

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As a general note, let's not kid ourselves. On October 14th, Canadians will vote for the future of reproductive and abortion rights in Canada.

Is your current MP pro-choice or does he/she oppose abortion? Check and find out here.

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The Barreau du Québec has finally taken a stand against Bill C-484. The Barreau's letter to the Senate exposes how the C-484 effectively would have the effect of conferring legal personality onto the fetus, and how it could undermine women's right to have an abortion.

More announcements...

... this time with respect to the 20th anniversary of the decriminalization of abortion in Canada.


CÉLÉBRATIONS DU 20e ANNIVERSAIRE DE LA DÉCRIMINALISATION DE L’AVORTEMENT AU CANADA – AN ENGLISH VERSION WILL FOLLOW.

Montréal, le 6 décembre 2007

Le 28 janvier 2008, nous célébrerons le 20e anniversaire du jugement de la Cour suprême du Canada dans l’affaire R. c. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 R.C.S. 30, qui a décriminalisé l’avortement au Canada.

En effet, c’est seulement depuis cette date que les Canadiennes jouissent réellement, et sans crainte de poursuites pénales, du droit à choisir si et quand elles auront des enfants, et à contrôler pleinement leurs capacités reproductives.

Il est donc d’une importance primordiale de s’organiser et de souligner cet anniversaire important comme il se doit, et de rappeler à nos concitoyens et concitoyennes que nous désirons que l’avortement au Canada demeure:

• légal;
• sécuritaire;
• accessible; et
• gratuit.

Nous sommes présentement à la recherche d’autres personnes qui, comme nous, croient qu’il est important de manifester, à l’occasion de cet anniversaire, notre support à la liberté de choisir, et nos craintes quant à la montée de courants politiques conservateurs et hostiles au droit à l’avortement et aux droits des femmes en général.

Le 27 octobre dernier a marqué le 40e anniversaire de la légalisation de l’avortement en Grande-Bretagne. Peu de groupes pro-choix ont souligné cet anniversaire, ce qui a alors laissé toute la place et la visibilité à des groupes anti-choix et soi-disant « pro-vie ». Ne laissons pas cette erreur se répéter chez nous !

Si vous êtes intéressé(e) à souligner de façon spéciale la journée du 28 janvier 2008, veuillez nous contacter par courriel à: 28janvier2008 (arobas) gmail (point) com.

Merci !

Comité 28 janvier 2008

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20th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECRIMINALIZATION OF ABORTION IN CANADA

Montréal, December 6th 2007

January 28, 2008 will mark the 20th anniversary of the judgement of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler, [1988] 1 S.C.R. 30, which officially decriminalized abortion in Canada.

As a matter of fact, it has only been 20 years since Canadian women can truly, and without fear of legal prosecution, exercise their right to choose if and when they will have children, as well as their right to fully control their reproductive capacities.

It is thus extremely of the greatest importance to get organized and celebrate this anniversary as it should, and to remind our fellow citizens that we want abortion in Canada to remain:

• legal;
• safe;
• accessible; and
• free.

We are currently looking for other like- minded people who believe that it is important, on this special day, that we publicly show our support for freedom of choice, and our fears with respect to the rise of conservative political movements that are hostile to the preservation of women’s right to abortion, and to the advancement of women’s rights in general.

October 27th, 2007 marked the 40th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the United Kingdom. While few pro-choice organizations actually celebrated this anniversary, many anti-choice and so-called “pro-life” groups took the opportunity to feed their views to the media. We must not let that happen in Canada!

If you are interested in celebrating this anniversary on January 28, 2008, please contact us by email at 28janvier2008 (at) gmail (dot) com.

Thanks!

Comité 28 Janvier 2008

Campaign against female genital mutilation

The new ads for Amnesty International's campaign are beautiful and horrible at the same time, as they show with great sensitivity and aesthetics - and yet, quite graphically - exactly what female genital mutilation entails.

Here is one of them:

This is what happens when you legalize gay marriage...

Stephen Harper, Peter McKay, and their little conservative/crazy religious right friends must be so happy right now. Here's proof they were right all along about gay marriage. You know, the slippery slope argument? If we allow gays to marry, then we'll have to let people tie the knot with multiple partners, and even animals...


Well, guess what?



It just happened.

Some man in India - you know, a country where gays have been widely accepted for, like, ages- just married a bitch (of the canine kind), apparently as an attempt to break a curse that had plagued him ever since he killed two dogs some 15 years ago.



Here's a picture of the newlyweds.

The dog is actually really cute, but she doesn't seem to be enjoying herself very much... As the good people from CuteOverload would say, she's all "baroo?"

***

So why again are gay rights in general and the issue of gay marriage relevant from a feminist perspective?

Because the concept of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution is based on a reductive view of women's place in society, as well as gender-based stereotypes, which feminists abhor and seek to eradicate. Such premises include:

• The sole purpose of marriage is procreation (So if you're gay, sterile, menopaused or if you simply don't want to reproduce, screw you. This one also presupposes that men would normally not enter into long-term, committed relationships with women if it were not to have sex with them and impregnate them.);
• Only heterosexual, i.e. "complete" couples are able to parent (uh... did Britney get the memo?);
• Children cannot be raised in the absence of a mother and a father (but especially in the absence of a mother, so get back to the kitchen, you selfish, ambitious career girls);
• There is nothing wrong in the heterosexual, patriarchical model of society, as a matter of fact, it has worked just fine for the last thousand years, so why change our good old traditions? (Like treating women, children and icky foreigners as chattels that can be bought, sold and destroyed at will?)

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Accommodation Practices: When racism and misogyny go hand in hand...

It's no secret that the Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles (aka la Commission Bouchard-Taylor) is nothing but a gross, useless and costly farce, which, instead of fostering genuine and thorough consultation of the Québec population and meaningful debate, serves as a soap box on which xenophobic urbanites and hateful small-town folks alike can bash "immigrants" and "foreigners" (i.e. those among us who are not White, Catholic and French-speaking) in total impunity.

I must acknowledge that, hopefully, a few reasonable people have also taken the stand, either to denounce the ridiculousness of it all, the incompetence and arrogance of the Commissioners, and the ignorance and hypocrisy underlying extremist point of views, or to express their support for a liberal, secular, egalitarian, feminist and culturally inclusive society.

On the other hand, I was quite surprised by the number of people who took the stand to say that they missed the good old days when the Catholic Church effectively ruled la Belle Province. In other words, those people only want a secular state as long as other religions are concerned; and if it were up to them, they would reinstate Catholicism as Québec's official religion.

For instance, Jean Tremblay, mayor of Saguenay, went to the Commission to read out a mémoire in which he argued that the Québec government should consult the Catholic Church before making any decision having to do with "moral matters", and that abortion is murder and should be legally considered as such.

(Subsequently, Mayor Tremblay was publicly criticized by city councillors for presenting his personal opinion as the official position of the municipal council. Many citizens also asked for his resignation, because of his extreme religious views.)

Another trend among the intervenors at the Commission was to blame - uh hum... guess who's to blame again? - Québec women for the so-called "accommodation problems". Basically, the reasoning is as follows:

• Québec women selfishly work and have a life of their own instead of making babies by the dozen;
• Québec's birthrate has plummeted for the few past decades;
• Québec has allegedly been welcoming more immigrants lately to compensate for the gap that this lower birthrate has created in the workforce;
• immigrants are more noticeable these days because there are much more of them than before;
• since immigrants, who are not necessarily White, Catholic and French-speaking, have formed new minority communities all over Québec, the Québecois majority naturally feels threatened by them (not to mention ripped of its oppressed minority victim ideology);
• thus, if Québec women had more babies of their own, that is, good, Catholic, White and French-speaking babies, we would not need that many immigrants around.

Consequently, many people have suggested before the Commission - on national TV - that the Québec government implement new measures in order to boost the birthrate of its Québécois citizens.

If you've thought of tax credits for new families, better parental leave policies, or a better and cheap daycare and education system, you're wrong.

The good answer was: strip everybody of their right to vote. Then redistribute it only to Québecois who have married an procreated. (Oh, and the more babies you have, the more votes you get to cast...)

Seriously. I'm not making this up. Watch the Commission's tour and see for yourself.

Or not. It gets really depressing with time...

What's in a name?

It doesn’t take much to incense Conservatives. As if they didn’t have enough with your typical, hairy-legged feminists, now there’s a new breed in town – with even hairier legs.

That’s right folk. Men. Yep, you’ve read it right. Male feminists. Human beings without vaginas who think men and women should be allowed to enjoy and exercise the same civil rights. Just like the feminists you were used to diss, bash or otherwise denigrate, they do all sort of bizarre, hideous and utterly unnatural things that endanger our beloved patriarchal Judeo-Christian Western society.

Things like taking your wife's name upon marriage, for obviously immoral reasons, such as to show her a token of your love and commitment (as opposed, of course, to relinquishing your independent juridical personality and becoming your spouse’s chattel).

Did I scare ya? Thought your cherished civil liberties as a woman were threatened? You silly goose! That was only California! That was just those silly over-the-top conservative Americans! People would never question this practice in an actually progressive country , say, Canada!

In the province of Québec, the law now prohibits women from taking their husbands' surname upon marriage. Enacted as part of a reform of family law that sought to impose gender equality in marital relationships, art. 393 of the Civil Code of Québec provides that “in marriage, both spouses retain their respective names, and exercise their respective civil rights under those names.” When a married woman who bears her husband's surname moves to the province, she will automatically revert back to her maiden name. In the past however, the courts have allowed applications from (religious) women who wanted to change their own surname for their husband's (e.g. Gabriel v. Directeur de l'état civil).

Similarly, a child does not automatically take his father's surname. Art. 51 of the Code provides that the child can bear either his father's surname or his mother's, or both (e.g. Leblanc-Lenoir). Moreover, art. 52 stipulates, where the parents disagree, it's the Director of civil status who will have the final say. (Most often, the Director will give the child a hyphenated surname.)

While viewed from the outside (i.e. the ROC or the US), Québec may seem like a Liberal-minded, feminist haven.

Not so true. Recently, the Globe and Mail ran a story about the trend in Québec of putting aside hyphenated names and going back to the patriarchal tradition of only naming children after their Daddy. The Globe reported that many young adults who themselves had hyphenated names were responsible for this step backwards. The parents that were interviewed cited, in justification for their choice, considerations of convenience (since the maximum number of hyphenated surnames is two, they would have had to choose), the fact that hyphenated names represented a “feminist battle” that is "gasp!* no longer relevant today, and (my favourite one) that it was a way for the father to feel involved in his children's life.

***

Maybe it’s just me, but there really is something unnatural going on in "la belle Province". There is a powerful conservative wind blowing, and it’s sending us years behind...

Want more proof? The local redneck, right-wing party, the ADQ, just won 41 seats at the National Assembly, thereby superseding the secessionist, left-wing Parti Québecois as the opposition. For those of you who are not familiar with the ADQ’s policies, let me just say that they wanted to give families child-care allocations (instead of giving more money to the public child-care system) in order to encourage women to stay at home instead of going to work, one of their candidates publicly called the École Polytechnique massacre a “feminist myth” and negated the prevalence of violence against women, while another candidate has a criminal record for sexual assault.

Ain’t it grand to be a Québécoise these days?

Quote of the Day

"We shall overcome."
- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

***

I came across a trailer for an upcoming film titled "Amazing Grace", about the struggle in England to emancipate the African slaves as persons, and prohibit the slave trade.

At some point in the film, a character reminds his audience that the Bible provides that "all men are created equal".

That statement is still shockingly true today. The civil rights movement, be it in the US, Canada, or in the UK, has only achieved equality between White men, and "Coloured" men. Equality between all men and all women has yet to be achieved...

So, how about a film about the "Persons" Case?