Padaviya

Since the 2010 elections, states across the country have proposed literally hundreds of  restrictive new laws in an attempt to eliminate access to safe abortion care through various means. But the ongoing assault on women’s rights to decide whether and when to have a child, the general public’s attitude on abortion has remained virtually unchanged.

Via The Center for American Progress:

[A] steady majority supports women’s reproductive rights. The same [Pew Research Center] poll found 53 percent saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 39 percent who thought it should be illegal in all or most cases. This is very close to the average split over the last couple of years, which, in turn, is very close to the split back in 2007-08.

Interestingly, only 16 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be illegal in all situations, yet it seems to be that 16 percent that is trying to make most of the new abortion laws in the country, foregoing even the most basic of exceptions like rape, incest or mother’s health.

Abortion rights are at the centre of a debate set for this afternoon as MPs consider whether to hold a special committee to look at when human life begins.

Stephen Woodworth, a Conservative MP from Kitchener, Ont., introduced a private member’s motion calling for the committee. Woodworth says current Canadian law says human life begins when a child has fully emerged from the mother’s birth canal, which is based on a 400-year-old definition imported from Britain.

The motion isn’t binding, but allows MPs to spend two hours discussing the need — or lack thereof — for a committee to examine the question of when life begins.

When he announced the motion, Woodworth had argued he was simply interested in updating the law to agree with 21st-century medicine. But speaking to Radio-Canada on Monday, he admitted his motion is linked to abortion.

“It certainly allows us to have an honest discussion about the abortion question. How can we honestly discuss all of the complicated issues around abortion if we cannot decide whether or not a child is a human being before the moment of the complete birth?” Woodworth said.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday, he cast the debate as one about human rights.

“If in Canada we cannot agree that a law which decrees that some human beings are not human is wrong, then we need to definitely have some discussion about that. That really is the starting point for any just system of laws,” Woodworth said.

“It’s a serious debate. It should be addressed.”

The motion will get one hour of debate at about 5:30 p.m. ET. Then it drops to the bottom on the order of precedence, and gets another hour of debate when it returns to the top of the list. The House will vote on the motion the following Wednesday, which Woodworth expects will be in June or September, after the summer recess.

No New Democratic MP support

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said no one in his caucus supports the motion but he plans to whip the vote, or force his MPs to vote along party lines.

“We’re resolutely in favour of women’s right to choose, so it’s very clear for us, and we are absolutely opposed to this motion of Mr. Woodworth,” he said.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said he’s going to allow Liberal MPs to vote however they want, known as “voting their conscience.”

In question period, New Democrat MP Niki Ashton said the Conservatives are rolling back Canadian women’s rights.

“A woman’s right to choose, in Canada, in 2012, is not up to negotiation,” she said.

But some of Woodworth’s colleagues disagreed.

Conservative Saskatchewan MP Brad Trost, who has previously talked about wanting to limit abortion, said he plans to support the motion.

Trost said MPs keep bringing up the issue — despite Prime Minister Stephen Harper saying repeatedly that his government will not reopen the debate on abortion — “because Members of Parliament are duty-bound by both their constituents and their conscience to argue for things that they feel [are] important.”

“Mr. Woodworth feels this is important. He feels this is a thoughtful, proper thing for Canada. And I, like a lot of members, think it’s time that we looked at this in a way that brings compassion to everyone involved.”

Question of conscience

While Harper has pledged not to raise the abortion issue, it’s not clear whether the Conservatives will whip the vote for cabinet ministers or for the caucus as a whole.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, who is a practising Catholic, says party tradition is to allow free votes on issues of conscience.

“I’m going to consult my constituents and consider the implications before taking a decision,” Kenney said.

“My position is that we must have free votes on questions of conscience.”

A spokesman for Harper says the government doesn’t usually “communicate its parliamentary strategy” before a vote.

“The [prime minister] has been clear — he will not reopen this issue,” Andrew MacDougall told CBC News.

Sign the Petition!

Background (Preamble):

“Women Can’t Be Trusted.” That’s the new name that women activists at the NDP convention have given to Motion M-312, Tory MP Stephen Woodworth’s thus-far successful trek down the bloody path of ending abortion rights in Canada. Women are angry, and the NDP is hearing them.

The slogan is not as snappy as my favourite, “Wombs for Woodworth,” but it has the virtue of being direct, much better than the Kitchener MP’s own timid “Canada’s 400-Year-Old Definition of a Human Being Motion M-312.” He’s passing himself off as a modernizer, this absurd MP who Tweets about his head cold and declares on his website, “All Canadians want the same things.”

No. We don’t. I hope your cold gets better. But we don’t all agree that a girl or a woman should be forced to give birth. Please leave us alone, sir.

Woodworth pretends that allowing a woman dominion over her own body is as old-fashioned as carbon paper. Golly, let’s digitize these old rules for gals and what goes on Down There. He won’t use the word “abortion,” and I call that cowardly.

His progress so far: in April, he will begin a Commons debate on establishing a Conservative-led MPs committee to decide how deeply the state can intrude into the body cavities of every pregnant woman.

We can reasonably assume the committee will find that life begins right at conception, when the egg and sperm meet. It may even begin before that, who knows, when a man reaches orgasm and his sperm travels hopefully toward a lolling egg. I know, it’s hard to believe we’re discussing this again.

A woman’s uterus is not her own, according to many Conservatives. I cannot help envisioning bony — or indeed fat — government fingers inside what I called “Ladyland” in a recent column, for the sheer colloquial fun of it. More realistically, these MPs want to rule on what happens medically in the vagina, cervix, uterus and, let’s get breezy again, Female Whatnot.

But the fact is, the Supreme Court decided the matter in 1988; the motion is legal nonsense born of misogyny, and it violates a woman’s right to “life, liberty, bodily security, conscience and equality,” as the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has elegantly put it.

The fact that there is no legal case to make isn’t stopping Woodworth.

NDP women — and men — must make sure women’s rights are front and centre at the convention. A majority Conservative government gets its way on everything. The NDP needs a fiery leader who can win over Canadian voters on abortion rights, even if the House of Commons votes against women.

There is indeed a war on women. It’s boiling in the U.S. right now, with birth control under threat and women being tormented, and not just by thugs like Rush Limbaugh either. Texas women, told that their fetus is terribly deformed and will suffer constant pain, cannot now have an abortion without enduring ultrasounds, elaborate fetal descriptions, waiting periods and incorrect medical advice that abortion causes breast cancer. The women sob and the clinicians apologize repeatedly, saying the law makes them do this.

An Arizona bill would allow employers to not only refuse to pay for birth control but demote or fire women who then choose to pay for their own.

Women are responding with ridicule, posting news of vaginal events on politicians’ websites and Facebook pages. Comedian/commentator Stephen Colbert, misplacing his blender, used a transvaginal ultrasound wand on his show — to make margaritas.

But it doesn’t change the fact that the most primitive politicians in the U.S. and Canada — elected partly because our political systems no longer attract the best, brightest people — are targeting women, sexuality, modernity and urban ways.

So much is at stake here. Feminism has faded from the screen. We women took our rights for granted. The candidates for NDP leader are hardly charismatic, Layton having failed to groom a terrific successor. We are paying the price now. The party needs a firebrand, a passionate soul, maybe a yeller.

Will the new NDP leader have the courage, luck, intelligence and stamina to defeat a long-held — if currently stifled — Conservative desire to end women’s right to choose? The issue is crucial to how women vote, donate and believe.

I watch the NDP and tremble for the future of our daughters.

Conservative MP Steven Woodworth is putting forward a motion to open debate on “when life begins”, which of course is actually a ploy to open the debate on abortion, with the goal to criminalize it.

—FemRev Collective
2011 RebELLEs OC

OTTAWA — A controversial proposal from a Conservative backbencher to legally define fetuses as human beings — and reopen the abortion debate — will have its day in the House of Commons.

Tory MP Stephen Woodworth wants Parliament to create a committee of politicians whose task it will be to review a law that stops short of defining unborn children as “human beings.”

A committee of MPs has agreed to give Woodworth at least one hour of debate sometime in April. He will receive a second hour of debate sometime either in late spring or early fall.

If parliamentarians agree to Woodworth’s request, a special committee would review Section 223 of the Criminal Code, which says a child becomes “a human being … when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

That section of the Criminal Code says a homicide on a child happens when someone “causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.”

The review, he argues, is needed because the law is based on a 400-year-old definition of human being.

“If a child five minutes before birth can be defined as not a human being, then the question is who’s next?” he argued.

Woodworth said his proposal will be wrapped up in the emotions that surround the abortion debate, but he doesn’t intend to back down even though his own party has said the government has no interest in reopening the abortion debate.

“The prime minister and justice minister have to speak for themselves. I don’t take any issue with any statement that the government won’t reopen this debate,” he said.

“I’m acting as a private member.”

Since 1988, Canada has had no legal restrictions on abortion.

El Salvador today is not a good place to be a woman. In 1998, the government passed a new Penal Code creating a complete ban on abortion. No exceptions. This was a shift from an earlier law which allowed abortions in cases of threats to the health or life of the woman, as well as for rape, incest, or severe fetal abnormality. Passage of the ban made El Salvador one of only five countries in Latin America—including Nicaragua, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and Chile—that maintain an absolute ban abortion.

And now women’s groups are fighting it. Today, the Center for Reproductive Rights joined with local Salvadoran organization Colectiva de Mujeres para el Desarrollo Local to file a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights protesting the current law and based on the case of a woman who died in prison after being jailed for a miscarriage.

Reading the words of the ban underscores just how draconian it is. Chapter II of El Salvador’s reformed Penal Code, dealing with “Crimes Against the Life of Human Beings in the First Stages of Development,” penalizes women who induce their own abortions; give their consent to someone else to induce an abortion; doctors, pharmacists or other health care workers who practice abortions; persons who encourage a woman to have an abortion or provide the financial means to obtain an abortion; and persons who unintentionally cause an abortion. According to an October 2010 shadow report to the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Report on Violations of Women’s Human Rights Due to the Complete Criminalization of Abortion:

El Salvador’s restrictive abortion laws were further solidified in 1999 with a constitutional amendment defining a human being “from the moment of conception.

For good measure, and to make sure these laws were strictly enforced against apparently dangerous women trying desperately to control their lives, the country established a policing apparatus to prosecute, investigate and denounce any suspicious activities in public hospitals and other places in the country.

El Salvador’s ultra-conservative Catholic Church hierarchy played a leading role in passing the new law banning abortion under any circumstance. A human rights analysis conducted in the years after the new penal code was put in place underscores how the shift in the Church’s leadership and philosophy, from the seventies when it focused on social justice and organizing peasants to the nineties, when things changed dramatically, contributed heavily to passage of the ban. According to the analysis, the Roman Catholic Church and right-wing Catholic groups in countries like El Salvador… “exert direct influence on regulatory changes that limit the exercise of women’s rights, counter to international agreements.”

The Catholic Church’s role as a protector of social justice and human rights, and its impact on social issues changed… with the appointment of the new Archbishop of San Salvador. He is a member of the right-wing Opus Dei and has the support of the ruling class as well as close ties with right-wing nongovernmental organizations. This change has influenced the stance of both the Church and the government with regard to social issues that affect women in particular.

In 1997, the Church and right-wing Catholic groups joined with others in a full-on campaign against abortion, mobilizing students from Catholic schools, campaigning through the media and using other means of pushing for the passage of the new penal code and the complete ban until it was passed.

Since its passage, according to CRR, “the ban has resulted in tragic and often fatal consequences” for the women living in the country, resulting in “the arbitrary imprisonment of women suffering from miscarriages and complications in their pregnancies.” 

Such was the case of “Manuela” (a pseudonym). According to CRR, Manuela was a 33-year-old Salvadoran mother of two who was  convicted of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison after suffering an apparent miscarriage and severe complications giving birth. No trial, no appeal. Thirty years.

From the moment Manuela arrived at the hospital seeking emergency health  care, slipping in and out of consciousness and hemorrhaging, doctors treated her as if she had attempted an abortion and immediately called the police. She was shackled to her hospital bed and accused of murder.

Manuela  was sentenced to 30 years in prison without ever having a chance to  meet with her lawyer, without an opportunity to speak in her own defense, and without the right to appeal the decision. Shockingly, the  judge overseeing her case said that “her maternal instinct should have  prevailed” and “she should have protected her child.”

After several months in prison, it was discovered that the visible tumors Manuela had on her neck for which she sought medical care several times without being accurately diagnosed, was advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma — a  disease that likely lead to the severe obstetric emergency she suffered.

“Tragically,” continues CRR, “Manuela did not receive the appropriate treatment for her disease and died in prison in 2010, leaving behind her two young children.”

Her illness could have been caught earlier if she had received adequate  medical attention when she consulted about her tumors in years prior, and if medical officials treating her during her emergency paid any  attention to her condition, rather than focusing on reporting her to  authorities.

This case exhibits all the most draconian aspects of already-draconian anti-choice laws, many of which are in now in force in various parts of the United States. Profound and fundamental mistrust of women. Abusive laws that remove from women any choice in whether, when, with whom, and under what life or health circumstances to have a child or another child. Policing of maternity wards. The criminalization and arrest of women who have had miscarriages. Disregard for the right to life of living, breathing women.

“El  Salvador’s laws have turned emergency rooms into crime scenes,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of CRR, “forcing pregnant women to live under a dark cloud of suspicion. The  international community must come together to demand an end to this  cruel treatment of women and make a commitment to safeguard fundamental  reproductive rights.”  Like Manuela, many women in El Salvador who miscarry or experience emergency obstetric complications are charged with aggravated murder, for which they can be  imprisoned for up to 50 years, and subsequently spend decades behind bars.

Is this just? Is this what is meant by “right to life?”

The legal campaign by CRR and Colectiva de Mujeres marks the first time an international judicial body will hear the case of a woman imprisoned for seeking medical care due to  obstetric emergencies, as a result of a total abortion ban. The case  argues that El Salvador’s absolute ban on abortion violates a number of  human rights, including the right to life, right to personal integrity  and liberty, right to humane treatment, and the right to a fair trial and judicial protection.

“Salvadoran  women have been unjustly persecuted by their government for far too  long,” said Mónica Arango, CRR’s regional director for Latin America and  the Caribbean. “We are bringing Manuela’s case before an international  human rights body so women won’t suffer the same tragic fate, and El  Salvador can finally be held accountable.”

“Liberalizing  restrictive abortion laws, like El Salvador’s, is essential to saving the lives and protecting the health of millions of women across the  globe every year,” said Northup. “Study after study has shown there are no positive outcomes to banning abortion outright.”

A recent study by the World Health Organization and the Guttmacher Institute  underscores what has been shown before: Restrictive abortion laws are not associated  with lower rates of abortion. According to the study, the 2008 abortion rate in Latin America—a region where abortion is highly restricted in almost all countries—was 32 per 1,000 women of childbearing age, while in Western Europe, where abortion is generally permitted on broad  grounds, the rate is just 12 per 1,000.

Apart from the very real, though largely invisible tragedies of women like Manuela imprisoned for miscarriage or those who may have been arrested for thwarting a law that assigns absolutely no value to their lives, there is another critical issue here as well. 

The proliferation of abortion bans and other such laws at the state level in the United States, the efforts to eliminate access to contraception for a large share of women in this country, the heavy involvement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in laws and policies governing women’s rights, the increasing degree of degrading speech about women used by politicians together underscores just how much closer we are  every day to a theocratic/right wing state like El Salvador. How far will we let things slide before the lives and health of ourselves and our daughters mean nothing?  And how long will we stand by while the “religious right” abuses women, whether they live here or in El Salvador?

Several prominent newspapers chose not to publish a series of Doonesbury comics because they address forced ultrasound legislation. But in the new media world we live in, their decision not to publish the comic strips ensures they will be much more widely read. 

And you can help!

Let’s make sure these are among the most seen Doonesbury comics ever.

Here’s a short link to use for this comic: http://bit.ly/yGkt65

Here’s a short link to use for this comic: http://bit.ly/AoliCI

Here’s a short link to use for this comic: http://bit.ly/xcBF6G

Here is a list of the media outlets who refused to publish these comics.  Take a couple of moments to post the comic in their comment sections, Facebook pages and Twitter streams.  You’ll have to “like” the media outlet on Facebook to post on their pages… a small price to pay for activism! 

* * * * * * *

The Los Angeles Times refused to publish the Doonesbury comics in their comics section, where people would look for them. They published them, but in their op-ed section. We know, we know - we don’t see an “opinion” either. 

You can post on their Facebook wall here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them: 

* * * * * * *

The Houston Chronicle in Texas (!) likewise refused to publish the comics in their comics section. Instead, they moved the strips to their “Outlooks” page, where no one would know or care to look. If any publication should be publishing these comics on their front page, it’s any publication located in Texas!

You can post on their Facebook wall here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them: 

* * * * * * *

The Athens Banner-Herald in Georgia refused to publish the comics because the editors “thought there was a real possibility that readers might confuse the topic of this week’s ‘Doonesbury’ with Georgia’s proposed abortion legislation.” Umm, all the more reason to discuss the issue in your paper!

You can post on their Facebook wall here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them: 

* * * * * * *

The Oregonian refused to publish the comics because they “went over the line of good taste and humor.” Yeah, maybe, but only because forced ultrasounds and shaming of women goes over the line of good taste and humor. 

You can post to the Oregonian’s Facebook page here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them: 

* * * * * * *

The Indianapolis Star declined to publish the strips in print. You can post to their Facebook wall here or tweet at them here:

* * * * * * *

The Arizona Star likewise declined to publish (in print). You can post to their Facebook wall here or tweet at them here: 

* * * * * * *

The SC Herald refused to publish the comics because the editors were “concerned about the graphic content.” How this excuse applies remains unclear.

You can post to the SC Herald’s Facebook page here  or you can click this button to tweet at them:

* * * * * * *

The CA Reporter refused to publish the comics because “[e]ditors believe [cartoonist Gary Trudeau] has expressed that opinion in a manner that skirts, if not crosses, the boundaries of good taste expected in a family newspaper.” Because good taste would obviously be to encourage anti-choice legislation, duh.

You can post to the CA Reporter’s Facebook page here or you can click this button to tweet at them:

* * * * * * *

The Ocala Star Banner is not running the series of strips.  Hit up their Facebook wall here and tweet them:

* * * * * * *

The UT Standard-Examiner refused to publish the comics because the ”language in the original strips was not appropriate for a comic that could be viewed by children.” Tell that to Rush Limbaugh. This is a political comic strip and “slut” is a political word, these days.

Tweet at the Standard-Examiner here:

* * * * * * *

The Press of Atlantic City refused to publish the comics because ”Texas abortion cartoons venture too far for the comics pages.” That’s really not an explanation.

You can post to the Press of Atlantic City’s Facebook page here.

* * * * * * *

The Gainesville Sun in Florida refused to publish the strips. Find them on Facebook here and tweet at them by clicking here:

* * * * * * *

The St. Paul Pioneer Press refused to publish the comics in print because “[t]he editors have decided the commentary in some panels is inappropriate for the comics section in the newspaper.” Not this again - what’s the criteria for “appropriate” comics?!

You can post to the St. Paul Pioneer Press’ Facebook page here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them:

* * * * * * *

The Fort Worth Star Telegram refused to publish the comics in print, and today published an article stating that “the reason for not printing the strip has nothing to do with left- or right-wing politics. It has everything to do with civility and consistency.” Come on, really?

You can post to the Fort Worth Star Telegram’s Facebook page here, comment at their website here or you can click this button to tweet at them: 

* * * * * * *

The North Carolina News & Record and the Winston-Salem Journal (both smaller NC newspapers) refused to publish the strips in print. You can post to the Winston-Salem Journal’s Facebook site here. You can tweet at the News & Record here:   or at the Winston-Salem Journal here: 

* * * * * * *

The Utica Observer-Dispatch refused to publish the strips in print. You can post to their Facebook page here, comment on their website here (registration required) or you can click this button to tweet at them:  

* * * * * * *

The Tallahassee Democrat refused to publish the comics in print, and no one will say why. According to one reader, “Thus far, [there has been] no disclosure about its decision either in the paper or online.” After all, TD, you wouldn’t want to say the wrong thing.

You can post to the Tallahassee Democrat’s Facebook page here or you can click this button to tweet at them … 

When I went to work at Ms. in 1972, I wore a matching pink skirt and blouse—and a girdle. I had just gotten married and was, therefore, not able to get a bank loan without my husband’s approval. I had given up playing basketball (half-court for girls) in college because no coach or court could be found. And I had had an illegal abortion.

Actually it was having had that abortion that was my first tie to Ms. and the women’s movement. The Preview Issue of the magazine, which was excerpted in New York magazine, included among such classics as “Click! The Housewife’s Moment of Truth” by Jane O’Reilly and “I Want a Wife” by Judy Syfers, a list of celebrity names under the headline “We Have Had Abortions.” It took a lot of courage back then to admit to what was a crime. In the corner was a coupon which readers could fill out to add their name to the list. I filled it out with pride and relief (I hadn’t admitted to my crime before), and by the time those coupons were being counted and processed several months later, I was managing editor of Ms.

Many of the social, economic, and political restrictions that held women back were overthrown during the 17 years I was there, and Ms. was a prime mover in that wave of change. Every day at work I was learning a lot about women and about myself. I know for sure that I would not be the person I am today had I not been part of the Ms. experience, and I certainly would not have had the expertise to draw on when I started writing about Second Adulthood (Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, Fifty Is the New Fifty, and out this month How We Love Now). Without the women’s movement, I wouldn’t have had the courage or the confidence to even draw on that expertise and go public with my ideas.

This year Ms. celebrates its fortieth anniversary. It’s hard to believe that it has been so long, and when I look at photographs I am amazed at how young we were! My daughter is 25, the age of most of the staff back then. She wears whatever she pleases—but never a girdle (do they still exist?); she has several credit cards in her name; she has maintained a commitment to volleyball throughout her school years and now plays on a (co-ed) New York City team; and if she needed an abortion, she could get one (though women, especially rural women, in other states, would have a much harder time).

The battles we fought are won, but not over. Women still earn less for the same job than men; the fashion and beauty industry still makes us feel we should look a certain way and if we don’t—especially if we are over forty—we should be ashamed. Title IX, which made women’s sports viable, is under siege from those institutions that think their athletic budgets are better spent on football. And as every election and legislative session reminds us, the right to choose abortion is under siege. Her generation will undoubtedly be called upon to hold onto these gains.

As she moves through her life, my daughter will also come up against still unresolved inequities. If she marries and has children, she will quickly learn that no matter how much of the work and family responsibilities her partner shares, the workplace is inhospitable to the needs of working parents. Sure, we now have family leave policies, but since frequently they are unpaid, time off is a luxury most can’t afford. And although work hours have eased up somewhat, there is a price for that flexibility too—a gentle shove off the fast track. That will have to change.

Caregiving in general, she will learn, is still women’s work. Studies show that when a family is called upon to take care of an aging or ailing relative, it is almost always a female (an unmarried female is usually the first choice—as if she didn’t have pressures and responsibilities of her own, including being her own sole financial support) who gets nominated. I see care-getting as a new frontier that I hope my daughter’s generation will cross; it is time for our society to step in where individual (unpaid) caregivers are toiling, and it is essential for all those caregivers to be encouraged to give the same degree of care that they are expending on others to their own well-being.

Her generation will also have issues of their own. But thanks to the strength and confidence they have absorbed from the changing world Ms. has been celebrating—and chastising—for 40 years, I have no doubt that they will prevail.

Stanford University will mark the 40th anniversary of Ms. magazine with a winter quarter of more than 25 events titled: “Ms. at 40 and the Future of Feminism.” The symposium, which will run from January through March, will feature lectures, panel discussions. performances, exhibits and an international, multigenerational essay contest.

Just as we will condemn those who force women to continue pregnancies against their will, we condemn those who would take away any woman’s right to continue a pregnacny.  Even a judge.

According to ABC News, a Massachusetts judge ordered a mentally ill woman who discovered she was pregnant to have an unwanted abortion, and to be sterilized against her will, as well.

[Family and Probate Court Judge Christina] Harms found the woman would choose to end her pregnancy if she were competent and agreed to appoint her parents as guardians “for the purpose of consenting to the extraordinary procedures of abortion and sterilization,” the Appeals Court said.

The Appeals Court ruling does not identify the woman, who is believed to be about five months pregnant.

The judge reasoned that if Moe were competent, she would opt for an abortion to benefit from medication that otherwise could not be given to her because of its effects on the fetus.

The Appeals Court said the judge also directed the clinic to sterilize the woman at the same time “to avoid this painful situation from recurring in the future.”

The Appeals court said that the woman, who considers herself Catholic, refused requests to have an abortion, and that no one besides Harms had even brought up the idea of sterilization.

A fetus’s gender should not be revealed until after 30 weeks of pregnancy, says an editorial in the Canadian Medical Journal.

This change in procedure for a fetal ultrasound, where the sex is usually disclosed to parents at 20 weeks, would help prevent female feticide, says Rajendra Kale, editor-in-chief of the CMAJ.

In Canada, doctors rarely perform abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy unless the baby has a lethal fetal abnormality or the mother’s life is in danger because of the pregnancy.

Kale says that in countries such as India, China, Korea and Vietnam, female fetuses are commonly aborted because of a preference for sons. Though by no means widespread, the practice is carried out by some immigrants to Canada, Kale says.

His editorial cites a small U.S. study of about 65 immigrant Indian women that found 40 per cent had terminated earlier pregnancies, and 89 per cent pursued abortions in their most recent pregnancies after learning they were having girls. Previous Canadian research has suggested that sex selection is occurring in Canada in certain groups when families have had girls and are seeking a son.

The practice has created a gender imbalance in these communities.

“A pregnant woman being told the sex of the fetus at ultrasonography at a time when an unquestioned abortion is possible is the starting point of female feticide from a health-care perspective,” writes Kale.

A study done in Canada found a distorted ratio of male to female births in the Indo-Canadian community, particularly among couples that already have two daughters.

“So clearly female feticide is happening, especially at the time of the third child,” Kale said.

In the editorial, Kale proposes postponing the disclosure of the gender, which he called “medically irrelevant information” in most cases, until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy.

Obstetricians group disagrees

Kale wants to see gender disclosure policies at 30 weeks adopted by the provincial colleges that govern doctors. “Such clear direction from regulatory bodies would be the most important step toward curbing female feticide in Canada.”

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada said Kale’ s proposal is inconsistent with their policy, which states that “a patient’s request for disclosure should be respected, either directly or in a report to the referring health professional.”

In an email to CBC News, the obstetricians group said it believes it is the right of the patient to be informed of the gender of the fetus.

The editorial also did not consider tests on the market that give expectant parents a fetal sex determination of high accuracy as early as eight weeks into a pregnancy, the group notes.

People will always try to get around regulations but that’s no reason not to have them, Kale counters.

The obstetricians group says it doesn’t condone abortions based on non-medical reasons such as the gender of the fetus.

“The SOGC feels strongly that it is the cultural values and norms in specific segments of the Canadian population that must change to ensure that females are not confronted with procedures and intolerant environments before or after they are born,” the association said.

Education call

Dr. Pargat Singh Bhurji, a pediatrician in Surrey, B.C., calls the practice of female feticide barbaric.

“People [do] not want to come forward to talk about this,” Bhurji said. “But what I’m saying is this is definitely happening.”

Couples can go to clinics in the U.S. that advertise early sex determination in Indian newspapers, Bhurji notes. Cultural factors such as dowry and the belief a boy is needed to carry the family name drive some, he adds.

The long-term goal has to be education, Bhurji says.

Dr. Samuel Soliman of the New Life Fertility Centre in Mississauga said some patients have told him they’ve had abortions after having a girl or two.

“I think it is part of the whole spectrum of violence against women, which starts from inside the uterus to the outside and the value of women,” says Soliman.

While the rule against disclosing gender might work in Canada, Soliman said, it would not apply in the U.S., Soliman notes.

[comment from me: “doctors rarely perform abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy” may be true in practice, but it’s not the legal case. In Canada, you can legally have an abortion at ANY point in your pregnancy, so introducing a rule about telling women the sex of their baby later is relying on the refusal of doctors to obey the law and provide abortions after 30 weeks. Though I agree that sex-selective abortions is troubling and shouldn’t be ignored, doctors withholding information from pregnant women strikes me as condescending, obnoxious, and unprofessional, and a slippery slope toward restricting access to abortion in general because we apparently feel that women are too stupid to make decisions for ourselves.]

Last week, the UK Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC), published the world’s largest, most comprehensive and systematic review of mental health outcomes and abortion care. The review included 44 high-quality studies done in developed countries and published between 1990 and 2011.

The conclusion? Having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems. “The best current evidence,” according to the Academy, “suggests that it makes no difference to a woman’s mental health whether she chooses to have an abortion or to continue with the pregnancy.”

A commentary on the study published in the December 17th of the British Medical Journal, The Lancet notes:  “Past studies on the effect of an induced abortion on mental health have been mixed in terms of their quality, findings, and interpretation. Some have shown no harm while others have found associations with mental disorders.”

Last week, the world’s largest, most comprehensive systematic review on mental health outcomes of abortion was published by the UK Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AMRC). The review claimed to provide a definitive answer: having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems.

According to the Academy’s own statement, the review’s Steering Group and the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) at the Royal College of Psychiatrists (NCCMH) “carried out a systematic and comprehensive search of the literature and identified 180 potentially relevant studies published between 1990 and 2011.”

The Steering Group was careful to ensure only the best quality evidence was used, so all studies were subject to multiple quality assessments. In total, 44 papers were included in the review.

On the basis of the best evidence available, the Steering Group concluded that:

• Having an unwanted pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of mental health problems. However, the rates of mental health problems for women with an unwanted pregnancy are the same, whether they have an abortion or give birth.

• The most reliable predictor of post-abortion mental health problems is having a history of mental health problems. In other words, women who have had mental health problems before the abortion are at greater risk of mental health problems after the abortion.

• Some other factors may be associated with increased rates of post-abortion mental health problems, such as a woman having a negative attitude towards abortions in general, being under pressure from her partner to have an abortion, or experiencing other stressful life events.

The Steering Group recommends that future practice and research should focus on supporting all women who have an unwanted pregnancy.

These results, said The Lancet, “should guide care and advice for women with unwanted pregnancies who need mental health support whatever the resolution of their pregnancy.”

Prevention of unwanted pregnancies is also crucial through education and the provision of contraception. But women still face barriers to accessing these services.

Last week, continued The Lancet, “US Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius vetoed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation to make the emergency contraceptive pill, Plan B, available without prescription to all women of childbearing age in the USA. Plan B will not be available without prescription to girls 16 years or younger under the ruling.”

The AMRC’s findings show that Sebelius’s decision is an assault on the mental health of women as well as their reproductive rights. It should be reversed.

We could not agree more.

Take action to help reverse this decision—click here to tell President Obama not to let science and medical standards be trumped by politics.