RAARN Citations
Pages
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- Understanding for a Change: Research In Action
- To understand the various impacts on women’s lives of PEI’s abortion policies, we have conducted 45 research conversations ranging between 1-2 hours in our community to document the experience of trying to access abortion services in PEI. We spoke with women who have tried to access abortion and with friends, family, professionals, medical personnel, and advocates who have tried to assist women. Participants often filled various categories, however 22 participants had personally sought abortion services between 1979 and the present day. All participants have experienced multiple barriers and have witnessed blocked access to abortion. The access to abortion was described as a maze of multiple paths leading to dead ends, barriers, and delayed access but participants in the project somehow found a way to end the pregnancy. Some were forced to leave the province, others tried to self induce by their own hand or with the help of boyfriends and others used medical abortion; however without local surgical termination, this choice in at least one case resulted in maltreatment in the local emergency room. Some women were forced to continue the pregnancy, give birth, and parent against their will. All participants documented various harms to health in the maze of trying to access abortion services in PEI. The maze had 4 intersecting trails which characterized several barriers that threatened to entirely block their access to a safe abortion. The barriers consisted of both information and resource barriers. Trail 1 is the “Surgical Abortion Paths through the Public Health System”; The “Medical Abortion Path” is an off shoot of this. Trail 1 has multiple loops connected to the other paths. Trail 2 are a number of “Dead End Paths” which cross other trails and serve to deter the woman from her goal. Trail 3 are the attempts to “Self (Harm) Induce at Home Paths”. Trail 4 are the “Self Referral Surgical Abortion Paths Outside the Public Health System.” Even for women with adequate supports and resources, significant barriers to access to abortion persisted and in many cases, negatively impacted women’s physical, mental and emotional health. Women who were poorer, younger, isolated, or with few supports were the most harmed. Taken together, the first voice accounts and the advocates’ stories described the situation in PEI in recent historical and present day contexts. This understanding will continue the feminist project of promoting women’s health and will be used to inform and influence abortion policy in PEI. in particular and to address reproductive justice policy in general., research presentation
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- Without Apology
- Until the late 1960s, the authorities on abortion were for the most part men—politicians, clergy, lawyers, physicians, all of whom had an interest in regulating women’s bodies. Even today, when we hear women speak publicly about abortion, the voices are usually those of the leaders of women’s and abortion rights organizations, women who hold political office, and, on occasion, female physicians. We also hear quite frequently from spokeswomen for anti-abortion groups. Rarely, however, do we hear the voices of ordinary women—women whose lives have been in some way touched by abortion. Their thoughts typically owe more to human circumstance than to ideology, and without them, we run the risk of thinking and talking about the issue of abortion only in the abstract. Without Apology seeks to address this issue by gathering the voices of activists, feminists, and scholars as well as abortion providers and clinic support staff alongside the stories of women whose experience with abortion is more personal. With the particular aim of moving beyond the polarizing rhetoric that has characterized the issue of abortion and reproductive justice for so long, Without Apology is an engrossing and arresting account that will promote both reflection and discussion., monograph, Published, Open access: http://www.aupress.ca/index.php/books/120257
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- ‘In the image and likeness of God’: Abortion Law Reform and Religion in Letters to the Editors of Canadian Newspapers in the Sixties
- During the 1960s, Canadians were grappling with the social and legal changes that directly affected women’s reproductive lives. One of the contexts in which these changes were occurring was the growing secularization of society. The authors’ analysis of letters to the editors of the Globe and Mail on abortion, however, reveals that over 70% of the letters referenced religious beliefs or institutions. The authors use these letters to explore the ways that readers who commented on abortion referenced religion to legitimize their positions. Specifically, they explore the expressions of the place of Christian beliefs and institutions in discussions of law reform and ideas about women’s roles in a modernizing Canadian society. Examination of the readers’ letters on abortion illuminates perceptions of the churches’ place in a modernizing society, and the degree to which churches were seen as responsive and responsible to their constituents. While religion was a contested field in the abortion law reform debate of the 1960s, it was not ignored; this analysis helps to complicate our understandings of secularization in Canada during the 1960s., article
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- “He is still unwanted”: Women’s Assertions of Authority over Abortion in Letters to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada
- Throughout the 1960s, the public abortion debate was dominated by men. While women’s voices were not absent, they are harder to locate. This article highlights one forum in which women eloquently expresse their feelings about abortion. In submissions to the Royal Commission the Status of Women in Canada, women demonstrated their “right” to speak on the issue in many ways, including by sharing their experiences as mothers or with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies; referencing their professional lives,especially in care giving fields; and drawing moral authority from or opposing religious beliefs. This article analyzes women’s efforts to convey their authority to speak to the legality of abortion, highlighting a component of the 1960s abortion law reform discussion often overlooked.
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- “It was as if society didn't want a woman to get an abortion”: a qualitative study in Istanbul, Turkey
- Introduction: In 1983, abortion without restriction as to reason was legalized in Turkey. However, at an international conference in 2012, the Prime Minister condemned abortion and announced his intent to draft restrictive abortion legislation. As a result of public outcry and protests, the law was not enacted, but media reports suggest that barriers to abortion access have since worsened.
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- “We Are Forced to Declare War”: Linkages between the 1970 Abortion Caravan and Women’s Anti-Vietnam War Activism
- To date, studies of the Abortion Caravan have addressed it primarily within the context of the growth of women’s liberation. At the same time, while the contribution of women to the anti-Vietnam War effort in Canada has been gaining increased scholarly attention, no works have yet explored the links between women’s abortion rights activism and their anti-Vietnam activities. This article explores these linkages through the 1970 Abortion Caravan, using oral history interviews, movement and mainstream media coverage, and the archival files of the Vancouver Women’s Caucus. Connections can be found in the women’s adoption of a language of war, in tactics and strategies used by each movement’s activists, and in the conflict between their competing political interests. This broader contextualization helps to illuminate some of the complexities of women’s abortion rights activism.