A Woman’s Right to Choose and Access Abortion Services By Mary Lawrence, Women in Negations facilitator and Prince George teacher
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elegates to the 2018 BCTF AGM made the momentous decision that we are a pro-choice union:
41.B.05—That the Federation support the right of women to: 1. decide whether or when to have children, and to make decisions about abortion without interference by the state or others. 2. freely access abortion-related medical services regardless of age, relationship status, or geographic location. 3. similarly access a full range of information, counselling, and other sexual health services in their communities. (81 AGM, p. 17) (18 AGM, p. 9) Equitable access to health care has always been a focus of the BCTF, and with the inclusion of Policy 41.B.05, we cemented our commitment to ensuring that women across the country are able to choose abortion and abortionrelated medical services, not just legally, but in actual practice.
Abortion rights are necessary for everyone’s freedom. People who have carried unwanted pregnancies know that whispered myths, superstitions, and recipes for products that end pregnancy have been passed down orally through generations. Not only do those carrying a pregnancy tackle the physical and emotional repercussions of pregnancy and birth, they often become the principal caregiver. This means that they will be the one who carries the primary responsibility of parenthood and childrearing, and in doing so, absorb the social, physical, and professional repercussions associated with those roles. Family planning is thus a tool of liberation by allowing women to decide when and how they bring children into their lives and permitting them to shake off the constraints that come with social conceptions of motherhood and parenting. Safe and accessible abortion means more than ensuring that women have control over their bodies; it
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While the BCTF has been publicly in support of “reproductive freedom” in the past, this AGM decision made the important distinction of naming abortion specifically. This is a commendable choice—one that resists the anti-choice push to silence those striving for reproductive justice through the purposeful and malicious stigmatization of the language needed to express our rights and freedoms. The anti-choice movement has wielded language like a weapon. Physicians who provide abortion services are called “abortionists,” embryos are called “babies,” and patients labeled as “murderers.”
In response to this stigmatization, advocates for abortion and increased access to abortion have blanketed their goals in language that seems more palatable to the public. The strategic stigmatizing of medical language, particularly the word “abortion,” has worked in favour of anti-choice organizations who know that we cannot advocate for what we cannot name. When this motion was passed and Policy 41.B.05 became the official position of the BCTF, we showed those intent on stripping women of their rights and autonomy that we will not be afraid to name what we are fighting for. We will not allow them to succeed in their attempts to stigmatize us into silence.
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BCTF Social Justice Newsletter, Winter/Spring 2020
