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Women Must Pay Attention to 'Real' Choice When Voting |
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Written by Wire Services
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Wednesday, 18 January 2006 |
"The Conservative Party does not have to pass legislation in order to roll back women's rights," declares Katherine McDonald, Executive Director of Action Canada for Population and Development.
"An anti-choice government merely has to appoint anti-choice Ministers, who then appoint anti-choice senior bureaucrats, who then make anti-choice policy on women's rights, human rights, and sexual and reproductive health. They can appoint anti-choice judges. They can stop funding clinics, refuse to approve new contraceptives, refuse to approve medical abortion, refuse to ensure that provinces provide abortion services, and not actively intervene to ensure that provinces provide comprehensive sexual education programs to effectively reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. Pay closer attention to our Southern neighbour if you do not believe me."
Today, Action Canada for Population and Development (ACPD) is calling on all Canadian women to be aware of the "real" choice they are going to make on January 23 when voting for a new Canadian government. When asked by a coalition, including ACPD, about their stance on Sexual Health and Reproductive Health, all major national parties, except the Conservative Party, replied to the questionnaire.
"By providing thoughtful responses to the questionnaire, the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Green Party showed they care about women's sexual and reproductive health and rights. On the other hand, by ignoring the questionnaire, the Conservative Party showed they simply do not care. Does the Conservative Party's silence in response to our questionnaire mean they deny such fundamental rights to women?" asks McDonald.
Even though the Conservative Party agreed at their policy conference to "not support any legislation to regulate abortion," it has, at the same event, also declared that "on issues of moral conscience, such as abortion, the definition of marriage and euthanasia, the Conservative Party acknowledges the diversity of deeply held personal convictions among individual party members and the right of Members of Parliament to adopt positions in consultation with their constituents and to vote freely."
Based on the experiences of the Bush government and other anti-choice governments, ACPD identified examples of how an anti-choice government in Canada can limit access to reproductive health services domestically and internationally. Among others:
- Impose a gag rule on family planning agencies that receive federal funding, censoring information on the abortion option or refuse to provide any funding to such agencies.
- Change government health policy to state that abortion is not a medically necessary procedure which would allow provincial governments to opt out of funding abortion services in hospitals as well as clinics.
- Restrict funding of population and international development programs that include family planning, sex education and/or abortion.
- Change the Criminal Code and the Constitution to give the fetus, directly or indirectly, the legal status of person.
- Provide government funding to anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres and support increased funding of abstinence-only sex education programs.
When this election was called, the Conservative Party held 98 seats. Seventy of those 98 candidates are against a women's right to choose. In contrast, of the 133 Liberal candidates, only 21 are anti-choice. |
