The “barrier of location”

I suppose in a country where there are no legal limitations to abortion, the abortion advocate must turn to other things. What can you ask for in a world where you’ve gotten all you want? More of the same, in the form of access, access, access. For Canada’s “abortion rights” community to continue being active in the political realm, they have to keep asking for things, “progressing”. But what more could you possibly want in Canada?

This is where we begin the argument for abortion access in teeny tiny Anne of Green Gables flaunting PEI, because if you’re an abortion rights advocate in Canada, you’re still running down the dream of “Wherever and whenever a women wants an abortion, she shall easily have one.” Yes, that’s the goal. That if a woman anywhere in this country wants an abortion, we ought give it to her there and then. No cost, no questions, no recourse. So I have to ask myself, what would this “utopia” look like? What exactly are they fighting for?

Immediately the sci-fi novels of my youth start to populate my imagination with images of women walking in the woods, at church, paddling in a canoe, at a shopping mall, and all with immediate access to abortion. How? Maybe there’s a red button, and every woman can get one on her arm, and each time she presses it… presto, abortion. But would it stop there? No, if you’re an abortion rights advocate, you’d say, “Those button providers are too far away!” Women might have to travel some distance to get a button, then what? Maybe they’d all be given one at birth? Would it stop there?

The more we try to envision what an abortion advocates “perfect world” looks like, the more crazy it seems. When Canadians start telling them just how crazy this scenario is, then we’ll be moving in the right direction.

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