BRITISH COLUMBIA

Clinics sate option to class-biaset
abortion rules | a

By ANGELA KENYON

B.C. Minister of Health Peter Dueck is
set this week to deliver the report on abor-
tion services in the province to Premier Bill
Vander Zalm. But whatever facts that
report may bring to light, it is certain that
the plight of increasing numbers of B.C.
women who are denied access to abortion in
their home communities will not be
emphasized.

It is equally certain that the effects of the
subsequent increased demand for abortions
in Vancouver — as women from outside
the Lower Mainland come to the city seek-
ing an abortion — will not bea highlight of
the report.

But the escalating problem of accessibil-
ity to abortion is of great concern to
members of the health professions and
everyone committed to the rights of women
won over the last 20 years.

There. are 115 hospitals in British
Columbia but only 50 have therapeutic
abortion committees as required by Section
251 of the Criminal Code for an abortion to
be performed legally.

The most recent available figures for
1984-85 reveal that just 10 of those 52 hospi-
tals, most located in the Lower Mainland,

erform 70 per cent of the total number of
abortions performed in the province.
Eleven hospitals with a therapeutic abor-
tion committee perform few or no abor-
tions. At a hospital the committee exists

aper only.

eg women in northern British Colum-
bia, there is virtually no access to abortion
services. Hospitals in Prince George, Prince
Rupert, Smithers and Terrace do have
committees but reputedly rarely approve
abortions.

Recently, anti-choice supporters gained
control of hospital boards in Vernon and
Kamloops. Both boards immediately dis-
solved the existing therapeutic abortion
committees. The options of women in these
cities facing unwanted pregnancies are now
limited to going through with the preg-
nancy, seeking an illegal abortion in their
community, or finding both the money and
the time to travel away from home to obtain
a legal abortion.

The class nature of the present system is
readily apparent as those women with
money can travel out of town to Vancouver
or to the United States where abortions are

rformed at clinics usually on the day of
request for a fee of $200. Poor women
become biological and economic prisoners.

“We are seeing more and more women
from out of town,” says Maggie Thompson,
a volunteer at the Vancouver Women’s
Health Collective. “And for many of them
coming here is a real hardship.

“The time factor is so critical and few of
them realize just how long the process of
getting to see a doctor and having the abor-
tion scheduled (classified in B.C. as elective
surgery) can take,” she said adding that
frequently women are forced by default to
have abortions beyond the recommended

12th week of pregnancy. ;

Thompson believes that the growing

demand from out of town women for abor-
tions in Vancouver is putting a “real strain
on the medical system here.” Doctors who
could previously schedule first appoint-
ments within a few days now have two or
three week waiting lists.
- The recent case of a woman from the
Interior cited by Thompson highlights some
of the problems that can be experienced by
women seeking an abortion under the pres-
ent system.

The woman had confirmed her preg-
nancy at six weeks and was advised by her
doctor to request in writing an interview

with the therapeutic abortion committee at
her local hospital. After persistent attempts
Over a number of weeks to meet with the
committee, she was finally advised by public

health officials that the committee there -

rarely approved the procedure and was
advised to travel to Vancouver. 3

On arrival in Vancouver in her ninth
week of pregnancy, she was misled into

believing that the Birthright Pregnancy
Counselling Centre run by Lions for Life .

could assist her in obtaining an abortion.
The centre advertises regularly in the daily
newspapers and also on the buses in the
Lower Mainland. At Birthright she was
advised that abortions are illegal and shown
movies of fetal development.

By the time the woman found her way to
the Women’s Health Collective, she was 10
weeks pregnant and “extremely distressed,”
said Thompson. “The risks involved for her
physically and psychologically were in-
creased enormously by her experience of
trying to obtain a legal abortion.”

_ Concerned Citizens for Choice on Abor-
tion (CCCA) has been emphasizing the
dangers of declining access to abortion ser-
vices for some years now but the present
“overburdening of the health care system in
the Lower Mainland is ludicrous and unac-
ceptable to us,” said Norah Hutchison,
spokesperson for CCCA.

“As long as abortion remains in the

Criminal Code we will see increasingly
reduced access. It is inherent in the thera-
peutic abortion committee System as hospi-
tal boards are taken over and services are
easily shut down.
“The delays built into the present system
increase the stress for woman herself, for the
medical community, for everyone involved,”
she said.

Pro-choice supporters in Vancouver are
beginning the work of solving the crisis of
access with the formation of a coalition
committed to the opening of a free-standing
abortion clinic in Vancouver,

The campaign was officially launched in
October last year when Dr. Nikki Colodny,
currently facing charges for her work in the
Morgentaler abortion clinic in Toronto,
and pro-choice activist Carolyn Egan came
to Vancouver as guests of CCCA and other
pro-choice organizations.

A clinic for Vancouver is seen as a short
term goal. The final objective of the coali-
tion is the establishment of reproductive
health clinics throughout the province with
all services covered by the B.C. Medical
Services Plan.

A clinic would go a long way in lowering
the health risks faced by women seeking
abortion. The delays in the present system
would be reduced.

However, Vander Zalm has already
declared his opposition to a free-standing
abortion clinic in Vancouver and_ the
government’s stand has made it clear that
establishing a clinic — and increasing
accessibility to abortion for women — will
be a major battle.

CCCA requested in a letter to the pre-
mier in September and again in January
that he hold a public inquiry into abortion
services but there was no response from his
office. ,

It is certain that the report he requested
from the Ministry of Health will support the
right-wing agenda of the Social Credit
government and will do nothing to show the
present crisis in access.

The campaign for a free-standing abor-
tion clinic in Vancouver demands the sup-
port of all people who recognize that a
woman’s equality in society and in the
workplace is inextricably linked to her right
to choose when and if to bear children.

reg? TT Ty

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY MARCH, 1986 ... accessibility to aborti

facilities diminishing under Socred government policies.

Women’s meet backs
peace, coalition
for solidarity

By BETTY GRIFFIN
“Unity, unity, unity, is the key word
that will make possible the liberation of
peoples in Canada, the United States and
Latin America,” was the concluding
message from Sophia Montenegro of

ence in Solidarity with Women of Latin
America, March 1, attended by more
than 200 delegates from across Canada.

“We must all learn from past mistakes
and not reproduce them. We cannot
allow disunity, sectarianism nor dogma-
tism, or the United States will smash our
movements,” she told participants.

Also addrssing the conference were
Mireya Lucero, who works in rural El
Salvador to build agricultural collectives,
Ligia de Prieto de Centurion of the
Union of Paraguayan Women whose
passport was confiscated for three years
after speaking out against the 33-year
dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Storessner
— but who is willing to take the chance
of having her words quoted if it will help
build international support for her
people — and Gabriela Correa of Chile,
who was arrested in 1976 after returning
from Argentina and questioned by inter-
rogators who knew exactly whom she
had met and where she had been.

Alejandra Martinez from Guatemala,
Elba Luz Borja of El Salvador and Ama-
lia Dixon Cunnigham of Nicaragua as
well as Canadians — aldermen Eunice
Parker and Libby Davies, and Jeanette
Armstrong — led a number of panel
discussions.

The chairperson of the previous con-
ference, and also Canadian president of
the Congress of Canadian Women, Vir-
ginia Thompson, brought greetings on
behalf of the Canadian Preparatory
Committee for the World Congress of
Women in Moscow this June, sponsored
by the Women’s International Demo-
cratic Federation. The theme this year is
“Towards the Year 2000 — Without
Nuclear Weapons.”

Nicaragua to the fifth Canadian Confer- .

In the many discussions during the
two days, delegates expressed their con-
cern regarding the need to intensify and
co-ordinate the struggles against impe-
rialism to solve the problems of eco-
nomic development, the strengthening of
regional co-operation and radical res-
tructuring of international economic
relations on a democratic and just basis.
They also noted that the campaign must
include countering the militarist course
of the United States and other NATO
countries, since the arms race leads
directly to the deterioration of the eco-
nomic situation of developing countries.

More than 60 resolutions were pres-
ented in the final plenary session, includ-
ing a call for the establishment of 2
Canadian coalition on solidarity, strong
condemnation of the Canadian govern-
ment’s action in closing the border tc
refugees and messages of support to var-
ious groups in Latin American countries

Underlying much of the discussion of
the many problems of poverty, repres-
sion, torture, the disappeared, and the
incredible hardships borne by millions o!
people, was the question of peace. The
conference endorsed the Soviet peace
proposals to end the arms race by the
year 2000, condemned cruise missile test-
ing in Canada and encouraged all those
present representing organizations tc
press their groups to join the Canadiar
Peace Alliance. Delegates also approvec
messages to Prime Minister Mulroney
demanding that Canada disallow Sta:
Wars research in Canadian universities
and asking him to introduce a resolutior
at the UN proposing sanctions agains!
the Pinochet government of Chile. Sup
port for Tools for Peace was passed a:
well as support for Nicaragua’s peace
proposals.

The next conference will be held ir
Edmonton.

-—~—-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 4, 1987 «