Abortion victory in Canada: A triumph for all women

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... comparable worth TORONTO-"The most important victory for women's rights in Canada since we won the vote." That is how the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) has described the Jan. 28, 1988, Supreme Court decision declaring Canada's abortion law unconstitutional.

The day of the decision was bitterly cold but pro-choice supporters waited in front of the Morgentaler Clinic from 7 a.m. to hear the announcement. Chants of "We won!" and "The people have spoken, the clinics will stay open!" could be heard blocks away. The activists were aware that this decision was imposed on the court by mass pressure. The ruling was not given lightly; it was wrested from them.

The legislation in force prior to January's decision was passed by Trudeau liberals in 1969. That law declared that abortions were legal only if done in a hospital and if a Therapeutic Abortion Committee (TAC) deemed that the life or health of the woman was at risk.

The TACs were made up of three doctors who met in secret and had no direct contact with the women whose lives they were affecting. The decision of the TAC could not be appealed. This law was called an "historic compromise" between the demands of the anti-choice forces, who called for all abortions to be illegal, and the pro-choice forces, who were calling for full access to free For a time the different Federal and Provincial governments were able to win the battle for public opinion by presenting themselves as the sane middle ground between two fanatical groups at opposite poles. As time passed, however, the message of OCAC and other pro-choice groups across the country got through: It is not fanatical to demand that a woman have the right to control her own body, her own reproductive capacity, and the right to decide when and if to have children. And that must include the right to terminate a pregnancy.

Obstacles still remain

While this Supreme Court decision, analogous to the Roe vs. Wade decision in the United States, has given the women of Canada the right to make their own choices on abortion, it does not guarantee access in terms of funding or location.

Several provincial governments have already moved to limit access. In Alberta and Nova Scotia the governments have stated that they will only fund abortions that are done in hospitals that have functioning Therapeutic Abortion Committees, even though they face court challenges as to the legality of this regulation in the face of the Supreme Court decision.

In British Columbia, the right-wing Social Credit Premier, VanderZalm, has gone one step further. He has declared B.C. Medicare will not fund any abortions unless the woman faces death and she demonstrates a need for financing. He flatly refuses to see that this is a return to the two-tiered health-care system wherein women with money are able to get safe medical (continued from page 16)

study to compare state wages with similar pay rates in the private sector. Although Governor Dixy Lee Ray, who had promised support for comparable worth during her election campaign, used the results of this study to raise the pay for top management personnel, she derided the results when it came to state workers. She said attempts to evaluate the comparable worth of jobs were "like comparing apples to pumpkins to cans of worms."

After years of unsuccessful attempts to force the state to implement the study, AFSCME brought suit in 1981. The state legislature responded by amending the Civil Service Act to require implementation of comparable worth by 1993. However, the amount of money appropriated was so small that it would have taken 104 years— with no inflation-to achieve the recommended pay levels.

On Dec. 15, 1983, Judge Jack Tanner ruled, "After careful review of the record herein this court cannot reach any conclusion other than the state of Washington has, and is continuing to 12 SOI HIALIST АСТІОЛ maintain a compensation system which discriminates on the basis of sex.

"The state of Washington has failed to rectify an acknowledged discriminatory disparity in compensation. The state has and is continuing to treat some employees less favorably than others because of their sex, and this treatment is intentional."

Although the Federal Appeals Court later overturned this decision on technicalities, it is still viewed as an important victory for the concept of pay equity. In fact, in order to present themselves in a better light in the courts, the legislature felt forced to appropriate more money for comparableworth settlements, and the state eventually felt compelled to reach an agreement with AFSCME.

Complementary demands

Comparable worth has become a major issue in successful union organizing drives in many predominantly female settings. In 1985, the AFL-CIO unanimously adopted a resolution supporting comparable worth.

As AFSCME attorney Winn Newman explained during the Washington state case, favorable court rulings do not take place in abortions, and working women and poor women end up at an over-crowded emergency room or forced to have babies they do not want and cannot feed.

In Prince Edward Island the problem is somewhat different. The Provincial Government has accepted that abortions can be performed, but hospitals in the province have refused to do them. To date no doctor has offered to set up a free-standing clinic.

In Ontario, Health Minister Eleanor Caplan has announced that Ontario Medicare (The Ontario Health Insurance Plan-OHIP) will pay for abortions done in La vacuum. Just as the passage of the Equal Pay and Civil Rights Acts resulted from the mobilization of hundreds of thousands demanding an end to the Jim Crow system of legalized discrimination, comparableworth gains in the courts are a result of activity on the part of the labor, civil rights, and women's movements.

Both the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW) have made comparable worth a major focus of their activity. This demand goes hand in hand with support for affirmative-action programs allowing women to enter traditionally male jobs.

The simple logic of this demand can be expected to strengthen ties between organized labor and feminist groups, winning additional supporters for women's rights. It can also help expose the capitalist candidates who profess their support to such proposals at campaign time but serve as strike-breakers when elected.

Despite some opponents' claims that comparable worth is a white middle-class issue aimed primarily at bettering the lives of a few professional women, the victories which have been won show that strikes, supported by the community, can raise the wages of some of the most underpaid hospitals and free-standing clinics, like the one run by Doctors Henry Morgentaler and Robert Scott. Unfortunately the OHIP payment will only cover the doctors' services. It will not cover counseling, nursing care, etc., which are covered by the regular funding of a hospital.

On the federal level, right-wing lobbyists and politicians have been calling for new legislation to restrict abortion. This has taken several different routes. One is a call for a limit on the number of weeks of pregnancy during which an abortion can be performed. The biggest threat, however, is the demand to enshrine in the constitution the "rights of the fetus" which will subordinate the rights of women to the rights of the "preborn.

Mass-action strategy

The women's movement in Canada has always called for fully funded, community-based women's clinics where a wide range of health-care needs can be met— including abortion. There have been many debates, however, on how to go about winning abortion rights.

Many different strategies and tactics have been put forward in the movement. Some groups have favored lobbying and writing letters to politicians. There were groups that recognized that both politicians and judges can and must be forced. to make reforms that are advantageous to the working class. These are the women who have advocated the strategy that was used in Quebec in the 1970s and again in Toronto in the last five years: mass action.

Without minimizing the importance of Dr. Morgentaler's heroic contribution, (he challenged the law by opening up his "illegal" clinics, first in Montreal, and more recently in Toronto; all charges against him and other doctors and staff people have been dropped) that battle too was won by getting as many working people into the streets as possible for rallies, demonstrations, and pickets.

This strategy has taken the abortion rights movement into the Ontario Labour Federation and the Canadian Labour Congress, into the anti-racist movement and into the women-of-color groups, into groups of disabled women, and the women's health-care movement. It has shown the movement's ability to find and win allies in all sectors of the workers' and women's movements.

With the pro-choice struggle entering a new phase, it is now essential that the lessons of the recent past not be forgotten. Free-choice forces must go back into the streets to demand full access and full funding from the provincial governments and demand that federal government keep its laws off women's bodies.

Victories for the women's movement and workers' movement may be few and far between these days, but a victory for one is still a victory for all.

Anne MacLelllan Brunelle is a member of the coordinating Committee of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics and the National Committee of the Alliance for Socialist Action.

workers.

Just as discrimination against Blacks, Hispanics, and undocumented workers serves as a brake on the wages of all workers, low-wage female job ghettos are harmful to men as well as women. Equal pay for jobs of comparable worth then becomes a demand which can unite male and female workers increasing their confidence in their ability to effect a change through their unions and help strengthen both the labor and women's movements. I Distributors of Socialist Action In Canada:

Alllance for Soclalist Action 229 College St., Rm. 208 Toronto, Ontario M5T 1R4 (416) 535-8779 Alliance for Soclalist Action Box 2728 Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 4B3 Alliance for Socialist Action P.O. Box 12082 Edmonton, Alberta Alliance for Socialist Action P.O. Box 76916 Station S Vancouver, British Columbia V5R 5T3