Women are still forced to ask Daddy Patriarchy for permission when it comes to reproductive rights. Being denied access to a safe abortion because a doctor is Catholic, for example, seems absurd in 2016. Yet here we are. The bright side is progress is being made, at a snail’s pace perhaps, but made nonetheless. This year a new medical abortion option will become available to women: RU-486 (marketed in Canada as Mifegymiso).

Medical abortions provide more choices to women as well, putting more control in women’s hands, “As usual with medical decisions, there are a variety of factors at play,” writes Planned Parenthood Toronto in response to my questions, “including many personal ones, and the important thing is that there is a choice at all.”

Mifegymiso has been available for women in France for over two decades. In Canada it usually takes nine months for a drug to be approved. Mifegymiso was reviewed by Health Canada for two and-a-half years. It’s now hoped this option will become available in the spring. Mifegymiso is a combination of two drugs. The first drug will prevent the production of progesterone, which prepares the uterine lining for pregnancy. The second drug, misoprostol, will cause contractions, eventually leading to an abortion. The process is similar to a miscarriage, and can even be used to aid in such situations. Only doctors will be able to give women a prescription for Mifegymiso, at least to begin with.

The current medical option is similar, using a mixture of methotrexate and, again, misoprostol. Methotrexate blocks cell growth; in the case of abortions it prevents the placenta from growing. This same drug is used to treat cancer and arthritis, as well as ectopic pregnancies. Misoprostol is taken at home, 3 to 7 days after the methotrexate is injected. A woman may choose a time that best suits her needs within this time frame. Misoprostol comes in tablets to be inserted vaginally. Like with Mifegymiso, the methotrexate misoprostol combo creates an abortion similar to a miscarriage.

While a trained pharmacist can fill the prescription, they must deliver it directly to a physician, who will have to administer the medication. It is never in the hands of a patient. So, as a Toronto Star article points out, “But if you’re in a remote or rural community, you don’t have a family doctor or your primary care provider doesn’t want to prescribe an abortifacent pill, you could be in the same boat, access-wise, you are now.”

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

It’s a wee bit more complicated than our single-payer health care, but let me put it this way: by January, if you are female bodied, American, and have insurance through your employer, you will have access to contraception with no co-pay. Neat, right? Pop the champagne? Pull out an encore of the celebratory Bollywood videos?

Well, not for everyone. A couple right-wing extremists, in fact, were downright incensed.

Father Frank Pavone, president of Priests for Life, described the mandate as “unjust”. And Republican House representative Mike Kelly called August 1 a date that will “live in infamy” alongside Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center attacks. Why? Kelly thinks that forcing companies to provide contraception coverage for their employees goes against employers’ religious liberties and is an attack on America.

That’s right. Kelly is comparing birth control provision to the attacks that killed his country’s civilians and provoked large-scale military actions.

Mike Kelly called the mandate an “attack on our religious freedom.” But, as I noted yesterday, Reverend Harry Knox of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice alleges that those who challenge the mandate are the real attackers of individual liberty.

You know, when people say unbelievable things in the Internet age, you pretty much have two choices:

You can get mad.

Or you can post animal videos.

Pierre Trudeau. Bill C-150, passed by his government on May 15, 1969, ushered in a new era of human rights in Canada.

Tomorrow, let’s take a moment to reflect on the 42nd anniversary of the passing of Bill C-150, the omnibus bill that decriminalized abortion, contraception and homosexuality. The rights that Canadians have because of this historic bill are crucial to remember as those same rights come under attack elsewhere: on Wednesday, Indiana became the first state in the U.S. to cut public funding to Planned Parenthood. The same day in Uganda, gay people came close to facing the death penalty.

On May 14, 1969, The Criminal Law Amendment Act formed the legal foundations for the Canadian gay rights movement, and for Henry Morgentaler to perform abortions against — and eventually according to — the law. But it didn’t reduce discrimination, or grant women and members of the LGBTQ community full rights under the charter. Forty-two years later, how much has changed?

Abortion and contraception then:

In the 1950s, a family of five was considered small, explained former nurse Lucie Pepin in her speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of Bill C-150. Many women in rural communities gave birth to their children at home. When complications occurred during birth, the mother was rushed to hospital. If it was too late for a cesarian, her doctor had a decision to make:

“Which to save — the baby or the mother? The Church was clear: save the baby. The Church was clear on many points — women sinned if they refused sexual relations with their husbands or any other form of contraception. The State was also clear. Contraception was illegal and so was abortion.”

Women had no choice in the matter, and neither did their doctors. But Bill C-150 at least changed the latter. The legislation decreed abortion was permissible if a committee of three doctors felt the pregnancy endangered the mental, emotional or physical well-being of the mother. Regard was not given just yet to women’s charter rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

Enter Henry Morgentaler. In 1969, armed with decisive arguments in favour of a woman’s right to an abortion within the first three months of pregnancy, the doctor began performing the procedure illegally in his Montreal clinic. An exchange in 1970 between the adamant doctor and a furious caller on CBC Radio highlighted the fundamental disagreement between the doctor and his critics about when life begins.

Now:

The debate hasn’t progressed. It has degenerated into little more than a shouting match between so-called “pro-life” and “pro-choice” advocates who still can’t agree on when life begins, or whose rights win out: those of the mother or those of the unborn fetus. And recently the Canadian debate has shifted for the worse.

In Indiana, the governor was quite happy to openly chop away at Planned Parenthood’s $2 million in public funding. Meanwhile, in Canada, subtler shifts are taking place. During the election, Tory MP Brad Trost bragged that the Conservative government had successfully cut funding to Planned Parenthood. Stephen Harper quickly denied the comments, saying he would not re-open the abortion debate as long as he is Prime Minister. However, the International Planned Parenthood Federation has been waiting for 18 months to hear whether their funding from the Canadian government will be renewed. During the election, women’s rights groups foreshadowed the Conservatives’ indecision on the matter warning Canadians that Harper would be under pressure from his caucus to re-open the debate. With a Conservative majority now in government, that pressure is sure to grow.

Homosexuality then:

149 Members of Parliament agreed with Trudeau and 55 did not after he famously said “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” According to his omnibus bill, acts of homosexual sex committed in private between consenting adults would no longer be prosecuted. But gay sex between people younger than 21 was still illegal.

A Gallup Poll at the time that asked Canadians whether they thought homosexual sex should be legal or illegal found 42 percent in favour of decriminalization and 41 percent against. Homosexuality was openly discussed as an “illness” that ought to be cured. Progressive Conservative Justice Critic Eldon Woolliams voted in favour of Trudeau’s bill so that gays could have the equal opportunity to receive treatment. On February 2, 1969, he said casually on CBC television:

“I don’t think (homosexuality) should ever be put in the criminal code. I think it should be taken out. It should be done in a medical way so that these people could be sent to centres if we feel as citizens who oppose the feeling of this illness and this homosexuality so they could be rehabilitated.”

Woolliams appeared to sincerely (and incorrectly) believe that gay sex was a mere tendency based on environmental factors, and that the “pressure” of these factors could be “relieved.”

Before Bill C-150 was passed, “incurable” homosexual George Klippert was convicted of “gross indecency.” He was sentenced to preventative detention. In 1967, the Supreme Court upheld the decision.

Now:

Today the Ugandaan Parliament debated a bill that aimed to punish “aggravated homosexuality” by increasing jail sentences from 14 years to life. Until yesterday, the bill also proposed the death penalty for gays. The main motivation behind the legislation was preventing the spread of HIV and AIDS.

We would like to think that Canada is 40 years ahead of Uganda, but we still impose discriminatory policies to prevent the spread of what used to be known as “the gay cancer” — HIV/AIDS.

The policy of the Canadian Blood Services is to ban any man who has had sex with another man since 1977 from giving blood for the rest of his life. The organization asserts that it is arms-length enough from the government to uphold the ban without fear of violating Charter rights. The CBS also discriminates based on action rather than sexuality — a gay man who hasn’t had sex is welcome to give blood. A third argument holds the least strength: though HIV/AIDS testing has advanced over the years, the possibility of a false negative still exists.

However, the policy is inherently discriminatory because it assumes any man who has sex with another man carries a high possibility of illness despite other factors such as relationship status, use of condoms, and differing risk factors based on oral versus anal sex. The CBS, which is regulated by Health Canada, maintains its policy based on outdated science. To their credit, the organization has offered a grant of $500,000 to any researcher(s) who can find a safe way to allow “MSM” men to safely give blood. No researchers have applied for the grant.

The lifetime ban is outdated, as is the recommended deferral period of 10 years, which the U.K. recently implemented. Australia, Sweden and Japan currently have deferral periods of one year. Researchers for the Canadian Medical Association Journal have recommended a one-year deferral policy for MSM donors in stable, monogamous relationships.

We’ve progressed, but we’re not perfect. And there’s a real risk of losing what we have. On May 14, let’s be grateful to the activists that pushed the LGBTQ and women’s rights movements forward.

Update, Friday, March 19: It seems to me that it’s impossible to truly know where the government stands. One moment the foreign minister says birth control isn’t included in their G8 maternal health push. The next the prime minister’s backing up on that, saying discussion around birth control’s not out of the cards.

***

There were mumblings during the Olympics about our government’s plans to focus on maternal and children’s health during the upcoming G8 meeting in Muskoka. At the time, it was announced that abortion would not be discussed during the talks—an unfortunate revelation, but really not terribly surprising.

But now the Tories are saying they won’t even be discussing birth control during the meetings—yet another backwards decision from the powers that be in Ottawa.

The decision, they say, is based on the fact that they plan to focus discussion on “saving lives”—implying that birth control isn’t part of that. An article in the Globe and Mail quotes Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon as saying:

“It does not deal in any way, shape or form with family planning. Indeed, the purpose of this is to be able to save lives,” Mr. Cannon told the Foreign Affairs committee.

Maternal and children’s health will be forever tied to access to birth control, not least access to abortion. As comedian Rick Mercer wrote on Twitter when the news came out, “…caucus, read a book.” The idea that contraception use doesn’t have anything to do with saving lives is so out-dated I’m astounded the government would be actually say it out loud. Condom use decreases the spread of HIV/AIDS and other STDs, and it can be argued that hormonal birth control saves the lives of countless children who would have been born into dangerous, unhealthy situations.

Aside from this is the idea that women use birth control only because of the desire to not have children. Birth control is about more than just reproduction. There are a variety of health reasons as to why birth control is important. Many women risk their lives when pregnant due to underlying health issues. Many women are only able to stabilize and handle their monthly periods thanks to the hormones that birth control provides. And men avoid not only fatherhood, but sexually transmitted infections also through the use of condoms. Having, or not having, children is part of a more complex equation.

All of this to say that contraception will continue to play a role in saving lives around the world, and can have a strong impact in helping countries develop. The fear, of course, is that the Harper government is taking up right where the Bush administration left off—promising global health funding on terms that birth control not be included in the plan.

In a level-headed statement, the assistant medical dean at the University of British Columbia, Dorothy Shaw, told the Globe we need to focus on common ground to save lives. But in politics, common ground is uncommon—and I fear this is only one more step in eroding our government’s commitment not only to public health, but to women’s rights as well.

An Indian surrogate mother takes her first, and last, look at the child she has carried for another couple in this still from Zippi Brand Frank's film Google Baby

I saw the future of outsourcing at TIFF this week, and it’s not pretty. The award-winning documentary Google Baby follows Doron, who sees the need for affordable, outsourced babies after he and his partner spent $140 thousand having a baby in the United States. He forms a team of like-minded entrepreneurs across the globe and we get to watch them make a baby.

Couples come to him with their egg donor requirements, from skin colour to education level, and he helps them navigate an American egg eBay. He ships sperm to the United States for fertilization and follows most of the action from Israel via Skype. When the four-cell embryo arrives only weeks later, Doron packs his trusty liquid nitrogen tank in a suitcase and jets off to India to hand deliver it.

Dr. Patel finds Indian women willing to carry a baby in return for enough money to buy a small house for their own children. While she is kind and understanding with the women who live in her clinic for the better part of a year, she’s quite clear that this is a business, and they are her employees. The parents fly in for the delivery and then leave with the baby.

I’d always thought I was pretty open minded when it came to reproductive rights: your body, your choice, none of my business. But this movie has me thinking. Eggs harvested and then bought and sold online. Women with the most in-demand traits designated “premium” donors, while women without a place to hang their saris rent their wombs for $4,000 to $6,000.

Doron uses the word “production” so often you can’t help but wonder if he’s completely detached himself from thinking about the people involved. Patel spends most of the movie on her cell phone, even taking a call while stitching up a surrogate’s Cesarean incision.

While everyone in the film makes his or her own decisions, and gets what they want out of the deal, be it cash or a baby, it all seems a little too brisk for comfort.