Monday 24 November 2014

Shocker! Responsible Abortion Reporting from National Post!

Crazy busy, but a quick post because I want to encourage responsible reporting about abortion. Here is the National Post's story on a report about abortion access in Canada. [Spoiler: Access needs a lot of improvement.]

Because people either don't know or forget from one abortion story to the next, the NP piece includes this de rigueur statement.
There is currently no federal law governing abortion in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada struck down the country’s previous abortion law as unconstitutional in 1988.
Clear on that, are we?

Here's the new and admirable bit.
Abortion is governed by guidelines adopted by professional associations. The vast majority of elective abortions happen before 12 weeks, according to data collated by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. It’s virtually impossible for women to access the procedure past 24 weeks without a compelling medical reason.

Note the change from this piece of bullshit from new Walrus editor Jonathan Kay in February 2013.

The fact is that Canada is the only nation in the Western world without any abortion law. It is perfectly legal in Canada to have or perform an abortion — for any reason, or no reason at all — at 20, 25, 30 or 35 weeks gestation. This is a disturbing state of affairs.

What's disturbing is that a self-proclaimed "national" newspaper continued for so long to try to stir up Da Base on the settled matter of legal abortion. (Access, as the links above show, is another issue altogether.)

Maybe, just maybe, the powers that be are wising up to the notion that demonizing abortion is in direct conflict with the views of the majority of Canadians who are decidedly pro-choice.

So, provisional "yay" to Natty Po! We'll be watching to see that you keep up the good work.

Bonus: Graphic accompanying the NP story. Useful information.

UPDATE: From King Rat in the comments: According to Live-Action News, Canada is Abortion Heaven. Or, every stupid lie about abortion in Canada in one conveeeeenient POS.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I saw this bullshithttp://liveactionnews.org/when-it-comes-to-abortion-canada-is-the-wild-west/ a few minutes after reading this post. I am banned at LAN or id set them straight.

King Rat

fern hill said...

Wow. Just. Wow.

I put the link into the blog post, but King Rat's find has to be read to be believed.

Pseudz said...

Sounds as if there's been a culture-neutral shuffle in periodical land - - NatPo Up . . . Walrus down. Business decisions?

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