Women’s rights protest of a protest
Any feminist and specifically Montreal feminists will tell you that the battle for gender equality is under attack every single minute of our lives.
When its not Harper bashing long- earned rights such as equal pay, chewing away at access to safe abortion or closing the Women’s Commission, it’s Father’s Rights or Fathers-For Life groups lashing out at feminists for not hearing God’s words, or their words, or whoever’s words.
This time around, a right-wing Quebec religious pro-life group ”Quebec Campagne-vie” (Quebec Life Campaign) will be performing a 40 day vigil in front of the Morgentaler Clinic, a place providing safe accessible abortions, on the corner of St-Joseph and St-Laurent. They are protesting what they see as baby-burning child-eating, godless women who seek to put an end to their pregnancy, for countless and sometimes desperate reasons.
Quite poignantly, their vigil begins during Lent, a Christian period of fasting and prayer preceding Easter. It represents the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan. As I said: godless, baby-eating witches….
La Riposte, a grassroots pro-choice feminist collective, are gathering women once or twice a week to oppose the vigil in hopes of outnumbering Quebec Campagne-vie.
Their gatherings are non-mixed, simply meaning ‘no boys allowed’ which I believe is designed to make a point and show the integrity of the cause and the simplicity of the issue at hand. This is not a battleground for bigger moral dilemmas, it’s not a war of ideas, it’s simply a ‘female’ issue.
The collective also organizes massive reappropriative workshops and conferences such as discussions on witches and other sterotypes associated with free women.
Like women’s bodies, abrotion clinics are renowned for being the battlegrounds of bigger social and moral issues. In the US and Canada clinics have been bombed and some doctors even killed. Staff and members are often stalked and physically and mentally threatened.
Some pro-lifers have taken to more drastic means such as arson to prevent people from using these facilities. In the U.S, 3 doctors, 2 clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort have been killed in the past 10 years.
Women who often go through a very difficult period before deciding to abort often, as in the case of the Vigil at the Morgentaller, face a parade of loud, intimidating men and women screaming: ”you will go to hell” ”baby killer” and ”murderer.” Sometimes they brandish huge photos of (photoshopped or not) mutliated, sacrified and burned foetuses. This time, the vigil will simply make a point about guilt and sin and the spirit of babies without the extreme fits associated with pro-lifers.
The battle for free and safe abortions has been incredibly rough in Canada and the states. For example, abortion in Canada is not yet technically legal as there is no law indicating whether it is legal or not. This means officials and legislators (incidentlaly +90% men) do not want to debate, know or think about the issue. Take that for complacency!
In Brazil and other south American countries women who are found to have had (illegal or backalley) abortions are targets of fines, risk imprisonment and are forced to do community work in schools, kindergartens or nurseries. Who says the state can’t psychologically harass you!
Quebec’s grassroots feminism is strong and alive, if not massively opposed and underground. These women, young and old, fight uncompromisingly for the autonomy of women’s bodies. Simply put they want people to: “address social issues, not women’s bodies” and “keep your laws out of my vag, out of my body.” The lack of women’s rights to our bodies has often been associated with the historical view associating femininity with a meek mind and therefore lack of control over our own fate and bodies.
As I say, I am pro-life AND pro-choice and in other words, they say ”I’m pro-faith, pro-family, pro-health and pro-choice.” Use that for a banner!
Contact La Riposte to make your Lent period more exciting: their next meeting is Thursday March 12 at 5:30 , corner St-Joseph and St-Laurent near the clinic. You can also reach them by e-mail at collectiflariposte@gmail.com
March 7th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
* to pic # 1* : hahah! i think you “loose fatherhood” everytime you masterbate…….
March 7th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
i think wasting ‘seed’ is a sin, according to chrisitian morality….