The following is a re-print of a 2008 pro-choice statement issued by the YCL-BC. It will be used at our upcoming pro-choice demo. Protest the Bigoted Anti-Woman, Anti-Choice Agenda!
Protect Women’s Right to Chose!
Demand Free, Safe and Public Abortion Clinics, Accessible to all Women!
Stop the Harper Conservative Anti-Choice, Anti-Sex Agenda! Every year, around the world thousands of women are forced to undertake illegal, unsafe and unhealthy abortions due to bans imposed by the state in their given country. Many die; others suffer severe health issues as a result. Yet, science has long disproved the old arguments which attack abortion with such absurd slurs as “murder” and “genocide”. Women around the world, with their allies, are fighting for their rights; they are fighting for control over their own bodies!
Throughout Canada, abortions have been legal since 1988. Yet, today women’s right to chose are under attack! The Harper Conservative regimes reactionary social policies are anti-women, anti-sex and anti-abortion although their minority position has thus far halted the implementation of many of their policies. Through the continued privatization of health care access to abortion is become eroded, therefore violating the rights of Canadian women.
We need a free, public health care system which includes access to abortion not based on the requirement of a health care plan or payment. Women are also often harassed and intimidated by goons and bullies of the religious right at clinics and hospitals. At the same time, the youth are given inadequate information on birth control options and abortion in schools. Sex education is becoming increasingly fear driven and anti-sex. This continues to help lead to increased teenage pregnancy and violates the separation of church and state since anti-abortion arguments are based solely on religious arguments and are scientifically disproved.
All of this makes up only one component of the over all systematic degradation of the democratic rights of the youth and the people in our country being carried out under slogans of “Free Trade”, the “War on Terror” and so forth.
In contrast, socialist Cuba guarantees the right to abortion to all women as a component of its free, public, universal health care system. Under socialism, social policies are based on scientifically ascertained knowledge and the interests of the masses, not on the petty fringe interests of a hateful minority. It’s time to fight back! Oppose the corporate anti-choice, anti-sex agenda! Oust Harper! Fight for change!
The YCL Demands:
• Free and safe abortions accessible to all women, on demand and without apology
• A ban on anti-choice demonstrations at and around clinics and hospitals
• A ban on all “Crisis Pregnancy Centres” that operate in the interests of the anti-choice agenda
• Sex education including information on birth control options and abortion in schools, no to “abstinence only education”
• Complete gender equality
