The Non-Debate Abortion Debate: Beyond the Thunderdome by Alex

There is an abortion debate happening in Canada right now. It might be shrouded in coded language and denied by the Prime Minister but it is happening. Stephen Woodworth, an anti-choice conservative MP for Kitchener-Waterloo proposed a private members motion (M-312) to create a committee whose purpose is to redefine personhood. Canadian law considers a person to be a person once they check out of the womb by way of the vaginal canal. Woodworth thinks that it's a pretty dated definition considering the advances of modern medicine and science (science! Super important when taking away women and Trans* people's bodily autonomy! Meaningless when put up against creationism and climate change!) which, ok fair enough, the definition doesn't account for c-section births or the stork babies or cabbage patch kids but this isn't about being a stickler for medical science: it's about criminalizing abortion. The definition he's all grumpy about is found in Section 223 of the Criminal Code, the section that defines homicide. Make no mistake, if the definition of person is extended to fetuses, at all, abortion will be criminalized.

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The Assassination of Dr Tiller and a Feminist Awakening by Alex Snider

Three years ago today, Dr George Tiller was shot and killed while serving as an usher at his church in Wichita, Kansas. He was one of three doctors in the United States that would preform late-term abortions. Before Dr Tiller was murdered, I hadn't thought much about abortion. I had friends who had had them. I knew that if I got pregnant at any point in my post-sexually active life, I wouldn't hesitate getting one myself. Beyond that though, beyond living in Canada where the right to abortion was won years ago and was fairly protected, I didn't need to think about it. I also had never thought much about late-term abortions, at the time not being entirely familiar with the terminology but if pressed I probably would have been critical of the women who needed them. 

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