Anti-abortion campaign underway across U.S. and Canada, but is it a cause worth fighting?

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Beth Lyons

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"Pray to end abortion."

That's the mantra of the religious, anti-abortion campaign that's currently taking place across the United States and Canada, including an effort focused on Fredericton's Morgentaler Clinic.

The campaign, 40 Days for Life, began in a lone Texan town in 2004, but has grown significantly since then. Now, anti-choice activists in cities across the U.S. and Canada "" and a few overseas "" adopt the bi-annual campaign and simultaneously carry it out in their own locality. The campaign, based on the biblical theme of 40 days as a time of transformation, involves 40 days straight of fasting, praying, awareness raising, and constant prayer vigil outside of facilities that provide abortions. This fall campaign began September 23 and carries on until November 1. The campaign has a singular goal: to end abortion.

Though I passionately support abortion rights, I don't revile those who believe abortion is murder. I also understand that many of who truly believe that the fetus-is-life feel compelled to prevent abortions from taking place. But here's where I grow frustrated with anti-abortion actions such as 40 Days for Life: they're trying to end abortion without trying to eliminate the need for abortion.

40 Days for Life isn't talking about ending abortion by preventing unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, or preventing situations in which planned and wanted pregnancy cannot be continued. No, they're simply opposed to abortion - even when the pregnancy threatens the woman's life or is the result of rape or incest.

The truth is, so long as there is a need for abortion, there will be abortion.

Pointing out that simple reality isn't meant to leave those who oppose abortion powerless or quell their dissent. Rather, it provides a framework to work with. Help prevent unwanted pregnancies by volunteering to teach a sex ed. program (real sex ed. - abstinence-only programs are consistently proven to result in high rates of unplanned pregnancy); lobby the government to provide better social assistance programs so that pregnant women who feel they can't support a child might actually find they can; work at a centre that aims to prevent rape, intimate partner abuse (which women are at higher risk of during pregnancy, by the way) or sexual exploitation. Most importantly, don't try to have abortion recriminalized or prohibitively difficult to access, because the countries with the lowest abortion rates are the ones where it's legal, free, and accessible to women without referral.

Instead of undertaking these projects, members of the anti-abortion community stand outside of abortion clinics. Instead of doing work that would not only prevent abortions but also improve women's quality of life, they stand outside of clinics.

The understanding I extend towards those who oppose abortion ends when this activism begins, when instead of doing work that could prevent women from having to even consider having an abortion, they target women who've already made their difficult decision.

As I said, I understand the need to take action if your belief is that abortion is murder. And, as I said, I don't want to silence the debate on the issue. But there is a line "" anti-abortion activists' right to dissent ends when it interferes with women's choice because, at the end of the day, the right to choose and have an abortion is, in both Canada and the United States, a constitutionally enshrined right. And protesting outside of facilities that provide abortions absolutely interferes with that right.

At the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton there is a group of regular protestors (year round, not just during this campaign) that come out on Tuesdays, the only day the clinic actually performs abortions. Sometimes they largely keep to themselves, sometimes they call out at patients and carry dolls or signs of dismembered fetuses that the police eventually make them put away. Mother and Child Welcome House, an anti-choice facility that tells visitors that abortions are linked to breast cancer and infertility (patently false), also set up shop next to the clinic a few years ago.

I'm sure many people think clinic protest activity such as this is distasteful, but ultimately harmless.

Given the extreme violence that is often perpetrated against abortion clinics and workers, this probably does sound tame.

Being able to access abortion doesn't just mean being able to actually get one. It means being able to get one without having to be warned by the clinic that there will be protestors, without having to be escorted by volunteers from your vehicle to the clinic because of protestors. Access means not having to worry that you will be approached by a sidewalk "counselor" who believes you are about to commit murder and tries to talk you out of it, as if you hadn't really thought this through. Access means not having to research anti-abortion violence to see if the clinic you're visiting has had incidents in the past and if you should be concerned about your safety. Access means your decision remaining a private matter, not subject to public scrutiny by strangers. Access means having a constitutionally sanctioned medical procedure performed without having the trauma of the situation further compounded by protestors. Anti-abortion clinic protesters aren't helping clients, they aren't effectively advocating their position to the public "" what they are doing is interfering with access and traumatizing clinic visitors.

These protestors call themselves pro-life. It's a designation that I can't bring myself to abide by. I sometimes feel petty for denying them their chosen title, but the fact is that I don't think they've earned it. They aren't pro anything "" they're explicitly and reductively anti-abortion. Their definition of life is narrow "" fetus as life. It doesn't include the lives of the pregnant women or of born babies. The 40 Days for Life website has a counter that tracks the number of "babies saved" since the campaign began. While I'm sure that counter gives a sense of accomplishment to campaigners, I look at it, and at all the people and efforts they've mobilized, and think of the positive impact they could have if they chose to act in a way that is truly supportive of life, rather than simply opposing abortion.

Beth Lyons brings her viewpoints to [here] when she's angry about something. You can also see her rants at www.abostonmarriage.com.