The impact of anti-abortion laws on women in North America Essay

The impact of anti-abortion laws on women in North America - Essay Example No society, religion, government or group has the right to push any woman into motherhood, unless one voluntarily and willingly intends to do so (Trib 14). Denying a woman the right to have an abortion is akin to pressurizing a woman into accepting a submissive and subservient role in the society. In such a scenario, the dominant ideologies and influences resort to exploiting pregnancy and motherhood as a tool to accord women a second class status (Trib 16). In case of the women, access to legal and safe abortion facilities is recognition of one’s fundamental right to have a control over one’s body. No individual or society has the right to control what happens to the body of an individual or what an individual chooses to do to one’s body to assure personal well being (Trib 17). In North American and especially in Canada and the US, the struggle against anti-abortion laws has been long and unrelenting, accompanied by both favorable and adverse impacts on the wome n in North America. Canada- Abortion Laws In the year 1869, the Canadian legislature passed strict anti-abortion laws (Tatalovich 23). ... The women who most suffered were the ones from small towns or rural areas (Tatalovich 29). In the year 1988, in a ruling famously known as the â€Å"Morgentaler decision†, the Supreme Court of Canada, repealed the harsh and draconian anti-abortion laws and declared them to be null and void (Tatalovich 53). The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that such anti-abortion laws amounted to an inequitable treatment towards women and interfered with the rights extended to them under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Tatalovich 56). The Court observed that abortion constituted a Charter right of women, guaranteed under the right to life, right to liberty and the right to freedom of conscience (Tatalovich 56). The Canadian government tried to pass strict anti- abortion laws in 1990, but was forestalled by massive public protests and media outrage (Tatalovich 58). So, today Canada is the only country with no anti-abortion laws. The Canadian Experience In a post 1869 scenario, t he strict Canadian anti-abortion laws directly translated into untold and multifarious emotional and medical turmoil for women. Women having no access to safe and legal abortion resorted to unsafe and bothersome options. Not to say, a great proportion of the women having no option of a safe and legal abortion, willy-nilly reconciled with a forced and undesired motherhood (Faur 312). Things stood to be worse for those who owing to a lack of legal and safe abortion facilities, resorted to risky and unsafe abortion procedures, resulting in sever medical complications and many a times in death (Faur 314). Unsafe and botched abortions performed by quacks were the only option left to many, and this option was mostly loaded with severe