A majority draft leaked by the Supreme Court of the United States shows that they have voted to strike down Roe v. Wade back in February. The landmark decision made in 1973 has so far guaranteed a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion “without excessive government restriction” in the United States.
Justice Alito, nominated by former President George W. Bush in 2005, was tasked with writing the majority opinion which you can read here. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes in the document. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
While US pro-choice advocates are worried about women’s right to choose being put into jeopardy with this decision, Canadians have little to fear about the same thing happening over here.
“Abortion is safe legal and the law here is not going to change anytime soon,” says Robyn Schwartz, a long-time feminist activist and Canadian historian. “But if you’re talking about access and issues around pregnant people and people who need access to pre-natal care or abortion […] that happens in Canada every day.”
Schwartz says that while access is one of the biggest struggles facing Canadians who may need an abortion, education is another factor to consider. While London can provide people with the resources they need, not every community is so fortunate and information that lays out what options are available might not be easily accessible.
“No birth control is 100% effective,” says Schwartz, “and so, sometimes, you need to access an abortion because that’s what you need to do.”
Our own Roe v. Wade, R. v. Morgentaler, was a 1988 decision made by the Supreme Court of Canada that declared the entirety of the country’s abortion law to be unconstitutional and, since then, there hasn’t been any law making it legal, or illegal, in Canada.
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