Pro-choice activists talk reproductive justice

By Katrina Pyne, Staff Contributor

In a mostly empty auditorium on the 22nd anniversary of Canada’s decision to repeal the abortion law, women’s voices echoed loudly through St. Mary’s McNally Theatre.
“Happy Morgentaler Day everybody!”
Students from the SMU Women’s centre organized the Trust Women Conference on Reproductive Justice with about 60 registered participants. The free evening event on Thursday, Jan. 28 covered everything from abortion, to population control, to racism.
Guest speakers included Jessica Yee, Joyce Arthur and Loretta Ross as well as an introduction by Mohawk drummer Catherine Martin and spoken artist El Jones.
“It is my right to make decisions about my own body,” said 23-year-old Yee, a self-described indigenous hip-hop feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter. She’s also the director of Native Youth Sexual Health Network.
“I believe in reproductive justice because I am not about to forget all that we’ve worked, lobbied, yelled, screamed, fought, died, struggled, resisted, waged, campaigned and what we stand here for today.”
Lisa Garrett went to all of the Trust Women events and was involved in the production of Jane: Abortion and the Underground, a play presented the night before.
“Event’s like this really bring women together,” she said. “You can see the leaders of the movement and everyone gets really into it.”
Joyce Arthur, the founder and co-ordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and well-known activist spoke about her own experience with abortion.
“I couldn’t believe someone else made that decision for me,” she said regarding the panel of doctors whose consent was needed for an abortion at that time.
Arthur said she knew what it was like to grow up in a “fundamentalist Christian patriarchal home.”
“I was taught to conform to certain non-expectations,” she told the audience. “What I see now in society is that women are equated with sex, breasts and vaginas.”
Arthur said the root cause of pro-choice politics is that a woman’s status is treated as mother first and human being second.
According to her, good mothers can have both babies and abortions.
“A women’s decision to have an abortion is as private as their period,” said Loretta Ross, founder and the national co-ordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective.
She also spoke about the association between the anti-abortion movement and population control. She said that the same developed nations that over-consume resources are wrongly putting their effort into population control in underdeveloped countries to compensate for depleted resources.
“We are in danger of losing control of our destinies,” she said.
The evening was interactive. At one point Ross and Yee even had the audience chanting the Bob Marley lyrics, “Get up / stand up / for your rights.”
Later audience members were asked to pair up and talk to one another about a woman they looked up to. Jane Hebert spoke about her mother, “An outstanding example of a strong, resilient and fun woman.”
Yee would like to see people make a habit of talking more about strong women.
“We need to have role-models to be proud of, not to gossip about.”

The SMU Women’s Centre, located in room 528 of the SMU Student Centre, offers a variety of feminist and women’s focused activities and events. Visit www.smuwomenscentre.com or reach them at smu.womenscentre@gmail.com.