More on abortion in Canada...

Conservative Senator, Nancy Ruth, told international development advocates

We’ve got five weeks or whatever left until G-8 starts. Shut the f--- up on this issue [funding for abortions as part of G8 international maternal and family health].... if you push it, there will be more backlash... Canada is still a country with free and accessible abortion. Leave it there. Don’t make it into an election issue.

This statement really concerns me. Canadian women are being threatened by this senator; ignore what is happening to women in developing nations, or we will take rights away here in Canada.

I think women in Canada need to speak up about this. I, for one, refuse to "shut the f--- up" and be intimidated by threats from conservative politicians.

Canada not funding abortions in developing countries

Canadian Conservative government recently announced that they will not be funding abortions in developing nations. In 2009, they announced a plan to help with maternal and child health, but failed to mention that abortions are not included in maternal health and family planning.

This is contrary to the established goals of the G8 summit, and opposes Obama's policy to fund maternal health, including access to abortion.

Harper said

We want to make sure our funds are used to save the lives of women and children and are used on the many, many things that are available to us that frankly do not divide the Canadian population.

Abortions do save the lives of women and children, and we have to be careful not to put the possibility of the fetus' life ahead of the health of the pregnant woman/girl, or the quality of life implications that may go along with the pregnancy.

I'm not sure I understand what he means by the "many many things that are available to us" because abortions are available to us, and therfore should be one piece of those many many things (wow, that sentence does not make a lot of sense, but frankly, neither does his).

To my knowledge, abortions are not that controversial of a topic in Canada (although, I'm sure there are always people who support them and people who don't). I don't remember access to abortion ever being a hot politicial issue in as long as I have followed Canadian politics, other than a brief mention here and there of a referendum that was never met with much support. I really hope this isn't going to renew the abortion debate within Canada, as has been happening in the United States recently.

I do not see how a few elite white male politicians in Canada have the right to decide what counts as maternal health in countries that they have probably never so much as visited. Maybe it should be the women in these countries (or at very least, medical workers who have spent a lot of time in these countries and understand their needs) who decide which types of maternal health and family planning services they need.