Recently, some in the anti-abortion movement have begun to assert that abortion harms
women and access to abortion should be restricted or prohibited to protect women’s
rights. This paper suggests that woman-protective anti-abortion (“WPA”) arguments
could become more recognizable in Canada if other kinds of woman-protective
legislation are adopted. In particular, this paper focuses on private member’s Bill C-510,
an Act to Prevent Coercion of Pregnant Women to Abort (Roxanne’s Law). This paper
suggests that Bill C-510 is problematic because its differential treatment of women
reinforces historical stereotypes of motherhood and female vulnerability, the same
stereotypes upon which the WPA relies. By reinforcing these same stereotypes, Bill C-
510 creates a climate in which WPA restrictions on access to abortion appear more reasonable. The paper concludes by suggesting that the existing aggravated
circumstances sentencing sections in the Criminal Code already provide judges with
discretionary powers to deal with offences like coerced abortion.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/30114 |
| Date | 30 November 2011 |
| Creators | Davies, Cara Elizabeth Jr. |
| Contributors | Reaume, Denise |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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