Bill 200, a private member’s bill in Manitoba, seeks to establish “bubble zones” around abortion clinics. This would prohibit pro-life speech in some public spaces. This has been a trend of late, with Ontario and Alberta recently passing similar laws.

The purported justification for bubble zone laws is to prohibit threatening and harassing anyone obtaining or providing abortions. However, these activities are already offences in the Criminal Code, and do not need duplication. Bubble zone laws go much further prohibiting advising or informing women or disapproving of abortion in these zones. The pro-life perspective is singled out and censored.

A sign that says “I do not regret my abortion” is permissible within the zone. But remove the word “not” and it would become illegal, subject to a fine or even arrest. This is not about the safety or access of anyone approaching an abortion clinic: it’s about silencing one perspective on abortion.

Bill 200 is constitutionally vulnerable, unnecessary, and it seeks to censor pro-life speech and the ability of women and men to offer more options to women considering an abortion. Bubble zone laws patronize women and restrict women’s access to more information about their legal choices. It was encouraging to hear Premier Brian Pallister rightly point out that other laws already exist to deal with harassment or blocking of access, and that this bill would erode Manitoban’s rights by targeting peaceful expression of the pro-life view.

We are asking you to write your MLA encouraging them not to support this law, but to stand for the free expression of the pro-life message.

On Oct. 11, 2018, I went to Montreal to attend the Abortion Beyond Bounds conference, a pro-choice conference celebrating the decriminalization of abortion. During the conference I felt like an outsider, a pro-life woman surrounded by women actively fighting to make abortion more accessible.

The conference began with a discussion on misoprostol and mifepristone, medication that fulfills two main goals of abortion advocates: making abortion accessible for people far away from abortion clinics, and “demedicalizing” abortion so that doctor appointments can be avoided except for emergencies. In a way, this showed that pro-choice people don’t really care about the well-being of women. They think that giving a woman the ability to completely manage her own abortion is empowering and, since women “know their bodies,” we should trust them to know when to go to the doctor instead of having mandatory follow-up appointments. This is actually dangerous for women, as it places a heavy emotional burden on those seeking abortions and minimizes their physical health, as abortion is a medical procedure with its own health hazards and concerns.

I noticed that the pro-choice side doesn’t really view abortion through the perspective of the individual. For instance, they aren’t bothered by the fact that some women will face negative and harmful side effects, as long as the majority of women experience safe abortions. They don’t care that some women face severe emotional trauma after going through an abortion, as long as enough women are satisfied. They don’t care that some women regret their abortion, as long as they’re not vocal about it. They censor women’s experiences to make abortion look like the best solution, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I quickly realized that the fight for abortion rights is about women who want the right to choose when a pregnancy is convenient for them. Most justifications for abortion were trivial, such as “I already had one daughter and I wanted to focus on her,” which show what little regard they have for life in the womb. Throughout the whole conference, abortion was emphasized as “self-care”. Speakers said that abortion saves lives, even while acknowledging that every abortion ends a life. They were vocal about thinking their own lives hold more value than those of their pre-born children.

Another thing I found interesting was that, although abortion in Canada is legal through all 40 weeks of pregnancy, the pro-choice side does not feel like they have “won.” They won’t feel that way until all pro-life thought is extinguished, and abortion is available any time, and anywhere. They mentioned that the lack of laws against abortion right now benefit doctors who want to perform abortions, instead of benefiting women across Canada. While many roadblocks stand on the pro-life side of the issue, they as well see many challenges. For instance, while we see a doctor advising a patient to have an abortion as an invasion of human rights, they see a doctor refusing to perform an abortion as a major setback, denying a woman her rights. Where we see the removal of a pro-life club at a university as an attempt to censor pro-life views, they might be unhappy because the club was removed for “not having enough members” instead of their preferred judgment that they were “misleading people”. The presenters at the conference also spoke against Crisis Pregnancy Centers for trying to show pregnant women options besides abortion, and wanted all such centers to be shut down by the government.

The pro-abortion side thinks of the “anti-choice” movement as callous towards women in tough situations, only caring about the baby when it’s inside the womb. This is a bold lie, no matter what the pro-abortion movement claims. It is the pro-abortion side that does not support women in the way they claim. Abortion is a “quick-fix” that does not solve any underlying issues. If a woman is in poverty and can’t afford a child, having an abortion will not remove her from her situation. In the case of rape, the abortion does not change what happened. These larger issues are not addressed, and the women who have abortions are left to deal with shame, grief, and emotional trauma. Instead of seeing women have abortions because of the shame around being a single mother, why not strive to remove the stigma around single mothers? If abortion is a sign that some women are too poor to raise their children, shouldn’t both sides of the issue be saddened to see high numbers of abortion? As feminists, shouldn’t they still be fighting against sex-selective abortion, or abortions that are pushed upon women by partners, abusers, or family?

Instead of “empowering” women to have an abortion, we should be empowering women to be strong mothers who raise their children in love despite any hardships they may face.

My final reflection on the conference is that, while it was an uncomfortable experience, it was important because I saw firsthand the need to continue the fight against abortion. Attending this conference allowed me to better understand the passion and reasoning that drives people to promote abortion, and made me all the more certain that the pro-life movement is on the right side of truth and love.

The pro-choice movement is right in being unwilling to say they have won. Pro-life thought is far from dead in Canada. For the sake of children, women, and families everywhere, pro-life thought must be held onto, promoted, and explained so more and more lives can be saved, and women empowered to make a choice everyone can live with.

Here lies the impressive jump in logic common to pro-abortion “research”: studies are undertaken with foregone conclusions by researchers with a strong socio-political agenda.

Consider this statement from the Guttmacher Institute’s summary of their findings: “Age is the biggest risk factor for having had a prior abortion; the longer a woman has been alive, the longer she is at risk of unintended pregnancy.”

While presented as a telling finding, age is not, in fact, a risk factor the way it may be for something like heart disease, as arteries undergo physical changes with age that increase risk. One does not become more likely to get pregnant with age – in fact, after a point, the opposite is true. To suggest age is a risk factor in having multiple abortions is like saying age is a risk factor in having eaten more hamburgers: the longer you have been alive, the longer you’ve had to eat hamburgers.

Such a statement is utterly meaningless and should not qualify as research nor be a basis for any policy recommendations.

A recent article on LifeNews.com points out the paradox often heard from abortion advocates: they blame “racism and sexism for the high abortion rate in the black community but also advocate for more abortions for black women.”

So which is it? Minority groups want abortion destigmatized and accessible to all, yet no community wants to have higher abortion rates than other communities.

Why not?

There is a deep, visceral understanding that abortion is not the solution. Pro-life advocate Frederica Mathewes-Green said, “There is tremendous sadness, loneliness in the cry, A woman’s right to choose.’ A woman wants an abortion like a fox caught in a trap wants to chew off his own leg.” Even Hilary Clinton once said, “I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion.”

Women want better options. Studies telling them it’s ok to have an abortion aren’t helping solve the deeper problems leading to abortion. And they certainly aren’t helping them realize the very real life they are ending by choosing abortion.

We all know there’s a better way, a way that isn’t morally, ethically, and medically wrong. Let’s seize the opportunities we have to keep pointing to that better way, a way of life and love. This way holds hope that cannot be found in hollow and biased “research”.