Given the crucial role that freedom to control one’s own reproductive health and health service interventions plays in women’s liberty, autonomy, dignity and privacy, and given the crippling impact on women’s liberties that can follow from criminalizing abortion or making access to the procedure unduly limited or complex, and while recognizing the philosophic and ethical nuances explored in earlier BCCLA papers on abortion, the board of the BCCLA is unequivocally of the opinion that there should be no new legislation passed in Canada to criminalize or otherwise restrict obtaining or providing abortion services.
Further, the Association sees ready and unconstrained access to this reproductive health procedure on demand as an important policy goal. The Association recognizes that full democratic participation by women depends upon their being free to control their own bodies. The Association will remain alert for events that offer opportunities to advance these interrelated goals in our public education and litigation work.
