Pro-choice picket exposes Tory maternal health plan

The Conservative government's Maternal Health summit was met by a picket organized by the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, denouncing the exclusion of abortion from Harper's maternal health policy.
 
Harper and the Minister for Status of Women Kellie Leitch attended the summit, which included delegates from Canadian NGOs critical of the Tory policy. The counterprotest, as well as an evening panel discussion and media coverage, brought attention to the fact that 47,000 women die each year from unsafe abortion, leaving 220,000 children orphaned. Harper is applying his anti-choice policies abroad because he has been unsuccessful in directly tackling the right to abortion at home.
 
Protesters also demanded that the federal government enforce the Canada Health Act in New Brunswick, where women must get written permission of two doctors to obtain an abortion in a hospital, and where clinic abortions are not funded by the province.
 
Maternal health includes abortion, in New Brunswick, in all of Canada and internationally.
 
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