With the seemingly imminent repeal of Roe v. Wade in the United States, it's time to refamiliarize ourselves with Canada's long-fought history for abortion access.
Sarah Lawrynuik
Senior Producer
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Cherise Seucharan
Reporter, CANADALAND
Kieran Oudshoorn
Managing Editor, Podcasts
Hosted by Jesse Brown
With the seemingly imminent repeal of Roe v. Wade in the United States, it’s time to refamiliarize ourselves with Canada’s long fought history for abortion access. And explore how that story is anything but ancient history, with one provincial ban being overturned as recently as four years ago.
Today’s episode features just a few of the people who have been on the frontlines of that fight as well as a historian who studies nothing but reproductive justice.
Featured in this episode: Christabelle Sethna, professor in the Feminist and Gender Studies Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa; Deb Miller, retired family lawyer and abortion access advocate; Colleen MacQuarrie, professor of psychology at the University of Prince Edward Island and abortion access advocate; Autumn Reinhardt-Simpson, PhD candidate at the University of Alberta and abortion doula.
Dan Aykroyd blew in from Ottawa. Andrea Martin came in from Maine and Joe Flaherty came in from Pittsburgh. Paul Schaffer came in from Thunder Bay. Marty Short and Eugene Levy and I came in from Hamilton. We congregated (in Toronto) because we had similar comic sensibilities.
“ It was hot girls having a blast. There's nothing wrong with that. I thought it was aspirational. I did not yet realize that we were in fact shooting porn and that that was actually happening in the back room of the bus that we were living on.”
- Courtney Kocak, former Girls Gone Wild “Merch Girl”
“ My brother, first and foremost, was a good person. He was very bright, he was educated, and he was autistic. And I think had he not met the creeper hunter, I think he would still be alive today.” -Brother of “John Doe #1”
“We need to start dis-entangling from the United States as quickly as possible, economically, politically, socially, militarily, and culturally.” -Stephen Marche, author of The Next Civil War
Jesse Brown is an ideological slut. Well, so he says. His past votes have jumped, in no particular order, from the Conservatives to the NDP “....maybe there was a fringe party or Parti Québécois vote in there somewhere, I can’t even remember who I’ve thrown in with over the years — I have no loyalty, I’m politically promiscuous.”
“ Here is what I would've done if I was Mark Carney, right? Just let it be out there. If you really have nothing to hide, don't hide.” - Professor Partha Mohanram
“...the tentacles of party discipline and party control have completely grabbed a hold of everybody and they have a really hard time breaking free. We just no longer have politicians who can speak their minds, politicians who can stand up on behalf of their constituents.” -Alex Marland, author of Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada
