Bill No. 242 - Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Act. - 2nd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on this unusual day of collaboration in this Chamber to speak to Bill No. 242, the Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Act. This is a bill put forward by our caucus in order to protect people's right to access reproductive health care.

We know in Nova Scotia, across the country, around the world, and even here in the Maritimes that there have been issues with people accessing reproductive health care. Although it remains in some circles a divisive issue, the fact is that women have fought hard and won the right to full health care under the Canada Health Act, but we know that sometimes that health care cannot always be accessed equally.

We talk in this Chamber about differential access to health care. We often talk about that geographically, but here we have differential access to health care at times based on gender, where predominantly women are not able to avail themselves of what is already a very difficult choice in many women's lives.

Mr. Speaker, I generally refrain from talking about my personal connection to bills, but I'm going to spend just a couple of minutes on this rare, and maybe singular, occasion of moving a bill through this House and say that I first want to point out Megan Boudreau, the amazing young activist who is profiled in The Coast and who took it upon herself - she walked by the Women's Choice Clinic at the Victoria General Hospital, she saw protesters, and she decided that was wrong. All by herself, she wrote a petition and she walked around Halifax, asking people to sign it.

When I talked to her about that yesterday, when we tabled the petition in this House, she said it was a difficult decision because the whole issue with protesters, anti-abortion protests in particular, is that it is traumatizing. You have women making what is already sometimes a traumatic, difficult choice, and they're re-traumatized as they attempt to access that health care. She said she felt conflicted asking people to sign this petition because she worried that she, too, was guilty of this same re-traumatizing action. She said she did it as gracefully and as kindly as she could, and she decided that it was probably worth the little bit of discomfort for her and for the folks she was talking to if there was a payoff at the end.

I am so pleased to stand here and thank Megan and many others like her for their efforts. So many times when legislation moves through this Chamber it's not because one of us thought of it or one of our excellent members of the Public Service thought about it. It's because someone in the community on the ground discovered that there was an issue, and they pushed and pushed until finally that issue makes it to the floor of this Chamber. This is one of those cases.

Mr. Speaker, in my own life this is a really resonant issue, so if you'll forgive me for a few personal anecdotes. My grandmother, Selda Chender, as I think I've spoken about before in this Chamber, escaped the Holocaust without most of her family. She came to New York City on a boat, alone, at 16. She managed to teach herself English, find herself a job, and eventually fall in love and get married to a Russian refugee who had also escaped the war: my grandfather, Jules Chender. They couldn't find work in the States, so immediately after World War II, they moved back to Paris - talk about traumatizing.

My grandmother often talked about those years as the worst of her life. Not the years in the war but the years after the war, living in a war-torn country that she had so recently escaped from. In those years she became pregnant. She said that although she thought about it until the end of her life, the decision that she made at that time to get an abortion was one she never regretted. She said, at that time in my life I was in love with your grandfather, but I was so emotionally incapable of being a parent that I couldn't possibly have given birth to a child. She said, I knew that.

We talked about this when I was a teenager. I am so grateful that I had a family with whom I could have these conversations. She had the proverbial back-alley procedure because that was the only option at that time. Luckily, she survived and went on to have two more children.

Fast-forward to my mother, who didn't work much outside the home. She raised us, and she was a fantastic mother. She had three children, but she spaced us by 13 years, so she had a lot of work for a long time. When we were all getting older, she decided she wanted to be engaged to her community, and the place that she set out to be engaged to her community was what was at the time called the Metro Planned Parenthood Clinic.

My mother served on the board of Planned Parenthood for many years, including as the chair of that board. It was always a little bit, not surprising, but I didn't know what the nexus was for her. She just said, Claudia, it is absolutely important that women can access health care and that they can access it without any intimidation and on their own terms.

At that time, the Planned Parenthood Clinic was a place that many women, including myself as a teenager, went for health care because they didn't want to go to their doctors. It was still taboo to talk about things like birth control, to talk about things like abortion or any other reproductive services.

As a young woman, especially if you had a male doctor, these were conversations you didn't want to have. That clinic, which still persists today as the Metro - I don't know what it's called now, but maybe the minister will remember that name in her remarks - provided such an important service. I'm so proud that my mom was a part of that.

It was unfortunate, but lucky, that when my sister was a teenager, she herself availed herself of the services of the Planned Parenthood Clinic and also of the Women's Choice Clinic. I called her this morning and I said I'd like to mention you in my remarks, but I don't want to do that if that makes you feel uncomfortable. My sister, who is currently working for the Ontario Midwives said, no, I want you to mention me in your remarks; it's important that you mention me in your remarks. I'm just one person in one family, and the connection that I have to this issue of women's access to reproductive health care just spreads through every part of my life.

I don't tell these stories to point out any special situation that I have but to say that if this is my situation, how many other women, how many other men, how many other people in Nova Scotia also, maybe even unknowingly, share this need and legacy around reproductive health?

When I spoke to the budget earlier in this session, which although only days long feels like years, I started my remarks by saying that although we have major issues with the budget for this session, we come and take our seats with some pride. We note that the government is finally starting to listen to some of the issues that we're bringing forward and to act on those. It feels as though our work matters.

I was having a conversation yesterday in the lunch room with our Leader, the member for Halifax Chebucto, and I was telling him about a friend of mine, and I said "You know, it's amazing because she has her dream job. Like, she's always loved this and she's always loved that and she's living her dream." And he looked at me and he said, "Well, that's what you're doing!" (Laughter.) I had to think about it for a second and then I said, "You're right."

It doesn't feel that way some days, but on days like today, when I can stand on the floor of this House and speak to the movement forward of a bill that will have a major impact on the lives of Nova Scotians, that will help young women and girls and people accessing reproductive health care to not face intimidation, to not face the fear that I and my grandmother and my sister and my friends felt. If that can be different for this generation, then I will continue to feel like my work here matters. For that, I thank my colleagues and I thank the government, and with those few comments I'll take my seat. (Applause)