Podcast 2

Abortion in Canada is legal throughout pregnancy but faces challenges in terms of access and coverage. The podcast explores successful approaches from Australia and China. Australia focuses on safe access zones, counseling, and increasing accessibility to support women's reproductive rights. China emphasizes free birth control, harsh penalties for rape, and sexual health education. Canada can learn from Australia's push for accessibility and counseling, and China's lower age for punishment of rape. Improving sexual health education in schools and media can prevent unwanted pregnancies. Canada should consider passing legislation to establish abortion as a constitutional right. Hello, my name is Avery, and this podcast is part two of my public policy issue discussing abortion. Abortion is a procedure that doctors perform on women by terminating the fetus and ending the pregnancy. In Canada, the policy is that abortion is legal throughout pregnancy and has been since 1988. At this time, it became decriminalized and also publicly funded, as well as being labeled as a medical procedure beneath the Canadian Health Act. Women in Canada have access to birth control, most of their reproductive rights, and practitioners to perform this procedure to decide their future. A drawback exists, though. Canada struggles with access to these safe places, and restrictions regarding coverage as well as lack of medical providers is a huge issue. For all women, but specifically women in rural and reservations areas, struggle the most. Throughout the country, there are areas all over where women that are seeking abortions have extreme difficulties. They also have areas that could be re-examined and improved, such as sexual education, the legal age of consent, and making abortion a legal constitutional right, rather than just decriminalized. I researched four different countries, but for this podcast, I will be discussing the two that are the most successful by breaking down each policy and discussing the strengths and weaknesses. At this time, a policy window has actually opened up in regards to Roe v. Wade being overturned in the United States. Discussions have arisen as to why Canada has not passed legislation to determine abortion as a legal law, as opposed to just being decriminalized. It is a fact that since the overturn in the United States, no country is safe or exempt from this policy spreading to any country. At this time, Trudeau has left this opportunity open for now. He wants to make sure that by establishing a law now, it will not create difficult barriers for the future governments to come. As well as, in each province, there is a gestational period ranging from anywhere from 12 to 24 weeks. There has been talk about this becoming eliminated if abortion was passed into legislation. The first approach that I researched was the one in Australia. Canada's policy supports safe and legal abortions for women. They provide safe access zones at places that perform the abortions, counseling referrals, and private clinics for sexual health and abortions. There are limits on the week's eligibility. It's typically around 20 weeks without medical reasons for most of the areas. This approach holds great success in this country, even though each state has its own policy specifications. It's generally along the same guidelines. Australia has recognized that on the rise is violence on women and their families, causing this to dictate their reproductive decisions. Since this discovery by the Australian Institute of Family Services, it has become rapidly spreading knowledge that cutting down on the restrictions on reproductive rights is a positive step. The new evolved policy helps protect women, their kids, and their uteruses, as opposed to narcissists and abusers being dominant and controlling their victims. The second approach is one based in China. Their policy used to force abortions due to a one-child law, and now this has affected the economy. It has changed drastically. In China, all types of birth control are allowed for women at a free of charge. IUDs, birth control, sterilization, condoms, and more are completely legal. This helps increase women's safety and ability to protect themselves. Given that rapes can cause victims to become impregnated, by China, the sentence for rape for a minor under 14 is imprisonment for life or the death penalty. This is a great step. These two are the best I discussed because they support women's rights and they show progressive change, despite maybe having non-progressive policies in the past. China specifically has strengths, the first one being life in prison or death penalty applied to victims under 14 that are raped. In Canada, the punishment of death or life in prison is 16. Canada could benefit from China because 14 is a much safer age, and it could go even lower. Life in prison as opposed to 10 years, depending on being 16 or 17, this is a pretty risky gamble when it comes to women's safety. A weakness for China is that since abolishing the one child per law family, they have an increase in the need to grow the population. At this time, they have not gone as far as to ban abortions on women or change their policies that drastically, but let this weakness be an opportunity of learning for Canada to never go as drastic as to try to implement a policy that controls women from having a certain number of kids. Instead, an option is to increase sexual health education. Survey completed by CFPA reported that 80% of parents in China are unable to discuss sexual and reproductive health with their kids. Due to this, a program was implemented that allows parents to enroll, and from there they will learn how to discuss this topic with their kids to teach it properly. This program has wait lists extremely long because this is an option that can prevent unwanted abortions. In Australia, a strength is abortion being decriminalized in all states. A woman can legally receive an abortion. This country also supports legal and free birth control for women. There has been an increase in counseling to help support women through their life planning choices as well. Another and the largest strength for Australia is their push for increasing accessibility. This has been a significant bearer, and by making this push, it can help erase it. Another one is the need for general practitioners for women's reproductive health. After nine weeks, it can become a surgical matter, and this is also why accessibility is not just a simple fix. But with progressive attitudes, there is change coming for the future. Lastly, Australia's excellent sexual health and gender education. They teach it extensively from as early as kindergarten all through to grade 12. Beginning with learning the correct terminology and body parts, then eases into reproductive health, puberty, menstruation, and typically ends with contraception, STDs, sexual behaviors, relationships and consent. Emphasizing on learning the correct terminology, body function, and how to protect themselves and not cause harm to others is crucial. They express that most kids are curious and just want to learn, and by easing into it at an appropriate young age, could provide a deeper understanding as they age. A drawback in Australia is the cutoff period for having an abortion. It ranges from 9 to 12 to 22 weeks, and even then requiring a second approval by a second doctor. This can be an issue, especially if a woman is unaware of her pregnancy until the dates have passed. Cryptic pregnancies are the correct term for this. They are actually quite common. One in 475 pregnancies are cryptic, and they are discovered after 20 weeks in Australia. Australia legally supports a medical abortion pill, RU486, to support abortion. This pill is known as MIFE-Prizedone, and it can be prescribed by any medical health care provider. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has diminished all restrictions on this pill because they believe it is a great option for women. In Canada, there is a drug referred to as methotrexate. This can be an abortion pill, but MIFE-Prizedone is not available at this time. The policy I choose to modify is China's policy. Specifically, their sexual health education in schools and media policy. A very crucial step in the whole scheme of abortion is educating the young and taking preventable steps to limit what can lead up to this situation in the first place. Contraceptives and the consequences of unprotected sex are the main focus. According to the World Health Organization, the youth in China are severely lacking in their education because it has stagnated given policy changes. This is the biggest obstacle in the situation of social media. Any young individual can google the things they are curious about, but the answers may be more harmful. As well as parents and certain individuals in power maybe don't consent and feel these discussions are not appropriate. But by establishing a more solid, consistent, and age-appropriate curriculum with a slight modification could not only improve China's policy that affects abortion, but also Canada's. In Canada, given recent changes due to gender, parents now have the opportunity to opt their children out of sexual education classes. Canada can learn from policy improvement by the rapid increase as well by the Australian programs. By supporting parents' misunderstanding and confusion, it can effectively benefit the kids in understanding the consequences of topics such as unprotected sex, abortions, STDs, and more. To conclude this research discussion, I would like to discuss what we have explored. In Canada, abortion is decriminalized, but this is not a guaranteed right for years to come. It could change at any moment. The policy of abortion has been on the rise for debate because individuals are concerned. Given that abortion is still classified as a medical procedure that is legal, it still hasn't been passed through legislation as having its own constitutional right. And with the specifications for every province, this creates large barriers for women. China and Australia are two countries that are not perfect by any means. The reality is most countries do not have this policy completely sorted equally and are 100% successful all the time. But from Australia, Canada could benefit from their increasing push for accessibility and counselling. These two policy options are some of Australia's biggest focuses surrounding this policy. And Canada should maybe look into that. From China, Canada could learn from the lower age, lowering the age for life in prison for rape victims. Lowering it from 16 could be beneficial, considering that most rape victims could need abortions. Lastly, to modify China and Canada's policy around sexual education and health could be a preventable step as well, to improve everyone's knowledge. By expanding and looking at other country policies, it's one of the most effective ways to improve Canada's. Each country and region has complex specifications, and by diving into that as we have, this is the strongest way to reanalyze our own policy and make the change needed to create a safe environment for women. Thank you for listening.