B.C. anti-vaccine protesters’ pro-choice rhetoric trivializes abortion rights movement: advocate

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Calling them hypocritical, an abortion-rights advocate is calling out the use of “pro-choice” language by demonstrators in B.C. who protested COVID-19 regulations Wednesday.

Signs read, “my body, my choice” and “pro-choice” — language used for decades by those advocating for abortion rights.

Joyce Arthur, the executive director of the B.C.-based Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, is expressing her frustration with the anti-vaccine demonstrators who’ve co-opted the language, calling it harmful.

She explains there are two key reasons she finds the use of slogans coined by the abortion rights movement maddening.

“Many of these people are conservative, and they’re anti-abortion themselves. So it’s truly ironic,” she says. “Secondly, they’re not taking into account that their supposed personal choice and not wear a mask is impacting other people.”

She adds, a lack of access to abortion and reproductive healthcare does not compare to the inconveniences experienced by those who do not want to follow measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“People who are anti-maskers don’t face any barriers, at least not any that are not of their own making. I mean, if they do get sick with COVID, they’re going to be treated in the hospital like anyone else. But meanwhile, people women, who are trying to get abortions often they do — access is lacking depending on where they live,” she says.

“The minor inconvenience of wearing a mask,” Arthur says, “is really just common courtesy you’re doing for other people.”

“For the anti maskers to be using this language, it’s very unsettling. It’s a reminder that they don’t take seriously the struggle that [people] have undergone, that they can just steal that language without a second thought. And it just trivializes women’s health care of the health care of marginalized communities, like the LGBT community. And we’re certainly very much against this abuse of the language.”

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Arthur added the demonstrators’ cries of freedom and claims of discrimination are disingenuous and dangerous.

As governments throughout the country and world implement COVID-19 restrictions and recommendations to mitigate the spread of the deadly virus, Arthur calls people opposing these measures self-serving.

“Their cries of freedom, inequality are based on selfishness. They’re really out for themselves and not considering protecting other people.”

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