Downtown Guelph

I came across an article that really shocked me about Guelph. There are a few things you should understand about Guelph… It’s a “city” of about 115 000 people. It is extremely environmental, is home to a very liberal university, has a population that protested against the building of a Walmart because of all the negative connotations that follow it… etc. It’s a liberal place. The people are fantastically nice and it’s got a very open minded thing going on. The university is one of the most out and proud universities I have ever heard of - I find myself often playing the “man or woman” game because everyone is free to be who they need to be - and usually who they need to be is extremely dyke-ish. …ANYWAY… My point of all this - is that I live in a liberal city.

So…

you can imagine my surprise when I came across this article.

If a pregnant woman in Guelph wants to have an abortion in the city, she’ll be hard-pressed to find a doctor who’ll perform such a service.

According to one obstetrician who works out of Guelph General Hospital, there aren’t any city doctors who will currently abort a fetus. Dr. Nabil Namis, who’s been practising in the Royal City for 19 years, said he was one of three or four doctors performing this procedure a few years ago.

Thats right. In this fair, liberal, environmental and loving city you can’t get an abortion.

The researcher, Jessica Shaw, who called all 718 facilities across the country posing as a pregnant woman, found it difficult to access abortion services.

She was hung up on, laughed at, given misleading information or greeted by a long silence on the other end of the line, Shaw said in June at a University of Guelph sexuality conference.

My own university! Maybe this is why they support gays so much. If you’re fucking a girl you’re not going to need an abortion. What I think is the absolute worst about all of this is their reasoning…..

“It’s just a sensitive issue,” he said. “We feel the most responsible thing is to be silent about it.”

When asked where someone could go for assistance, if they want an abortion, Ernst said, “We prefer not to talk about it.”

Oh… wait. Please! We prefer not to talk about? Well, I prefer not to think about the fact that hundreds of innocent people die everyday because of selfishness but that doesn’t make me a more noble person, and most definitely doesn’t make the killing stop. The city is a university city, and it’s growing. How much longer can an entire city ignore the fact that women need access to choice, and the services that come along with these choices?

Sure - Toronto and Kitchener are close and accessible, but it’s inconvenient to go to both locations. It’s difficult to find rides, or people that will travel with you. It’s difficult to put all the time aside. It would just be better if there was a place in Guelph to do it. After the procedure a woman doesn’t want to have to travel and hour back to her house to get some rest and curl up into a ball for either physical or mental pain.

Seriously, I was super baffled by this article, and plan on bringing it up with the women’s center on campus. Hopefully there can be a little bit of noise made around it. If the hospitals are worried about protesters getting pissed about them giving abortions, then I want them to be worried about protesters getting pissed about them NOT giving abortions.