Niceness as the Status Quo: Regulating abortion activist rage in New Brunswick

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Niceness as the Status Quo: Regulating abortion activist rage in New Brunswick

By Tobin Leblanc-Haley and Jessi Taylor

Presentation

“Regulating Women?s Rage. Women, Gender, and Politics.” — Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) Annual Conference / Association canadienne de science politique (ACSP)

May 30-June 1, 2023 | Toronto, ON

This paper documents the political rage of abortion activists in NB and its regulation through public demands that activists perform female politeness and niceness.

Abstract

With the overturn of Roe V. Wade feminist scholars, activists, politicians, and community members are displaying their rage in the streets, on social media, and through arts-based activism like song and poetry. In this context, Canada was framed as a refuge for those needing abortion.

And yet, in the province of New Brunswick (NB), access to surgical abortion continues to be limited by a regulation in the Medical Services Payment Act that restricts publicly funded surgical abortion provisioning to 3 hospitals in 2 cities.

NBers in need of surgical abortions often must make multiple, long trips to the designated hospitals and/or pay out of pocket for an abortion in the sole clinic that provides them. Despite continued pressure from abortion advocates, the withholding of health transfers by the federal government, and multiple lawsuits the province has refused to repeal the now infamous regulation 84-20. Premier Higgs, when asked about his government’s abortion policies, told pro-choice advocates to take it to the courts.

This paper explores the public displays of rage expressed by abortion activists in New Brunswick since the election of the Higgs conservatives and the public characterization of rage. Drawing on Ahmed’s (2010) work on Feminist Killjoys, we interrogate the weaponization of female politeness against abortion activists in NB. This paper documents the political rage of abortion activists in NB and its regulation through public demands that activists perform female politeness and niceness. It tempers claims that access to abortion in Canada is secure.