Antiabortion thug stabs Vancouver doctor
BY BRIAN HAUK
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--Garson Romalis, a doctor who provides abortion in this city, was stabbed in the back outside his office July 11 by an antiabortion rightist. That evening, more than 200 defenders of a woman's right to choose held a rally in front of the Art Gallery in defense of Romalis and a woman's right to abortion. Rally speakers included representatives from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Students for Choice, Pro-Choice Action Network, Hospital Employees Union, and UBC Medical Students for Choice.
This was the second attack on Romalis, and the most recent in a series of attacks on Canadian and U.S. doctors who perform abortions. On Nov. 8,1994, Romalis nearly bled to death after being shot in the thigh by an antiabortion rightist. He was in critical condition for 48 hours and hospitalized for 10 weeks.
Also targeted for violent attacks in 1994, this time across the border, were two Boston abortion clinics. Receptionists Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols were killed and at least five other people injured by a rightist gunman.
Gynecologist Hugh Short had his elbow shattered when he was shot in a second-story room of his Hamilton, Ontario, home in November 1995. A year later, rightists threw butyric acid on Edmonton's Morgentaler clinic. On Remembrance Day (November 11) 1997, Dr. Jack Fainman was shot in the shoulder through a rear window of his Winnipeg, Manitoba, home.
Dr. Barnett Slepian, an obstetrician and gynecologist who provided abortions in Buffalo, New York, was murdered on Oct. 23, 1998. Slepian, 52, was shot through the back with a high-powered rifle as he stood with his wife and 15-year-old son in the kitchen of their home in Amherst, New York.
One day after the stabbing of Romalis, Vancouver doctor Ellen Weibe received a death threat on her office voice mail. Weibe is spearheading a nationwide clinical trial of the abortion drug RU-486.
With the polarization of bourgeois politics in Canada, rightist forces have become bolder. Newly elected Canadian Alliance party leader Stockwell Day is vocally opposed to abortion. As a member of Alberta's Tory government he fought against government funding for abortions.
In spite of two protests in Edmonton and Calgary held April 16 by 9,000 people defending public health care, Alberta premier Ralph Klein's government shut down a number of public hospitals and reduced hospital beds by half under Bill 11, the so-called Health Care Protection Act. These moves have reduced access to safe abortions.
Governments in every province have been following the same course, including dropping nonemergency services such as annual physical or eye exams from coverage by Medicare, Canada's publicly funded health insurance. Prince Edward Island refuses to allow or fund abortion services.
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