Since Roe v. Wade was thrown out, many people in Canada have given money to the pro-choice movement
At first glance, the death notice for Kathleen Dyer might look like any other.
We learn the basics under a picture of a smiling older woman: Dyer died in Halifax on June 14 at the age of 84.Her husband, son, and his wife, as well as two sisters-in-law, will miss her. But what stands out is the third and last line: Dyer asked that instead of flowers, donations be made to the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic.
The clinic, which does both medical and surgical abortions, doesn’t know Dyer other than the fact that she gave them money once.And Dyer, who spent her life helping her husband and raising her kids, was not known as a supporter of abortion.
She is one of many people who have given money to the pro-choice movement in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, either while they were alive or after they died.
Steve Dyer, Kathleen’s son, told CBC News, “My mom was definitely a supporter of women’s rights in her own way.”
“She’s not an activist or a vocalist or anything like that. But when she sees something she likes, she’ll tell everyone, including me, about it in her own way.”
Donations increasin
Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights’ acting executive director, Frederique Chabot, said that the organization is getting more and more bequests. Chabot said that many of their supporters are people who fought for abortion rights in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s and feel very strongly about protecting those rights.
“Especially in the last year, since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States, that has really shown that progress is not always a straight line,” Chabot said.
“It has brought back a lot of passion for some of the work and fights that people did when they were younger.”
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The executive director of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) Canada, Jill Doctoroff, said that donations to abortion clinics and advocacy groups in Canada have gone up in general over the past few years.
She said that someone recently called her to tell her that they wanted to give $25,000 to a clinic. She also said that NAF Canada had gotten more gifts in the last year than in the years before.
Bequests are harder to track, but Doctoroff said she knows of at least two people who asked that donations be made to NAF Canada instead of flowers after they died. She thinks this may become more common.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of it in 10, 15, or 20 years, especially with all the restrictions on abortions in the U.S. in the last couple of years,” Doctoroff said.
After the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, a lot of people gave money out of anger. This is called “rage giving.” When word got out about the upcoming decision in May, donations to NARAL Pro-Choice America, a non-profit that got $12.9 million in donations in fiscal year 2021, went up by 1,403% in the 24 hours that followed compared to the day before.
But it didn’t last, the Associated Press reported in June, noting that emergency grants stopped and that giving from individuals and foundations dropped a year later.
“After Roe v. Wade, people gave a lot of money to different pro-choice groups.”People might have thought, ‘Well, maybe I should put something in my will,'” said Joyce Arthur, the executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC).
She remembers giving the coalition a few thousand dollars here and there in the last ten years.There is a section on their website called “planned giving” that helps people who might want to leave money to ARCC in their wills.
Even though she hasn’t seen a rise in bequests, Arthur says that donations to ARCC had a “major spike” when the U.S. Supreme Court decision was leaked and again when the decision was made.
She says it has slowed down since then, but many of those donors signed up for ongoing memberships, so ARCC continues to get monthly and annual gifts from them.
‘A woman’s choice
Doctoroff said that donations from people like Kathleen Dyer show that you never really know a person’s story and that you should never guess why someone gives money to a cause.
Dyer, who went by the name Kay, was born in Dartmouth. She raised her kids in Edmonton, and then she and her husband moved back to Nova Scotia to spend their golden years. Her son said from his home in Maders Cove, N.S., that she had never worked outside the house and that he wouldn’t necessarily call her a feminist.
Steve Dyer could remember when he was a teen and asked his mother about abortion.
“My mom told me very clearly what her point of view was, and she wanted me to think about it:that it was up to the woman to decide. The body was hers. Period.”That’s all there is to it,” he said.
Steve Dyer said that when his mother moved back to Nova Scotia, she read an article about the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic in the local newspaper. She was impressed by the program’s focus on women’s health.
A few years ago, when she gave money to the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic through the QEII Foundation, the staff sent her a card to say thank you. The medical co-director of the clinic, Dr. Lianne Yoshida, said that she was the only donor who wrote back to thank the staff for their work in her own thank you card.
Yoshida said, “We put it on our notice board.”
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Yoshida said that she was surprised and moved to find out that Dyer’s obituary asked for donations to the clinic. It was the first time anyone had left money to the clinic.
She said, “I just want someone in her family to know how thankful we are.”
Yoshida said that donations are used for long-term contraception that can be taken out, like IUDs.
A final ac
The obituary for Dyer doesn’t say that she chose to die on June 14 with the help of medical assistance in dying, or MAID. Steve Dyer said that Dyer had been sick and in pain for a long time. She had severe COPD, had caught COVID-19 earlier in the year, and just found out that her cancer had come back.
Steve Dyer said, “This made her more sure of her decision to go with the MAID program, and it also showed how she felt about women being able to choose their own paths and how she was an advocate for that and for herself.”
“It’s a serious position that she’s taken for herself and for other people.”
Yoshida says that it all comes down to the right to control your own body, whether it’s about MAID or abortion.
“It’s all about being in charge of your body,” she said. “I can see the link between the two.”