Instead of reproductive rights, let’s talk about reproductive progress.
March 8 marks another annual International Women’s Day. The 2025 theme for the day is “Accelerate Action,” focusing on rapidly removing gender inequalities and improving opportunities for women around the world. Right here in Canada, that needs to include building a culture that celebrates gender differences while recognizing and upholding full equality. And celebrating gender differences must include reproductive progress, progress toward building a culture that makes abortion unnecessary and unthinkable.
We hear a lot about reproductive rights, but let’s talk about reproductive progress. For too long, women have been told that reproductive rights = access to abortion. This is another way of saying that people are willing to fight for a culture where women can live life more like men, unaffected by pregnancy. But women are not men, and “reproductive rights” inherently diminishes a unique and miraculous part of being a woman: having a uterus and being able to grow new life within it.
Reproductive rights are the opposite of progress for women. We need to stop accepting that the best way to help a woman is to attack and diminish womanhood. True progress for women would recognize and celebrate gender differences and make a way for both men and women to succeed in a way that fits them, not a way that asks them to fit a narrow path for success.
Yes, women should have a say in when and with whom they get pregnant, every time. But that doesn’t remove the fact that children should also be valued and protected at every stage of their development, including in the womb. Progress embraces everyone as they are, without requiring them to change themselves to find a place on the journey. Progress should be life-giving, not life-taking.
Reproductive progress is the message that reproductive rights should equal respect for a woman’s ability to bear children, shared societal protection of children, and support in the difficult task of raising children.
So, on International Women’s Day, we love the theme “Accelerate Action.” We need to accelerate action that provides good education and job training opportunities with flexible hours, and creates resulting jobs with flexible hours. We need to accelerate action that stops human trafficking and exploitation through prostitution. We need to accelerate action that supports strong maternity leave policies, strong paternity support requirements, having stay-at-home parents paid at least as much as government-funded daycare workers for daily care of their children, and more.
Accelerating gender equality will never be achieved by promoting abortion, with its implication that equality = the elimination of pregnancy. Changes that will accelerate equality for women are economic, social, and informational. Gender equality means women will be empowered to have and raise children, while not being excluded from opportunities for education, career advancement, or positions of influence in Canadian society.