Sex Report

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Canadians generally pride ourselves on being sexually progressive. And certainly, compared to the U.S, where people like Bill O'Reilly believe teaching kids that babies grow in mommy?s uterus ?is beyond their capacity to understand" and will rob them of their ?childhood innocence? -- as he recently did in an interview in response to Barack Obama?s comment supporting sex education in kindergarten ? Canada looks like a sexual paradise.

 

But then you realize that you still can?t get an abortion in a Prince Edward Island hospital and you feel a little less smug.

 

?The only option for women in PEI is to pay for a private abortion,? sociologist and University of Windsor professor Dr. Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale reminds us in her report card of sexual rights in Canada at the Guelph Sexuality conference in June. ?So while abortion is legal [only as recently as 1988], it is not uniformly accessible.?

 

Hospitals are not required to provide abortion services and only 15.9 per cent of Canadian hospitals on average do, with B.C. at the high end of the scale with 29 per cent providing services and Manitoba at the low end at four per cent, just ahead of PEI?s zero per cent.

 

Birth control information and services were legalized in 1969 with the legalization of the Birth Control Pill, but birth control still isn?t covered and access to information as well as rules for parental and/or partner consent vary from province to province.

 

When it comes to STI/HIV testing, counseling and treatment, this is done through specialty clinics and isn?t part of regular wellness care, says Maticka-Tyndale. Because doctors aren?t well trained in sexual health care, and many patients aren?t confident raising concerns in this area, many people ? usually society?s most vulnerable ? slip through the cracks, she says.

 

Sex workers, for instance, might fear judgment by disclosing what they do and, as a result, don?t get the sexual health care they need.

 

Gay rights in Canada have certainly improved since Everett Klippert was sent to prison indefinitely as a ?dangerous sex offender? back in 1965 for having consensual gay sex, a decision that was backed by the Supreme Court.

 

Pierre Trudeau got the law out of the bedrooms of the nation in 1969 with amendments to the Criminal Code that decriminalized homosexuality. In 1995, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms included the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and in 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage.

 

Things aren?t as rosy for transgendered folk. Still classified as a mental disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), gender identity disorder must be diagnosed before one can undergo reassignment surgery. And while B.C. and Quebec provide some coverage for transition treatments, most consider the process ?not medically required? and therefore don?t provide coverage.

 

Canada has official guidelines for the teaching of sex education, but they are just that, guidelines. As a result, sex education is inconsistent across Canada, schools are not required to provide it and teachers aren?t trained to teach it.

 

Age of consent rules are confusing at best and the current push to raise the AOC to 16 is further polarizing our national attitude towards teen sexuality. Those in favour of raising the age feel the current AOC of 14 ?lets kids do whatever their horniness wants them too,? says Maticka-Tyndale while others say raising the AOC will unjustly criminalize and pathologize sex among young people and leave their older partners vulnerable to a permanent criminal record as a ?sex offender.?

 

Toss Canada?s increasingly diverse cultural population into the mix and you?ve got a whole other set of culturally sensitive sexual rights issues to consider, says Maticka-Tyndale.

 

?Our laws are based on individual rights,? she explains, ?but what about family rights, in the case of contraception and parental consent, for example.?

 

Or what if polygamy was permitted in your country of origin but is illegal here? What if you go to a doctor or sexual health clinic and are asked questions considered offensive in your culture? You may not go back, says Maticka-Tyndale. Or you?re an immigrant woman with no official status in this country and you are a victim of sexual assault?

 

?Our justice system is not structured to deal with the implications of cultural differences,? says Maticka-Tyndale.

 

We have many sexual rights on paper, she concludes, ?but our rights are failing as government shirks its responsibility for insuring these rights through social policy and spending,? says Maticka-Tyndale. ?And unfortunately, this usually effects society?s most vulnerable ? immigrants, women and minorities ? the most.?

 

This is the fourth column in a series from the Guelph Sexuality Conference.

 

 

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/family-relationships/articles/dating/josey-vogels/sex_report_2008-11-18/1