According to Juliana Pulford, the counsellor at Ottawa’s Mortgentaler abortion clinic, whether or not a woman chooses to have an abortion is a personal decision made between her and her body. No other person, whether a doctor or politician, can make that decision for her.
So how do men factor into the abortion debate?
There are those who argue that since a man’s body is not involved in the birthing process, men should stay out of the debate all together.
Paul Klotz, executive director of the Right to Life Association of Toronto, disagrees.
He says that men are "obviously" involved in the conception of children and should therefore have a say in their lives.
"Men can obviously never truly feel a woman’s pain or walk in their shoes, and men in pro-life work make no pretensions to be able to," he says. "However, seen from the perspective that a human right is being denied to an entire group of human beings (pre-born children) – in fact the supreme human right [of the right to life] – men can and should defend this right also."
Nicholas McLeod, a third-year commerce student at Carleton and co-founder of the university’s pro-life club, agrees that the decision boils down to questions of morality rather than gender.
"Facts don’t have penises," he says. "What the unborn are does not change based on who makes the argument. Just because I cannot bear children does not mean I cannot protect the lives of children. Jim Zwerg was a white man who was beaten by racists for being a member of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. He did not have to be African-American to stand up for what was right against what was wrong. Neither do you have to be a woman to stand up for the unborn who have no voice of their own."
McLeod says men were also at the forefront of the fight to legalize abortion, from abortionist Henry Morgentaler, who fought for the right to perform his job legally, to the eight male justices of the Supreme Court who voted to legalize the procedure two decades ago.
Still, Klotz says, there are some aspects of the debate that men can never comprehend fully.
"It is much more difficult for the woman, and sensible men recognize that fact."