Campaigns North of Montana by the U.S.-Based Centre for Bioethical Reform against Reproductive Autonomy and in Support of the Fetal Rights Movement

This presentation offers a visual, historical, and regional perspective on the anti-abortion and anti-birth control movement in Southern Alberta as forged by the U.S. based Centre for Bioethical Reform (CBR) as the movement to control reproductive rights rhetoric crosses the border north of Montana.   

The widening influence of the CBR’s campaigns on Southern Alberta’s Pro-Life organizations may be detected in the changing use of materials and rhetoric including photographs, wording of manifestos and websites, and sophisticated campus displays. This phenomenon represents a growing ambition to strengthen anti-abortion and fetal rights irrespective of geospatial differences and depends on the mythic construction of Southern Alberta as culturally, religiously, and socially conservative.  This presentation will briefly survey the visual and discursive strategies and motives of the CBR’s transnational organizational initiative across the national border. Most significantly, the presentation attempts to gauge the impact of ever evolving, transnational rhetoric designed to restrict the reproductive autonomy of women and girls who live, work, and parent in the region.  Using primary sources, both visual and written, this presentation examines current political and popular, or community, attitudes about fetal right and abortion with an aim to understanding how the current movement may potentially erode federal guarantees to reproductive health services.  This presentation delves into the philosophical beliefs and values of the members and leaders of smaller Canadian community-based organizations who derive inspiration, guidance, and dollars from powerful U.S.-based organizations like the CBR to  refashion the rhetoric on fetal rights and, subsequently, to advocate for federal legislative change.