At first sight, Kathleen Dyer’s obituary it may look like anyone else.
Below the photo of a smiling elderly woman, we learn the basics: Dyer, who lived in Halifax, died on June 14 at the age of 84. She is survived by her husband, son and wife, and two sisters. law But it’s the third and final line that stands out: In lieu of flowers, Dyer asked for donations to the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic.
The clinic, which performs medical and surgical abortions, doesn’t know Dyer, except that she once sent them a donation. And Dyer, who devoted her life to supporting her husband and raising her children, was not a known abortion advocate.
He is one of a number of people who have donated to the pro-choice movement after the US Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, either during his lifetime or after.
“My mom was definitely a women’s rights advocate in her own way,” Kathleen’s son Steve Dyer told CBC News.
“She’s not an advocate or a vocalist or anything like that. But in her own way, when she sees something that she supports, she’ll let everyone else know, including me.”
Increase in donations
Bequests are becoming more common at Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, said Frederique Chabot, the charity’s acting executive director. Many of his supporters are people who have fought for abortion rights throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and who are strongly committed to safeguarding those rights, Chabot said.
“In the last year especially, of course, since Roe v. Wade was overturned in the United States, that has really illuminated the fact that progress is not always linear,” Chabot said.
“It’s rekindled a lot of passion around some of the jobs people did when they were younger, some of the fights they fought.”
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Overall, donations to abortion clinics and advocacy organizations in Canada have increased in recent years, said Jill Doctoroff, executive director of the National Abortion Federation (NAF) Canada.
He said he was recently contacted by a person who wanted to donate $25,000 to a clinic. And NAF Canada itself has received more gifts in the past year than in previous years, he added.
Legacies are harder to track, but Doctoroff said he knows of at least two people who asked NAF Canada for donations in lieu of flowers after his death, and he suspects that could increase.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw that [it more] in 10, 15, 20 years, especially in the time we’ve been in the last couple of years, with all the restrictions on abortion in the United States,” Doctoroff said.
There was a surge in so-called “rage” donations following the US Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v. When news of the pending decision first leaked in May, NARAL Pro-Choice America, a nonprofit that received $12.9 million in donations in fiscal year 2021, saw an increase 1,403 percent of donations in the next 24 hours compared to the day before, according to Reuters.
But it didn’t last, the The Associated Press reported in June, noting that emergency grants ended and individual and foundation giving dropped a year later.
“After Roe v. Wade, there were a lot of donations at that time to all kinds of pro-choice groups. So maybe at that time, people 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 can recall several bequests to the coalition over the past 10 years: a few thousand dollars here and there. There is one “planned donation” section right on their website that helps potential donors who want to leave ARCC money in their wills.
Although he hasn’t seen an increase in bequests, Arthur notes that donations to the ARCC in general took a “major bump” when the U.S. Supreme Court decision leaked out, and again when the decision was low
And while he says that has since slowed, he says many of those donors signed up for sustained memberships, so ARCC continues to benefit from his monthly and annual gifts.
Abortion rights activists march on the US Supreme Court on June 24, 2023 in Washington. The rally was held to mark the one-year anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and gutted federal protections for abortions. (Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images)
“A Woman’s Choice”
Donations from people like Kathleen Dyer prove that you never know a person’s story, Doctoroff said, and you should never assume why a person donates to a cause.
Dyer, who went by Kay, was born in Dartmouth, raised her children in Edmonton and then moved to Nova Scotia with her husband during their golden years. She had never worked outside the home, her son said from her home in Maders Cove, New York, and wouldn’t necessarily call her a feminist.
Steve Dyer remembered asking his mother about abortion as a teenager.
“My mother was very clear with me that her position was, and that she wanted me to consider … that it was a woman’s choice. It was her body. Period. End of story,” she said.
Kay Dyer, center, is pictured with her children, Kim Dyer and Steve Dyer, in 1969 in Dartmouth, NS (Submitted by Steve Dyer)
After returning to Nova Scotia, her mother had read an article about the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic in the local paper, Steve Dyer said, and was impressed with the program advocating for women’s health.
When she donated to the Nova Scotia Women’s Choice Clinic through the QEII Foundation a few years ago, the staff wrote her a thank you card. She was the only donor to respond, thanking the staff for their work in her own personal thank-you card, said Dr. Lianne Yoshida, the clinic’s co-medical director.
“We put it on our bulletin board,” Yoshida said.
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Yoshida said she was surprised and moved when she learned Dyer had asked for donations to the clinic in her obituary. It was the first legacy to the clinic that he is aware of.
“I just want someone in his family to know how grateful we were,” he said.
The donations are used for long-term reversible contraception, such as IUDs, Yoshida said.
A final act
What Dyer’s obituary doesn’t say is that she chose to die on June 14 by medical assistance in dying, or MAID. Dyer had been ill and in pain for some time, Steve Dyer said. He had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), had contracted COVID-19 earlier this year, and had recently learned that his cancer had returned.
“This solidified her position to choose to go down to the MAID program, but also one that reflected her position on women choosing their own destiny, being advocates for that and advocating for themselves,” said Steve Dyer.
“It’s a committed position she’s taken for others as well as herself.”
Yoshida says it all comes down to bodily autonomy, whether it’s abortion or MAID.
“It’s about being in control of your body, and I completely see the connection between the two,” she said.
