Legal Abortion in Canada

Paper Summary:

In this essay, the writer explains that abortion was decriminalized and abortion clinics were established in Canada as a result of direct challenges to federal and provincial governments. The writer looks at Section 251, which restricted the conditions under which abortions could be performed and not be considered an indictable offense. The writer notes that on January 28, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada declared Section 251 of the Criminal Code unconstitutional. The writer concludes that social policies that support women, including prenatal education, universal daycare, parental leave, community midwives, affordable housing and economic equality, are needed in order to ensure real freedom of reproductive choice.

From the Paper:

"Section 251 was passed in 1969. This law criminalized abortion under any circumstances but in an accredited hospital with a therapeutic abortion committee. Activism in opposition to that law began in 1970 when Dr. Henry Morgentaler was arrested for doing abortions without the consent of an abortion committee and outside of an accredited hospital. He performed the abortions as an act of civil disobedience, and when he was prosecuted in Quebec in 1973, 1975 and 1976, all three juries refused to convict him as a criminal. In 1976 a newly elected Parti Quebecois government refused to continue with the prosecutions of Dr. Morgentaler, and English Canadian activism subsided because the new government promised there would be no further cases brought before the Court for violation of Section 251. Although Section 251 was a federal law, cases were prosecuted in the provinces. Abortion was de-criminalized, but women continued to fight in Quebec for better access to abortion services and for public medical insurance coverage for abortions done in clinics and health centers."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Albert, R. (2005). Protest, proportionality, and the politics of privacy: Mediating the tension between the right of access to abortion clinics and free religious expression in Canada and the United States. Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review, 27 (1), 1-62.
• Palley, H. A. (2006). Canadian abortion policy: National policy and the impact of federalism and political implementation on access to services. The Journal of Federalism, 36 (4), 565-586.
• Weir, L. (1994). Left popular politics in Canadian feminist abortion organizing, 1982-1991. Feminist Studies, 20 (2) 249.

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