In 1973, Morgentaler publicly claimed to have performed 5,000 abortions without the permission of the three medical committees, and even went so far as to film himself during the operations. [38] Dickson C.J. concluded that “the structure – the system that governs access to therapeutic abortion – is patently unfair. It contains so many potential obstacles to its own functioning that the defence that manages it will, in many circumstances, be virtually inaccessible to women who would be prima facie eligible. Barriers identified included a lack of hospitals with committees, physicians not wanting to refer issues to committees, lack of a standardized meaning for “health,” resulting in inconsistent standards across committees, and geographic and financial differences in treatment. She found that the provision violated the principles of fundamental justice. [51] The abortion issue arguably reached its highest level in decades in 2020, when it was represented by pro-life candidate Leslyn Lewis during the Conservative leadership campaign over the summer. As a monolingual lawyer with no government experience, Lewis was unlikely to become a leader. Nevertheless, social conservatives have made banning certain abortions a central part of their campaign. She was supported by the anti-abortion group Right Now and raised nearly $2 million. Her surprisingly strong performance at the party`s conference – she led the plebiscite in the second round before being eliminated in the next vote – illustrated the feasibility of abortion as an issue within the Conservative Party. When the Supreme Court of Canada legalized abortion in the 1980s, it never set a time limit for obtaining it.
Today, abortion is legal throughout pregnancy. 1995 – British Columbia`s NDP government establishes a “bubble zone” around abortion clinics, banning pamphlets being distributed, counseling on the sidewalk or any attempt to prevent people from performing or having an abortion. The bubble zone, it is argued, violates people`s freedom of expression. During this period, several private members` bills were introduced in the House of Commons, such as the Unborn Victims of Crime Act and the Protection of Pregnant Women and Their Unborn Children Act. While the names of these laws may seem benign or designed to protect women, all the legal analysis we`ve seen has argued that they are backdoor attempts to reopen the abortion debate. 2018: Ontario and Alberta introduce “Safe Access to Abortion Services” and “Protecting Choice for Women,” respectively, which establish “bladder zones” around any facility that offers abortion, making it illegal to witness or protest within 50 metres. Since abortion was decriminalized in 1988, New Brunswick has had the strictest regulations on access to abortion. In 2014, New Brunswick published amendments to Regulation 84-20 that remove the requirement that “an abortion be performed by a specialist in the field of obstetrics and gynecology” and that “two physicians certify in writing that the abortion is medically necessary.” The new regulation states that “an abortion is covered if it is performed in a hospital facility approved by the jurisdiction in which the hospital is located.” In the spring of 1988, the government first attempted to find a compromise solution that would allow easy access to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy and criminalize late pregnancies.
The motion in the House of Commons was defeated by 147 votes to 76, both by MPs opposed to easy access to abortion and by those opposed to the inclusion of abortion rules in the penal code. [52] 1992 – An explosion and fire at Morgentaler`s abortion clinic on Harbord Street destroyed the building. This led to baseless accusations about pro-lifers and increased financial support from the Ontario government for Morgentaler. Once a new law is passed, lawsuits will be filed to test its constitutionality, said Daphne Gilbert, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, creating “legitimacy and a platform” for anti-abortion activists to take their cases to court. 1969 – The Penal Code is amended to decriminalize abortions performed by a doctor in a hospital after approval of the procedure was granted by a “therapeutic abortion committee,” which ruled that a woman`s life or health would be “negatively affected” or “probably” by the continuation of the pregnancy. No obligation for doctors or hospitals to participate in abortions. Within a few years, abortions were covered by the state-funded health system, although government ministers assured opponents that this would not be the case. 1991 – Etienne Beulieu, inventor of RU-486, tells CARAL that the abortion pill will soon begin in Canada.
At the same time, in the late 1960s, Quebec underwent a profound social and cultural change in society with the emergence of a new women`s movement. The Mouvement de libération des femmes de Montréal was founded in 1969, the Front de libération des femmes du Québec published a feminist manifesto in 1970 and met in Lafontaine Park in its own abortion trailer, and the Women`s Centre published the first radical feminist magazine in French, Québécoises deboutte! (1971-75). Initially, some were advocacy groups, but others quickly turned to concrete action, providing abortion services, health centers, feminist magazines, activist theater, daycares, shelters for abused women, rape crisis centers, and an equal pay organization.[5] May 17, 2013: New Brunswick Court of Queen`s Bench Justice Paulette Garnett rules that the New Brunswick Labour and Employment Board cannot hold a hearing on whether provincial abortion policy violates a physician`s ability to provide accessible health care. 2002 – The South East Health Authority in Moncton, New Brunswick, announces that it will no longer perform elective abortions after December 31, 2002. The authority explained that the hospital`s specialists had made a joint decision due to frequent absences that wasted already limited surgery time. As a result, since 1990, political parties and federal governments have generally avoided abortion as a subject of parliamentary debate. They prefer to leave the last word to the Supreme Court; instead of enacting new laws that could either formalize the existing system or modify it in any way. Several MPs have introduced bills for private MPs in recent decades – on both sides of the abortion debate. No one was passed in the House of Commons and therefore did not become law.
March 1973: Morgentaler announces that he has successfully performed more than 5,000 abortions. 1983 – Former Manitoba politician Joe Borowski files a lawsuit asking the courts to strike down the 1969 amendments to the Criminal Code. He argues that spending public money on abortions is illegal because it violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which he says guarantees the right to life of the fetus. Following the Supreme Court decision in 1988, the Mulroney government twice tried to pass new abortion legislation. Across the country, women began to rally to demand the right to free safe abortion. In 1970, the Vancouver Women`s Caucus, a group of independent feminists, organized political opposition to section 251.