I saw women dying from back street abortions and felt I had to do something,” says Mary McKim, a London doctor who worked at Women’s College Hospital in the 1950s.
So began her efforts to ensure women had access to medically safe abortions. Before abortion was legalized in 1969, 4,000 to 6,000 women are estimated to have died between 1926 to 1947 following botched backstreet abortions.
In 1969, Parliament passed changes that permitted abortions but only “under strict circumstances.” This provision required women to seek approval from a therapeutic abortion committee composed of three medical practitioners. While some viewed the change as progress, abortions rights activists argued the choice to have an abortion or not should be a woman’s decision — not one determined by a committee of doctors.
In 1970, an Abortion Caravan travelled from Vancouver to Ottawa to hold two days of demonstrations, closing Canadian Parliament for the first time in history. Organizations such as the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League and the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics formed to educate, lobby, fundraise and win the right for women to control their own bodies.
Throughout the 1970s, the Canadian women’s movement, along with Henry Morgentaler, protested lengthy delays in the decision process, lack of access for women in rural areas and the refusal of some provinces to provide abortions. Morgentaler was jailed for performing abortions in his clinic in Quebec, although juries refused to convict him.
Finally, in 1988, the Supreme Court judged Canada’s abortion law unconstitutional because it compromised a woman’s right to life and security of person. According to Judy Rebick, feminist activist and Chair in Social Justice at Ryerson University, “the abortion battle is probably the best example of the relationship between social struggles and legal decisions.”
Today, half of Canadians believe abortion should be legal under all circumstances and another 42 per cent support abortion in some circumstances.
In 2008 the Order of Canada was granted to Morgentaler for his tireless work in helping women win the right to control their bodies. Abortion rights activists are now focused on ensuring equal access for women in rural areas and ensuring that clinic abortions are covered under medicare.