When Were Abortions Legal in Canada

Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled in R.v. Morgentaler that a law criminalizing abortion was unconstitutional. Reform Party representative Deborah Grey, who supported the bill, denied that the death, the first known death from illegal abortion in Ontario in two decades, had anything to do with the public surrounding the passage of Bill C-43. [ref. needed] But it was in Ontario that the connection was made. MPP Richard Johnston suggested to Premier David Peterson that Ontario announce that it would not sue women or doctors by third parties to prevent further tragedies and to assure doctors they could continue to provide services to Ontario women. [59] TORONTO – Winnipeg`s women`s health clinic is overwhelmed. The facility is one of the few abortion clinics in Manitoba, a Canadian province of 1.3 million people. It responds to about 100 inquiries each week and says it offers up to 30 percent more abortions than it receives from government funding. In Canada, the provinces manage public medical services. (See Division of Powers.) With this power, some provincial governments have attempted to ban private abortion clinics; or refused to finance them entirely from public funds. In 1993, Morgentaler challenged Nova Scotia`s Medical Services Act all the way to the Supreme Court. It repealed the provincial law that prohibits abortion clinics in that province.

Also in the 1990s, the governments of Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador were punished under the federal Canada Health Act for allowing private billing in provincial abortion clinics. After the penalties, the provinces agreed to fully fund the clinics. In particular, the court did not find that there was an inherent right to abortion under the Charter. Instead, he said the system that regulates access to abortion — specifically, the hospital review boards that were supposed to approve abortion requests — had so many obstacles and worked so poorly that it was “patently unfair.” As a result, the abortion law was dropped. (It was completely repealed in 2019.) Since no other legislation has replaced it, abortion has remained legal across Canada since 1988. Under the Canada Health Act, Ottawa has the authority to claim provincial health transfers if the provinces do not provide sufficient access to services. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that a father does not have the legal right to veto a woman`s abortion decision. The verdict came after Chantal Daigle`s boyfriend obtained a court order preventing her from having an abortion. When the case was settled, Daigle had secretly undergone an abortion in the United States. Formally banned in 1869, abortion remained illegal in Canadian law for the next 100 years.

[8] In 1969, the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1968-69 legalized therapeutic abortions on the condition that a medical committee certify that the continuation of the pregnancy was likely to endanger the life or health of the woman. [8] In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Morgentaler that the existing law was unconstitutional and struck down the 1969 Act. [9] The decision found that the 1969 Abortion Act violated a woman`s right to “life, liberty and security of the person” guaranteed in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, introduced in 1982. [10] In 1973, Morgentaler publicly stated that he had performed 5,000 abortions without the permission of the three medical committees, and even went so far as to videotape himself during the operations. [38] The Canadian subsidiary of Planned Parenthood, now known as the Canadian Federation for Sexual Health, is also in favor of abortion rights and, although it refers pregnant women to abortion providers, it (unlike its American counterpart) has no history of involvement in widespread litigation in favor of legalizing abortion. In 1969, the government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau amended the penal code. Doctors are allowed to perform abortions in licensed hospitals if the pregnancy threatens a woman`s health or life. A medical committee had to approve the procedure.

In all other circumstances, abortion remains illegal. In Canada, abortion is legal at all stages of pregnancy and is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the combined effects of the Canada Health Services Act and provincial health systems. [1] However, access to services and resources varies from region to region.