Abortion in Canada

[9] In 1969, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69 legalized therapeutic abortions, as long as a committee of doctors certified that continuing the pregnancy would likely endanger the woman's life or health.

[17] During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion before the “quickening” (15–20 weeks[18]) was legal in the British North American colonies.

He added, "By the time I became Chief Coroner, I had had the unpleasant experience of seeing the bodies of some dozens of young women who had died as a result of these amateur abortions.

[27] He describes one case that he believes was the turning point, that of 34-year-old Lottie Leanne Clarke, a mother of three children, who died of a massive infection in 1964 after an illegal abortion in spite of medical treatment and antibiotics.

In 1965, the Minister of Justice, Guy Favreau, wrote to Shulman that the recommendation would be considered in the program to amend the Criminal Code.

[26] In 1967, Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced a bill which included an amendment to the provision of the Criminal Code which prohibited abortions.

[28] The bill, known as the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69, continued the basic prohibition on abortions, with the potential life sentence.

[28] This same bill also legalized homosexuality and contraception, and would be the subject of one of Trudeau's most famous quotations: "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation.

The report recommended better family planning to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, but their main conclusion was that abortion services were not being delivered as required.

In 1970, as part of the Abortion Caravan, 35 women chained themselves to the parliamentary gallery in the House of Commons, closing Parliament for the first time in Canadian history.

[42] The Court was unanimous that the provision was valid criminal law, and therefore within the constitutional authority of the federal Parliament; it did not intrude on provincial jurisdiction over health.

[50] Justice Wilson found that the law "asserts that the woman's capacity to reproduce is to be subject, not to her own control, but to that of the state" which similarly breached the right to security of the person.

Justice Wilson was of the opinion that such a right existed, but the other judges in the majority made their decision on procedural grounds, relating to the insufficiencies in the committee process.

In the spring of 1988, the government first attempted to find a compromise solution that would give easy access to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy and criminalize late term ones.

Prime Minister Brian Mulroney declared he was opposed to "abortion on demand", but gave no details on what that meant legally.

[55] Liberal leader John Turner stated that MPs should be allowed to vote their conscience, but refused to give his own opinion on the issue.

NDP leader Ed Broadbent had a firm position that abortion is a medical matter, not a criminal one, and should be left to a woman and her doctor.

While we debate the minor points of whether or not the Lieutenant Governor or the Governor-General of Canada has picked it up, we know that young women in this country are under the impression they will be considered criminals if they show up in an emergency ward door hemorrhaging.

[5] In the wake of the controversy surrounding passage of the Goods and Services Tax the Progressive Conservative government did not wish to provoke a contest of wills with the Senate and announced it would not re-introduce the legislation.

At that time, another case before the courts would have raised that issue; it was brought by Joe Borowski, a former member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba.

[68] Surgical and non-invasive medical abortions in Canada are provided on request for any reason, are confidential for all ages and funded by Medicare; to those who are covered by provincial/territorial medical care plans (depending on the province or territory, this always includes Canadian citizens and permanent residents, but may vary on inclusion of international students, workers, and protected persons or refugee claimants).

[8] Restrictions are based on professional medical guidelines, resources available (equipment, trained personnel) and individual facility mandates makes access to all types of services vary by region within each province and territory.

Many socially conservative Alliance supporters were angered at the prospect of Belinda Stronach, who favoured abortion rights, winning the leadership election in early 2004, while in contrast, some Progressive Conservative supporters objected during the 2004 federal election to the new party's perceived openness to legislation that would restrict abortion rights.

Motion 312 was introduced by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth in 2012, calling for a House of Commons committee to determine when human life begins, but was defeated 203–91.

[95] In 2021, Conservative Cathay Wagantall introduced a private member's bill that would prohibit a medical practitioner from performing a sex-selective abortion.

The finding reported to Statistics Canada did not include detailed information on how long each fetus survived after removal or how many would have been possible to save.

Canada, unlike the United States, does not specifically have a law confirming or denying the legal rights of a baby who survives abortion.

On January 23, 2013, Conservative MPs Wladyslaw Lizon, Leon Benoit, and Maurice Vellacott wrote a letter requesting that the RCMP investigate how many of the 491 live-birth abortions meet the definition of homicide set forth in the Criminal Code.

[102] The move drew approval from Dr. Eike-Henner Kluge, former director of ethics and legal affairs for the Canadian Medical Association, who said that doctors should "do the best [they] can for what is now a person in the eyes of the law".

However, Dr. Douglas Black, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said that the situation is not one of homicide, but rather allowing fetuses "to pass away, depending on what the circumstances are, sometimes in their mom's arms".