1989 – Barbara Dodd in Toronto and Chantal Daigle in Quebec go to court to try to have an abortion after their friends receive injunctions to prevent them from doing so. Dodds gets the green light from the Ontario Supreme Court, resigns and regrets his decision. Daigle was rejected by the Quebec Supreme Court, went to the Supreme Court and got the green light, even though she had already had an abortion in the United States. Now, no father can prevent the abortion of his child. One-third of hospitals perform surgical abortions, and they perform two-thirds of surgical abortions in the country. Other surgical abortions are performed by public and private clinics. [71] Medical abortions are possible in Canada with medications such as methotrexate or misoprostol and/or mifepristone. [11] [12] Mifepristone in combination with misoprostol (brand name Mifegymiso) was approved in Canada when prescribed by a physician on July 29, 2015. [72] In 2017, the authorization was extended to prescribing options for nurses, midwives and pharmacists based on provincial regulations,[73] and can be dispensed directly to the patient by pharmacists. [12] 2006 – Representative Leon Benoit of Alberta introduced Bill C-291 to make it a separate crime to injure or kill a fetus during an attack on the mother.
The bill was declared ineligible after Attorney General Vic Toews declared it unconstitutional because it did not provide an exemption for abortion. Nationally, abortion is legal during the nine months (40 weeks) of pregnancy,[11] but no provider in Canada provides care beyond 23 weeks and 6 days. [7] Restrictions are based on professional medical guidelines, available resources (equipment, qualified personnel) and the mandates of each institution, so access to all types of services varies from region to region in each province and territory. [7] [68] [6] Each province and territory regulates and funds its own health care system. The federal government provides funding to each province and territory as long as it meets the requirements of the Canada Health Act. One of these requirements is comprehensiveness, which means that all insured health services defined in the legislation must be covered by a provincial or territorial health insurance plan in order for that province or territory to receive federal funding. [69] Abortion is not specifically mentioned in the Canada Health Act. It is simply included in the broad definition of “insured health services,” along with other medical and surgical procedures. [70] 2017: The drug known as RU486, called Mifegymiso, is available for the first time in Canada. Provincial governments are beginning to cover the cost of providing the abortion drug to women. In Ontario alone, 45,363 prescription claims will be filed between August 10, 2017 and December 31, 2020. 1993 – The parents and boyfriend of Karine Rivard (mother of a 6-month-old boy), who dies following an abortion at the clinic of the Université de Sherbrooke (QC), file a civil lawsuit against the institution.
She died of a severe allergic reaction that caused her to suffocate. There was no adequate equipment in the out-of-hospital facility. 1985: The Ontario jury acquitted the pro-abortion activists after accepting Morgentaler`s efforts to defend the necessity. The Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the decision. Morgentaler asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. Mifepristone, one of the drugs used for medical abortion, is approved by Health Canada. The product is sold in Canada under the name Mifegymiso®. 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] 2001 – In a petition to the House of Commons Finance Committee, Marilyn Wilson, Executive Director of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, states that women who want abortions: “.. Do it for socio-economic reasons. Sometimes it`s the desire to finish their education and become financially independent. In many cases, couples with children want to limit the size of their family to ensure adequate financial support. Often, the choice of abortion is a conscious decision not to become a socio-economic burden on society. “When abortion pills became commercially available here in 2017, there was optimism that they would help improve access, especially in rural and remote areas.
The supporters, however, still say it is uneven. “Most primary care physicians don`t prescribe it, and they`re just going to go to an abortion clinic,” said Mohini Datta Ray, executive director of Planned Parenthood Toronto. 1991 – Morgentaler and Theodore Busheikin open an abortion clinic in Calgary. They are monitoring other potential waves as some federal and state lawmakers hint at intentions to prevent women from having abortions in other states, punish out-of-state doctors, or stop the flow of abortion pills by making it illegal to deliver them by mail. What happens if these bans extend to other countries or if people persecuted for abortions in the U.S. seek refuge in Canada? Since the 1988 decision, abortion has continued to be a burning political issue. Public opinion polls consistently show that Canadians are divided on this issue. In 2010, an EKOS/Globe and Mail poll found that a slim majority of Canadians, 52 per cent, were in favour of voting; 27 percent were for life. The remaining 21% would not join either camp.
But in Canada, there is no federal law restricting abortion. 1999 – After a six-year struggle, nurses at Markham Stouffville Hospital reach an agreement with their employer giving them the right to refuse to help doctors perform abortions. 2001 – The Clinique pour femmes de la région de Hull, an abortion clinic in Quebec, withdraws its lawsuit against the pro-life group Respect de la Vie Outaouais. The clinic challenged an ORT brochure stating that one in 25 women “is hospitalized for up to 7 days after a legally induced abortion in Canada.” The clinic reported “irreparable damage” to its business caused by the RVO brochure. The ORT statistics used are from Statistics Canada. “We don`t have specific laws for hip replacement or other medical procedures, so why would we need them for abortion?” said Julia Tetrault-Provencher, chair of the National Women`s Association National Steering Committee and the National Association of Women and the Law`s Reproductive Rights Task Force. Prior to 1988, Canada had a much more restrictive abortion regime than the United States. While Roe v. The Wade decision paved the way for legal electoral abortion in all 50 states, in Canada, abortion existed only as a rare medical exception. Prior to 1969, inducing an abortion was a crime under Article 251 of the Penal Code. The maximum penalty for a doctor or anyone else who assists a woman in terminating her pregnancy was life imprisonment. If the woman herself was convicted, the sentence was two years.
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. Some hospitals did not have enough doctors for a committee. Others only saw patients who lived in a specific geographic area or imposed quotas for the procedure. All other abortion providers or women who received them were prosecuted. As far as we are concerned, even though Bill C-43 has not technically been proclaimed, Bill C-43 now has the force of law in the minds of the public and of women. In fact, while we are dancing on the head of a pin and counting ourselves like angels, three weeks ago, a woman died in Toronto – she bled to death. Her name was Yvonne Jurewicz, she was 20 years old and probably afraid to go to the doctor and go to the hospital after trying to have an abortion. That is the sad reality of Bill C-43.
As we discuss the small issues of whether or not the Lieutenant Governor or Governor General of Canada picked it up, we know that young women in this country feel that they are being considered criminals if they show up bleeding in an emergency room. [58] Abortion at 24 weeks is limited in Canada and sends a small number of people to the United States each year.