ABORTION IN CANADA - A TIMELINE

1803

- The first law criminalizing abortion in England is passed, with procuring an abortion after “quickening ” — the first fetal movements — carrying the death penalty, and before quickening a fine, flogging or jail. It’s the model for later Canadian statutes, with New Brunswick the first to pass one in 1810.

1869

- The federal consolidation of criminal law passed two years after Confederation includes penalties of as long as life in prison for a person who facilitated a miscarriage or the woman herself.

1892

- The new criminal code both bans abortion and makes it illegal to sell or advertise birth control (although that term was not coined until 1914), punishable by two years in jail.

1967

- The Royal Commission on the Status of Women is convened. Among its recommendations would be abortion on demand in the first trimester and thereafter if it threatens a woman’s health or in cases of fetal abnormality.

1969

- The government of Pierre Trudeau passes legislation allowing abortion in hospitals if a committee of three doctors determines the pregnancy endangers a woman’s life or health. Dr. Henry Morgentaler begins defying the law, opening a clinic in Montreal. He first faces charges in 1970 and spends 10 months in jail.

1970

- The feminist Abortion Caravan travels from Vancouver to Ottawa, arriving on Mother’s Day carrying a coffin full of coat hangers representing women who have died from illegal abortion. Hundreds of women hold two days of protests against the new law and 30 chain themselves to seats in the visitors’ gallery of the House of Commons.

1975

- The “Petition of One Million” organized by Alliance for Life, the first national antiabortion group, which is asking for legal protection for the unborn, is delivered to the House of Commons following a rally on Parliament Hill.

1988

- The Supreme Court of Canada strikes down Canada’s abortion law as unconstitutional because it infringes upon a woman’s right to life, liberty and the security of person. “Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman’s body and thus a violation of her security of the person,” Chief Justice Brian Dickson writes.

1992

- The Morgentaler Clinic in Toronto is firebombed. Over the next five years, three Canadian doctors who performed abortions are injured in shootings in Hamilton, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

1994

- Morgentaler opens a clinic on Bank Street in downtown Ottawa. Within two weeks the Citizen reports that the first protesters have arrived. Nine police officers stood by as the Campaign Life Coalition of Ottawa-Carleton handed out leaflets.

So far in 2017:

The abortion pill, a combination of two drugs known as Mifegymiso, goes on sale in Canada in January, 15 years after being approved in the United States and after almost 30 years of use in Europe. By March, it’s available in less than half of Canadian provinces and in Ottawa costs as much as $425.

An Ipsos poll released last month finds that more than three-quarters of Canadians say abortion should be permitted, one in four favour some limits on the procedure and 12 per cent think it should not be allowed. One in 20 believed it should not be allowed even to save the life of the mother.

In April, staff of the Morgentaler Clinic, Ottawa’s only publicly funded abortion clinic, accuse authorities of doing little to curb years of harassment and intimidation it says clients and workers have faced from protesters. Police and the city say their hands are legally tied.