Judy Rebick | abortion-news.info

While legal abortion is not threatened in Canada, anti-abortion groups never stopped organizing. If there is an attempt to seriously challenge abortion rights in Canada, will we be ready to fight back.

by Judy Rebick
January 28, 2022

January 28 marks the 34th anniversary of legal abortion in Canada. On that date, the Supreme Court struck down the 1969 abortion law and declared abortion a legal medical procedure like any other. Known as the Morgentaler decision, after the heroic doctor Henry Morgentaler who opened illegal abortion clinics in Quebec in the 1970s and Ontario in the early 1980s, successfully challenging the law.

On January 22, 1973, the famed
Roe v. Wade case in the Supreme Court of the United States effectively
legalized abortion. After refusing to strike down a restrictive Texas law
allowing citizens to sue anyone seeking, counselling or providing an abortion,
the majority conservative U.S. court will soon decide whether a Mississippi law
banning abortion after 15 weeks, will be upheld. Roe v. Wade will, in effect,
be struck down with devastating impacts on women across the country; at least
12 states, including Texas and Mississippi, will trigger laws that
automatically ban abortion and other Republican-led states will no doubt
follow.

Continued: https://rabble.ca/columnists/abortion-rights-are-under-attack-in-the-united-states-should-we-in-canada-be-worried/

What it was like to fight at an illegal abortion clinic in Toronto during the 1980s
Excerpted from Judy Rebick's new book, Heroes in my Head

June 13, 2018
Judy Rebick

On June 15, 1983, Dr. Henry Morgentaler opened an illegal abortion clinic in Toronto. The Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics (OCAC) had chosen a spot on the second floor of a lovely Victorian house on Harbord Street, a quiet downtown thoroughfare lined with bookstores and cafés near the University of Toronto. With the Toronto Women’s Bookstore on the ground floor, we were assured of supportive neighbours. The interior staircase up to the clinic was useful for security purposes—if anyone broke in, it gave the nurses and doctors time to secure the patients—and there was a front stoop, perfect for rallies. The plan was to hold a symbolic opening for the media at 10 a.m. Dr. Morgentaler, who lived in Montreal, would arrive at 3 p.m., say a few words, and then go inside.

Continued: https://this.org/2018/06/13/what-it-was-like-to-fight-at-an-illegal-abortion-clinic-in-toronto-during-the-1980s/