Main description:

When Henry Morgentaler, Canada's best-known abortion rights advocate, died in 2013, activists and scholars began to reassess the state of abortion in the country. In this volume, some of Canada's foremost researchers challenge current thinking about abortion by revealing the discrepancy between what Canadians believe the law to be after the 1988 Morgentaler decision and what people are experiencing on the ground. Showcasing new theoretical frameworks and approaches from law, history, medicine, women's studies, and political science, these timely essays reveal the diversity of abortion experiences across the country, past and present, and make a case for shifting the debate from abortion rights to reproductive justice.

Contents:

Introduction / Shannon Stettner, Kristin Burnett, and Travis Hay

Part 1: History

1 Different Histories: Reproduction, Colonialism, and Treaty 7 Communities in Southern Alberta, 1880-1940 / Kristin Burnett

2 Not Guilty but Guilty? Race, Rumour, and Respectability in the 1882 Abortion Trial of Letitia Munson / Rebecca Beausaert

3 Abortion and Birth Control on the Canadian Prairies: Feminists, Catholics, and Family Values in the 1970s / Erika Dyck

Part 2: Experience

4 He Is Still Unwanted: Women's Assertions of Authority over Abortion in Letters to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada / Shannon Stettner

5 Abortion on Trial: Abortion Tribunals in the 1970s and 1980s / Beth Palmer

6 The Dark, Well-Kept Secret: Abortion Experiences in the Maritime Provinces / Katrina Ackerman

7 When Research Is Personal and Political: Researchers Reflect on the Study of Abortion / Marion Doull, Christabelle Sethna, Evelyne Morrissette, and Caitlin Scott

Part 3: Politics

8 Functionally Inaccessible: Historical Conflicts in Legal and Medical Access to Abortion / Frances E. Chapman and Tracy Penny Light

9 Morgentaler and the Technological Production of Embodiment / Jen Rinaldi

10 Between a Woman and Her Doctor? The Medicalization of Abortion Politics in Canada / Rachael Johnstone

11 Subverting the Constitution: Anti-abortion Policies and Activism in the United States and Canada / Lori Brown, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich, and Colleen MacQuarrie

Part 4: Discourse and Reproductive Justice

12 The Future of Pro-choice Discourse in Canada / Kelly Gordon and Paul Saurette

13 Reproductive Justice in Canada: Exploring Immigrant Women's Experiences / Laura Salamanca

14 Toxic Matters: Vital and Material Struggles for Environmental Reproductive Justice / Sarah Marie Wiebe

Conclusion / Kristin Burnett and Shannon Stettner