The Abortion Caravan

In January of 1970 a 'Dear sisters' letter goes to women's liberation groups across the country enlisting support in the fight for greater access to abortion. In the spring of 1970, seventeen (mostly) young women set out from Vancouver in a big yellow convertible, a Volkswagen bus, and a pickup truck. It was called the Abortion Caravan. Five thousand kilometres later, they led a rally of 500 women on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, "occupied" the Prime Minister's front lawn, chained themselves to their chairs in the visitors' galleries and shut down parliament--the first and only time this was accomplished. The seventeen were a motley crew. They argued, they were loud, and they took no prisoners. In an era when there was no social media and no one could afford long-distance phone calls, they pulled off a national campaign. It changed their lives. And at a time when thousands of women in Canada were dying from back-street abortions, it pulled women together across the country.