The Politics of Abortion

On 28 January 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada, in its landmark decision, Morgentaler v The Queen, ruled that the existing federal law regulating abortion violated women's 'security of the person' and therefore was unconstitutional. With one stroke of the judicial gavel, Canada's top court set in motion an intensive round of abortion politics culminating in a parliamentary stalemate and no new abortion law. The Politics of Abortion: Representations of Women in Canada critically examines the politics of abortion in Canada leading up to and after the historic Morgentaler decision. In essays by three established feminist scholars in political science and law, the book traces the dramatic changes in the politics of abortion in the past twenty-five years. It describes the emergence of competing political claims, new social actors, innovative and intense organizational activity, and new sites of struggle.