When women appealed to him for help, Dr. Morgentaler decided to begin performing abortions despite the law. Eventually Dr. Morgentaler publicly challenged Canada's abortion law by openly declaring he had defied the law. He was imprisoned in 1975, despite the fact he was found not guilty by juries. Eventually, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women had the right to control their own bodies and today there exists no law in Canada concerning abortion. Various provinces have tried to get around this by refusing to provide funding for abortion clinics and this is still being challenged.
Canadian humanists are fully behind the more open abortion policy.
Humanists are leaning towards training other humanists to become counsellors for addicts and alcoholics and perhaps to attend to those in hospital or prisons, or as counselors to those who have left religion and find themselves ostracised. The HAC has always played a strong role in lobbying for support for various causes such as the Newfoundland referendum on schools, appearing before the Senate to support euthanasia or representing the humanist view at CRTC hearings against the extension of TV evangelists on television. People are becoming disillusioned with religion, particularly concerning the sex scandals involving church officials with children. Such people are looking for something to take over the roles that religion has played. Plus there is the fact that as we move to the 21st century and our knowledge of the way the world works increases all the time, it becomes more and more obvious that many things that were taught by religion, are simply not true.