Abortion is the ending of a pregnancy.
Historians have shown that women around the world have always had abortions, whether induced by the pregnant woman herself or performed by someone else. In Canada, abortion was a Criminal Code offence from 1869-1969. Canadian women continued to have abortions during this period, but these illegal abortions were clandestine and usually unsafe. Some Canadian hospitals began performing abortions after 1969, when the Criminal Code was changed to permit committee-approved abortions under certain circumstances. The Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized abortion in 1988.