page_title: Abortion in Canada
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Abortion in Canada / Early history
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Emily Stowe
context_page_description: Abortion in Canada is legal at all stages of pregnancy and funded in part by the Canada Health Act. While some non-legal barriers to access continue to exist, such as lacking equal access to providers, Canada is the only nation with absolutely no specific legal restrictions on abortion. Medical regulations and accessibility vary between provinces.
  Prior to 1969, all abortion was illegal in Canada. In 1969, the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69 legalized abortion, as long as a committee of doctors certified that continuing the pregnancy would likely endanger the woman's life or health. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Morgentaler that the existing law was unconstitutional, and struck down the 1969 law. Most abortions are performed in the first trimester.
  In 2017, 94,030 abortions were reported in Canada; it is estimated that this number "represents approximately 90% of all abortions performed in Canada involving Canadian residents". The ambiguity of these statistics is due to incomplete reporting measures. For example, clinics are not required to report to the province, and provinces are not required to report federally.
context_section_description: Prior to Confederation, the British North American colonies followed British laws that had restricted many abortion rights with the Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803, followed by full prohibition with the Offences Against the Person Act 1837. Abortion was formally banned in Canada in 1869. That prohibition was continued in the Criminal Code until 1969. Anyone who procured a miscarriage for a woman was liable to imprisonment for life, while a woman who procured a miscarriage for herself was liable to imprisonment for two years.
  As in other countries, illegal abortions were still performed, and some cases charged that this led to the deaths of women. The abortion trial of Emily Stowe (1879) is one early example. Another such case, Azoulay v. The Queen, reached the Supreme Court in 1952. In both cases, the alleged abortion provider was ultimately acquitted of responsibility for the woman's death. Abortion rights activists like Marilyn Wilson, former executive director of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, say, "Illegal abortions were common, but often of poor safety. Several hundred women per year died from botched abortions."
caption: Emily Howard Stowe was the first female physician to practise in Canada, the second licensed female physician in Canada and an activist for women's rights and suffrage.
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