History of Pro-Life Bills and Motions 

Canada is the only democratic country in the world with no legal restrictions on abortion, and relatively few laws attempting to restrict abortion have been introduced in the last fifteen years.  

But it hasn’t always been this way. For most of Canada’s history, abortion was entirely illegal. For twenty years, it was legal but regulated by the Criminal Code. Even after the Morgentaler decision legalized abortion without any restrictions, there have been at least 48 pro-life bills and motions introduced in Parliament. 

Confederation to Criminal Code Reform 

When Canada was constituted as a nation in 1867, abortion was strictly prohibited. After the halfway point of the twentieth century, there was increased public pressure to decriminalize abortion. Notable groups that led this push included the Globe and Mail, the United Church of Canada, and the Canadian Medical Association. 

In late 1967, Prime Minister Lester Pearson indicated that his government was going to introduce an omnibus bill that would, among many other things, liberalize the existing abortion laws. This bill was dropped when an election was called in the spring of 1968. No sooner had Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau taken office than his new Justice Minister, John Turner, announced that the government was going to reintroduce the omnibus bill. 

On May 9, 1969, the omnibus bill passed in Parliament. The new legislation kept abortion as a criminal offence under Section 251 of the Criminal Code, but the parameters used to decide when a woman could request and receive an abortion were relaxed considerably. Prior to the passing of this bill, an abortion was only legal if the “life” of the mother was in danger. Section 251 was changed so that abortions were permitted if the “health” of the mother was compromised. If a woman wanted to have an abortion, she could apply to a “therapeutic abortion committee” (comprised of three medical doctors), which would rule whether or not the abortion was medically necessary to maintain the woman’s health. 

Since “health” was not clearly defined, the therapeutic abortion committees began authorizing almost all the applications they received. As a result, abortion became the second most common surgical procedure in the country.  

Criminal Code Reform to Morgentaler 

As Canadians began living with the reality of legalized abortion, pro-life groups and organizations began popping up across the country. These groups had a strong emphasis on both providing support for women who were experiencing unwanted pregnancies and on educating the public about abortion. Not only did they engage in this important work, but they also took their concerns directly to the government. Alliance for Life, a national pro-life group, initiated a petition campaign that became known as the “Petition of One Million” in which they collected 1,027,425 Canadian signatures asking for full legal protection of pre-born children. The petition was tabled in the House of Commons on May 29, 1975, and was soundly ignored by the Trudeau government. 

This era also saw the Charter of Rights and Freedoms enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. Section 7 of the Charter guarantees the right to “life, liberty, and the security of the person.” From a pro-life perspective, this guarantee should apply to pre-born children, but the law did not consider pre-born children as persons under the law. In an attempt to correct this, Conservative MP Gus Mitges introduced a motion – M-37 – in 1987 to recognize pre-born children as persons in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Unfortunately, this motion was defeated by a vote of 89-62. 

It was during this period that Dr. Henry Morgentaler began challenging Canada’s abortion laws. Dr. Morgentaler performed abortions illegally and, on March 15, 1973, he went so far as to publicly announce that he had personally performed over 5,000 abortions since 1968. Over a period of almost two decades, Dr. Morgentaler challenged abortion laws in various provinces by performing abortions illegally and challenging the constitutionality of the abortion law.  

This culminated in the infamous R. v. Morgentaler case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court ruled 5-2 that Section 251 of the Criminal Code violated Section 7 of the Charter and so ruled Canada’s abortion law unconstitutional. The Court ignored any possible right to life for the pre-born child and instead was concerned about the “liberty” and the “security of the person” of the woman. More information can be found here, but it’s important to note that the Court did not say that women had a constitutional right to abortion. Rather, the section was struck down on procedural grounds; the law – specifically regarding therapeutic abortion committees – could not be applied equally across Canada and so it violated the security of the person guarantee found in Section 7. 

And with that, Canada suddenly had no law regulating abortion. 

Morgentaler to Today 

Over the next year, Members of Parliament and Senators introduced no fewer than seven private members’ bills to re-regulate abortion. These efforts were superseded by the Mulroney government’s introduction of Bill C-43 at the end of 1989. The legislation did away with the problematic therapeutic abortion committees and banned abortion unless a single doctor was of the opinion that the pregnancy threatened a woman’s physical, mental, or psychological health.  

This legislation was criticized by all sides. Pro-life Canadians feared that it would effectively leave abortion by demand available across the country, while pro-abortion Canadians opposed any significant restrictions on abortion whatsoever. The legislation narrowly passed the House of Commons 140-131 but was defeated in a tied vote in the Senate. This was the last piece of abortion legislation introduced by any Canadian government. 

But Members of Parliament continued to introduce bills and motions to restrict abortion: thirty-nine have been introduced in Parliament, mostly in the two decades following the defeat of Bill C-43. Some proposals were ambitious, calling for abortion to be banned in all cases, except to save the life of the mother, or fully recognizing a pre-born child to be a “human being” under Canadian law. Others worked around the margins, proposing to protect the conscience rights of health care professionals against participating in abortion, hold a national referendum on government funding for abortions, require women to give fully informed consent prior to an abortion, or establish parliamentary committees to study the issue. 

The four most recent bills and motions aiming to protect the pre-born have touched on two issues: sex-selective abortion and pre-born victims of crime. 

In 2012, MP Mark Warawa introduced a motion to condemn sex-selective abortion. Unfortunately, Parliament deemed this motion non-votable, and so it was never officially voted on. Eight years later, MP Cathay Wagantall introduced a bill to not just condemn sex-selective abortion but to ban it entirely, but it was defeated 248-82. 

In 2016 and again in 2023, Cathay Wagantall also introduced legislation to protect pre-born victims of crime. Although these bills didn’t directly propose to regulate abortion, they did give some recognition to the value of pre-born children that could have been a stepping stone for further pro-life legislation. Both bills were defeated. 

Despite the lack of success in passing a new law governing abortion in the last forty years, pro-life Canadians must continue to fight for justice and protection for the pre-born. In the United States, it took almost fifty years for their courts to overturn Roe v Wade and allow individual states to regulate abortion again. Political change on this scale takes time, patience, and determination, both from the Canadian public and from pro-life politicians. 

Appendix: History of Pro-life Bills and Motions Since Morgentaler 

Primary source: https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/presentations-anti-bills/