Gaining a Right to Abortion in the United States and Canada: The Role of Judicial Capacities

Parallels are identified in the history of abortion in Canada & the US. In both countries, technology played a pivotal role in creating dissension on abortion, which caused physicians who were worried about potential medical liability to lobby for reform measures that catalyzed public debate & spawned both the right-to-life & the abortion-rights movements. It is argued that differences in court structures & capacities permitted the US abortion reform movement to surmount a variety of legislative obstacles more quickly than the prochoice movement in Canada; Canadians were unable to achieve reform until much later because they could not produce an abortion rights doctrine until 1982, the year the Charter of Rights & Freedoms was written into their Constitution. 30 References. W. Howard