Henry Morgentaler 's Life And Life Essay

Even after abortions became illegal, women continued to have them. Practitioners did their work behind closed doors or in private homes. Women often resorted to desperate and deadly measures just to have an abortion. Women had been able to get abortions by leaving the country or paying a physician in the U.S. a large fee for the procedure. While others weren 't so lucky. They often sought out back-alley procedures or took matters in their own hands. The methods

Abortion has been around since the earliest times. The first recorded abortion recipe dates back to 2600 B.C. (“History of Abortion”). Ancient societies supported abortion

Silas Marner George Eliot the pseudonym of Mary Anne Evans was born in Warwickshire, England in 1819. Eliot was one of the finest realists of Victorian fiction and produced a remarkable range of intellectual novels throughout her life, including the moral fable of Silas Marner. The 19th Century was an extremely patriarchal period, which Mary Anne Evans had to pen her name as George Eliot, otherwise her novels would not be published. George Eliot was a critic of the Victorian society in which she lived, and which she felt remarkably hypocritical in its treatment of her, as an intelligent, freethinking woman, who lived with a man to whom she was not married.

In every society whether it was legal or legal, abortions were used to control fertility. In the United States it was practiced legally until about 1880, by then most states had banned it except to save a woman's life. It was widely practiced through the entire period it was illegal. In the 1890’s there were an estimate of two million abortions per year and, one to two million annually during the 1920’s-30’s. Whether a

For around $400 and a referral from a well-respected doctor, Dr. George Loutrell Timanus performed abortions from the 1920s until 1951 (Reagan 1997, 158). Dr. Timanus, like many private practice physicians in his specialty performed abortions for women who came to him with varying reasons such as “poverty, excessive childbearing, and illegitimacy” (Reagan 1997, 158). Despite the general disapproval of abortions, Dr. Timanus practiced out in the open and was available for those who needed him. Dr. Timanus’ execution of these operations showed that though abortions were illegal at the time, there were many doctors who were sympathetic with different maternal cases. His decision to do what he thought was morally correct over the few decades is significant because it shows a change in attitude towards abortions in comparison with that of the early twentieth century. However, in 1951 Dr. Timanus’ office was raided and he, along with those who worked with and for him, was arrested for illegally performing abortions. In the beginning of the 1950s, people started to question whether or not abortions should be legal, thus why Dr. Timanus believed that he was doing nothing wrong and was well within his rights as a physician. Despite the fact that there were people and doctors who had similar beliefs as he did, not one of Dr. Timanus’ colleagues came to his defense as he was trialed for his crimes (Reagan

Dr. Henry Morgentaler and two other doctors set up a private clinic in Toronto to perform abortions on women. According to the law at that time women were required to obtain a certificate from a therapeutic abortion committee that would Asses whether they qualified for an abortion. Morgentaler and his colleagues made public statements question the wisdom of these abortion laws in Canada. They believed that women should have the sole decision on having abortion. The three appellants where charged on the grounds of conspiracy amongst each other between November 1982 and July 1983 with the intent to perform an abortion on women contrary to s.423 (1) (d) and s.251 (1) of the criminal code . This was an appeal from the court of appeal for Ontario.

Abortion, the termination of pregnancy before the fetus is capable of independent life, has been practiced since ancient times. With records dating to 1550 BC, it’s no question that abortion techniques have been used throughout the ages as an effective form of birth control. Pregnancies were terminated through a number of methods, including the use of herbs, sharpened instruments, the application of abdominal pressure, and other techniques. In the 19th century, the English Parliament and the American state legislatures prohibited induced abortion to protect women from surgical procedures that were deemed unsafe. However, in 1973, abortion was legalized as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court rule in Roe v. Wade. This ruling made it possible

To prove that the Charter protects some rights but not all, a court case that involved Dr Henry Morgentaler and the Supreme Court of Canada was successful after trials. Before this case, women were only allowed to have an abortion after proper certification of approval from a hospital's Therapeutic Abortion Committee. Three doctors including Morgentaler set up an abortion clinic that allowed women to have an abortion without a certification of approval. He was later charged with illegal abortion under section 251 of the Criminal Code. Morgentaler argued that women had full right on deciding whether or not they wanted an abortion. This law was struck down as unconstitutional as it violated a woman’s right according to section 7 on the Charter.

Abortions were widely used in the early eighteen hundreds and kept secret due public scrutineer. Not only were they considered against the law in some places but were risky due to high risk of infection from unsterile equipment used to perform the actions.” Without today’s current technology, maternal and infant mortality rates during childbirth were extraordinarily high. “(National abortion Federation, 2016) as time contained states changed and modified their laws to accommodate political agendas, these opposed to legal abortion had begun to fight absent any stated funded abortion clines. Then there was Roe v. Wade this was the first major Supreme Court battle based on abortion laws and ethics. Roe v. Wade decision of the courts said that they “considered the constitutionality of a Texas statute made it a crime to obtain an abortion except when it was necessary to save the life of the mother”. (Harris, 2014) There was another Supreme Court case that changed the views of the courts based on how they judge the frame work of decision on the trimester model. The ethics involved in this are not just solely left to the mother of the potential life but in the network of people

The Queen vs. Davis case concerns the murder trial of Arthur Paul Davis and Alice Davis that occurred in 1875. In it, they were tried and convicted of murder for conducting an abortion; the killing of a fetus and subsequently causing death of the victims, Catherine Laing and Jane Vaughn Gilmour. This essay will examine the historical context of the case, what the trial reveals about the nature of women’s lives in Toronto during the 1870s as subordinate women who are deemed as caretakers and how women managed to end unwanted pregnancies. During the late 19th century ending an unwanted pregnancy was an illegal offence because it was considered unethical to kill a fetus. Women were not able to access safer alternatives such as

Angus McLaren, author of “Illegal Operations: Women, Doctors, and Abortion” demonstrates the life of an abortionist in the late 1800’s to the mid 1900’s. McLaren explains a series of affairs in detail with many different abortionists. Since abortion was illegal at the time, many women consulted midwives, or took the procedure of abortion among themselves, this at times resulted in their death.

Historically, abortion was not regulated in the United States until the 20th century. Prior to the 1900s, abortion occurred regularly and was performed by midwives, along with other reproductive health care procedures (Ehrenreich & English, 2010). The rise of the medical industry and a growing immigrant population led to more interest amongst doctors in restricting abortion (Davis, 1983; Solinger, 2015). The American Medical Association began to lobby for the criminalization of abortion and the medicalization of birth, claiming to be interested in protecting women from the harsh chemicals used to induce abortion (Solinger, 2015). Solinger (2015) writes:

Abortion has occurred throughout history, dating since 1550 B.C. with written evidence of the cessation of the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Cambodians, and many others countries in the modern world, according to Wikipedia, the History of Abortion. Some methods of abortion include hard labor and herbal medicine.

In the 19th century, after tremendous progress in surgical processes, abortions were then conducted by surgeons on a wide scale, while medical abortions are used concurrently. However, as abortion technology prospers, legal restrictions came with it. In 1803, a English statute abolished the previously-legal first trimester abortions. The act “condemned the willful, malicious, and unlawful use of any medical substance when used with the intent to induce abortion” (Stern, 1968). In 1821, Connecticut enabled the first statute in the United States regulating abortions. Within 10 years, states like Illinois, Ohio, New York, Alabama, and others enabled abortion restriction statutes, and by 1968, 50 of the 51 jurisdictions in the United States have prohibited abortion except in the case women’s life is endangered (Ibid., at 3). In 1965, Britain, however, legalized abortion for “medical conditions of the mother, for socio-economic reasons, for eugenic considerations, and for pregnancies which resulted from rape or incestuous intercourse”, which is still law today (Ibid, at 4). In Canada, abortion has been legalized since 1969 through Bill C-150 if “a committee of three physicians determined that the pregnancy was a threat to the woman's life or health” (Norman, 2012). In 1988, Canadian Supreme Court struck down bill C-150’s provision requiring committee approval to receive an abortion in its decision R v Morgentaler, legalizing abortion across Canada for any reasons (Ibid.).

Over the years, technology has changed the way medical procedure performs and has made abortion a safer option for women in all social and economic groups. During the 1880s, there were many surgical procedures that were found dangerous and risky for patients. Health professions and other people who were committed to providing abortion to women were not equipped with safe and sanitary surgical tools. They lacked skill, knowledge, and proper concern in abortion, which resulted in a significant number of deaths and severe health consequences for women. Groups such as the American Medical Association