Should an abortion advocate be awarded the Order of Canada?

There's a controversy brewing over the decision to award Dr. Henry Morgentaler, a leading abortion rights crusader, to the Order of Canada. Patrick Hanlon of the Right to Life Association in this province says he's appalled. Hanlon says the thought of Morgentaler receiving one of Canada's highest awards is repulsive and offensive. Hanlon says the award should be reserved for those whom the vast majority of Canadians can support. Tory MP Norm Doyle says he's appalled.

Brenda Kitchen of Planned Parenthood on the other hand says she's very pleased that Dr.Morgentaler is finally being recognized for his work.

Is it an honour or an outrage? That's the question being asked across the country after reports surfaced that Dr. Henry Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada recently. In the notice of his appointment as a Member of the Order of Canada this week, he was cited for "his commitment to increased health-care opportunities for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations."

Morgentaler is the physician who championed a woman's right to have an abortion and performed them himself. The always controversial physician braved threats of violence, threats on his life and constant harassment both legal and verbal for the cause he believed in.

He's said to have performed hundreds of the procedures at his Toronto area clinics in the 1970s. He was repeatedly charged and even spent time in jail. His clinics were bombed by protestors. And he has been vilified by some religious groups, which equate abortion with murder.

Morgentaler received a sort of vindication after the Supreme Court allowed abortions in 1988. But he remains a polarizing figure and still controversial after all these years.

Proponents argue he deserves the accolade, because he changed the landscape for women's rights and didn't give up in the face of overwhelming anger. He received an honourary degree from the University of Western Ontario in 2005.

Opponents accuse him of being no better than a murderer and a man who shouldn't be given Canada's highest civilian honour. Joanne McGarry, the executive director of the Catholic Civil Rights League, believes this. "We would really like to see the Order of Canada given to those who really inspire Canadians through their work in charity and cultural initiatives, things that Canadians tend to agree on. In this instance, we don't think you could really find very many topics that provoke more disagreement than abortion and the role that Dr. Morgentaler played in making it so widespread."

Some of those protests have died down over the past few years as Morgentaler's prominence sank into the background. But few can forget what happened a few short decades ago. Those who oppose abortion on the grounds that fetuses have rights, Morgentaler and his courageous work are viewed very differently. Indeed, a chorus of critical reaction greeted the news. "Canada's highest honour has been debased," intoned Thomas Collins, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Toronto. "We are all diminished."

While many Canadians aren't holding back on their opinions of Dr. Morgentaler receiving Canada's highest civilian honour, politicians have been very quiet. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals have commented on the issue. There has also been silence regarding this particular award from office of the Governor General.

Completing his medical studies at the Universite de Montreal in 1953, Dr. Morgentealer opened a family practice in Montreal. As a Humanist leader he promoted the idea that people had a right to control their own sexuality and reproduction, without interference by the state. In 1967 he presented a brief on behalf of the Humanist Fellowship of Montreal to the House of Common’s Health and Welfare Committee, where he urged that Canada’s restrictive abortion law be repealed.

In the following years he challenged the criminal code by providing safe abortions for women in his clinic in Montreal. He faced several trials and was acquitted each time by a jury; he went to jail for 10 months when a jury acquittal was reversed by a higher court.

Dr. Morgentaler’s determined and tireless efforts to challenge Canada’s unjust and oppressive patriarchal abortion law eventually paved the way to the historic Morgentaler decision of January 28th, 1988 by the Supreme Court of Canada which decriminalized abortion by stating that the abortion law in Canada was unconstitutional and made reproductive choice a hard won reality for all Canadian women. He continues to campaign province by province, seeking to provide abortion services to women deprived of access, a struggle which continues to this day.

The Morgentaler clinics offers a wide range of abortion care and related services, which include options/decision counseling, contraceptive education and samples, post-abortion counseling and aftercare, I.U.D. insertion, as well as testing for sexually transmitted infections such as Chlamydia and Gonorrhea. With the exception of Montreal and New Brunswick, all clinic locations are fully funded under their respective provincial medicare health insurance plans. For example in Ontario you are completely covered for abortion services with your valid Ontario Health Card, as well as I.F.H. coverage, Canadian Military insurance and some U.H.I.P. programs. For those individuals that do not have valid health insurance coverage there are agencies that may provide financial help or assistance, please do not hesitate to ask our staff for information.

When I was writing my paper on ‘Abortion: Is it Right?’ while attending the University of Toronto in the 1970s, I interviewed Dr. Mortgetaler and I asked him if abortions would reduce the possibility of great scientists, medical researchers, future composers and great writers being born. He replied with the rather pertinent rhetorical question, “Why don’t you create an organization for the protection of spermatozoa?”

I realized then that my question was rather pointless. The real issue was, would permitting women who don’t wish to have children to have legal abortions in a clinic or hospital better than having them butchered by quacks in some backroom? Thousands of women were dying either at their own hands or the hands of friends and quacks when illegal abortions were undertaken.

I remember many years ago investigating a doctor in Detroit who did illegal abortions in his clinic. One of his patients died of blood loss after he left her alone on the table and crossed the street to have lunch in a diner.

I believe that Dr. Morgentaler deserves the Order of Canada. He sacrificed himself to bring legitimate abortions to Canada so that women would have the choice of having a child or not having a child but more importantly, he brought about a change in our laws that invariably saved the lives of many child-bearing women in his time and the lives of many child-bearing women in the future.