https://raarn.ca Aggregated results of: Shannon Stettner en https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1226 Until the late 1960s, the authorities on abortion were for the most part men—politicians, clergy, lawyers, physicians, all of whom had an interest in regulating women’s bodies. Even today, when we hear women speak publicly about abortion, the voices are usually those of the leaders of women’s and abortion rights organizations, women who hold political office, and, on occasion, female physicians. We also hear quite frequently from spokeswomen for anti-abortion groups. Rarely, however, do we hear the voices of ordinary women—women whose lives have been in some way touched by abortion. Their thoughts typically owe more to human circumstance than to ideology, and without them, we run the risk of thinking and talking about the issue of abortion only in the abstract. Without Apology seeks to address this issue by gathering the voices of activists, feminists, and scholars as well as abortion providers and clinic support staff alongside the stories of women whose experience with abortion is more personal. With the particular aim of moving beyond the polarizing rhetoric that has characterized the issue of abortion and reproductive justice for so long, Without Apology is an engrossing and arresting account that will promote both reflection and discussion. https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1238 During the 1960s, Canadians were grappling with the social and legal changes that directly affected women’s reproductive lives. One of the contexts in which these changes were occurring was the growing secularization of society. The authors’ analysis of letters to the editors of the Globe and Mail on abortion, however, reveals that over 70% of the letters referenced religious beliefs or institutions. The authors use these letters to explore the ways that readers who commented on abortion referenced religion to legitimize their positions. Specifically, they explore the expressions of the place of Christian beliefs and institutions in discussions of law reform and ideas about women’s roles in a modernizing Canadian society. Examination of the readers’ letters on abortion illuminates perceptions of the churches’ place in a modernizing society, and the degree to which churches were seen as responsive and responsible to their constituents. While religion was a contested field in the abortion law reform debate of the 1960s, it was not ignored; this analysis helps to complicate our understandings of secularization in Canada during the 1960s. https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1239 To date, studies of the Abortion Caravan have addressed it primarily within the context of the growth of women’s liberation. At the same time, while the contribution of women to the anti-Vietnam War effort in Canada has been gaining increased scholarly attention, no works have yet explored the links between women’s abortion rights activism and their anti-Vietnam activities. This article explores these linkages through the 1970 Abortion Caravan, using oral history interviews, movement and mainstream media coverage, and the archival files of the Vancouver Women’s Caucus. Connections can be found in the women’s adoption of a language of war, in tactics and strategies used by each movement’s activists, and in the conflict between their competing political interests. This broader contextualization helps to illuminate some of the complexities of women’s abortion rights activism. https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1240 Throughout the 1960s, the public abortion debate was dominated by men. While women’s voices were not absent, they are harder to locate. This article highlights one forum in which women eloquently expresse their feelings about abortion. In submissions to the Royal Commission the Status of Women in Canada, women demonstrated their “right” to speak on the issue in many ways, including by sharing their experiences as mothers or with unplanned and unwanted pregnancies; referencing their professional lives,especially in care giving fields; and drawing moral authority from or opposing religious beliefs. This article analyzes women’s efforts to convey their authority to speak to the legality of abortion, highlighting a component of the 1960s abortion law reform discussion often overlooked. https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1242 When Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s best-known abortion rights advocate, died in 2013, activists and scholars began to reassess the state of abortion in this country. In Abortion, some of the foremost researchers in Canada challenge current thinking by revealing the discrepancy between what people are experiencing on the ground and what people believe the law to be after the 1988 Morgentaler decision. Grouped into four themes – History, Experience, Politics, and Reproductive Justice – these essays showcase new theoretical frameworks and approaches from law, history, medicine, women’s studies, and political science as they document the diversity of abortion experiences across the country, from those of Indigenous women in the pre-Morgentaler era to a lack of access in the age of so-called decriminalization. Together, the contributors make a case for shifting the debate from abortion rights to reproductive justice and caution against focusing on “choice” or medicalization without understanding the broader context of why and when people seek out abortions. https://raarn.ca/islandora/object/raarn:1225 This multidisciplinary volume investigates different abortion and reproductive practices across time, space, geography, national boundaries, and cultures. The authors specialize in the reproductive politics of Australia, Bolivia, Cameroon, France, ‘German East Africa,’ Ireland, Japan, Sweden, South Africa, the United States, and Zanzibar, with historical focuses on the pre-modern era, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as the present day. This timely work complicates the many histories and ongoing politics of abortion by exploring the conditions in which women have been forced to make these life-altering decisions.