The US supreme court case “Buck vs Bell” is one of the more famous ones. Most people have at least heard of the case, but a lot of people don’t know all of the facts. The trial of Buck vs Bell happened in 1927. The case was brought up by Carrie Buck and her mother Emma were said to be imbeciles. Not much later, Carrie Buck’s daughter Vivian was judged to be feebleminded. This would mean that there was 3 generations of feebleminded people. Carrie Buck was institutionalized and wa told that she needed to be sterilized. She did not want this, and sued the superintendent of the sterilization colony, Dr. JH Bell. Buck argued that this was unconstitutional, and that she had a fundamental right to procreation. Buck said that it was not part of the…
v. Morgentaler case, women had to receive approval from the therapeutic abortion committee of a hospital before getting an abortion. This led to undue pain and suffering for women denied the right to choose. Since the case’s decision, there have been no abortion laws passed in Canada. This ruling is significant because it gave women the legal right to access a safe abortions and affirmed a woman’s right to control what happens to her own body. The issue of choice of whether or not to continue a pregnancy is the right of women and this ruling empowers them to make their own decisions around their fertility without seeking permission and being denied access to abortions. Although it is unenforceable, this case is coming one step closer to legal abortion in Canada, and has sparked discussion worldwide on whether it should become…
After reading both the Keegstra and the Children’s Aid Society case studies one got a more bold understanding of how the Charter affects the Canadian society. The Charter impacted the Canadian society by helping protect and shape the people’s rights in the Canadian society. Like in the Keegstra and the Children’s Aid Society cases the charter showed that everyone has equal rights, however the Supreme Court can stop you if you pass a certain limit. In the Keegstra case the Supreme Court defined to the public what the limit towards the freedom of expression is. Like in the children aid society case the Supreme Court showed the people their limit of the freedom of religion. The charter impacts the Canadian society by defining to the public their…
Upon my research using the Global Nonviolent Action Database, I came across an interesting case article called, “Vancouver Women’s Caucus fights for reproductive rights (Abortion Caravan), Canada, 1970.” Put simply, although abortions were officially legalized in 1969, the Canadian government immediately made a constitutional amendment to Section 251 of the Criminal Code, which resulted in a severe limitation of women’s access to abortions unless the woman’s health was at risk or if the male-dominated Therapeutic Abortion Committees gave approval. Seeing an increase in abortion-related deaths and injuries, the Vancouver Women’s Caucus and its supporters immediately began to organize demonstrations and formulate the “Abortion Caravan”—a protest campaign that started out at Vancouver and worked its way into Ottawa in order to protest at Parliament Hill. Ultimately, although abortion was not officially removed from the Criminal Code until 1988,…
It is in this vein that a country drafts legislation to protect the rights of their inhabitants. In the United States there is the Bill of Rights of 1781, which consists of a preamble and the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, 1787. In Canada there is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the first part of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982. Both of these documents provide for the rights and freedoms for their respective populations. These documents are vastly different, but also contain several similarties. Thou both excellent documents, it is in my contention, however, that the Bill of Rights is far superior, more significant and efficiently exceeds the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.…
An ideology of revolution through an improvement of rights system was in Michael Ignatieff’s article “Democracy and Rights Revolution” (2000). He revealed that this transition, which started from the 1960s, has effects on both improving overall equality, and defending people’s right to be different.…
The most recent and controversial involvement of the Supreme Court concerned the right to abortion. In 1973, the Supreme Court voted 7-2 to…
e Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, patriated in 1982, is arguably the most fundamental base of law that exists in Canada. Section 2 of the Charter, also known as the Fundamental Freedoms, is a crucial part of the Charter because it protects citizens and gives them the freedom to follow and practice their own religion, have their own beliefs and opinions, express themselves as they wish and gather in peaceful assemblies (Jobb). Section 2(b) of the Charter, also known as the “freedom of expression”, states that Canadians have the “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication” (Class Note, Al-Hassani, 10/10/2014). This freedom is crucial in a democratic society because…
The first part of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we choose for our project is section 8: Search and Seizure. This section guarantees that everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. There are two parts to this section, one being unreasonable search and the other being unreasonable seizure. Unreasonable search is when your property, belongings, body, is searched without a warrant or without a probable reasoning to believe that the person would need to be searched. Unreasonable seizure is different; it implies that a person’s belongings have been taken from them by a public authority without the persons consent. Many government activities fall under this law, in all the law helps to secure people’s rights to privacy and it keeps government officials from abusing their power. Many may wonder why search and seizure are under the same section. The reason why they are is because they often fall hand and hand. Seizure often only occurs following a search, and searches only occur for the reasoning of wanting to seizure the person’s illegal belongings.…
Before the Charter even existed, freedoms and rights were protected in Canada by several laws. One of the several laws that protected freedoms and rights, was the 1960 Bill of Rights. Although more important, none of these laws were part of the Constitution (The Constitution is a document that was signed in 1982 by the Queen (Elizabeth) and Canada’s famous Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, signed the Constitution Act, 1982, which includes the British North America Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms) and therefore lacked the power and durability of the Charter. The Bill of Rights also only applied to federal, rather than provincial laws. Early 1980s, Pierre Trudeau, Liberal government started to begin the process of patriating Canada's Constitution—taking it out of the hands of the British Parliament; the government also decided to include within the Constitution a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Along with the extensive constitutional debates, that then dominated politics for much of 1981 and 1982, there were specific concerns about the Charter: would it give courts and judges too much power to interpret its meaning, and how would it be altered once it was in place? There were also deep reservations among provincial leaders that a Charter would restrict the right of provinces to independently make…
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom is a form of mechanism that ensures that the Canadian government does not do anything that is either undemocratic or against the natural rights in which the Charter is built upon (Source). The Charter does this by giving ordinary citizens the power to defend their rights against any government intrusion through the judicial system. A good example of this is the gay rights movement where gay and lesbian activists incorporated the Charter in their attempt to promote gay and lesbian rights. In other words, they used the Charter to challenge certain discriminatory government legislations and with the help of the Charter, the activists successfully forced the government to amend, change, or strike down…
Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms as part of its law. The laws are a part of the Canadian Constitution that has basic rules upon how Canada runs. It has been around for 35 years by the Constitution Act that took place on April 17, 1982. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the most important law in Canada because no other laws are valid if they do not meet the requirements of the Constitution. The rights of the Charter abide by any person in Canada, however, certain rights as to vote, leave and enter the country at any time only applies to Canadian Citizens. Canada has strengthened its recognition of the LGBT community and Aboriginal Rights by governing different from the Constitution. The Canadian Charter of Rights and…
More than 30 years ago today, one of the most significant developments in the protection of human rights in Canada was signed and entrenched in the Canadian Constitution under the leadership of then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Coming into force on April 17, 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the most visible and recognized part of the Canadian Constitution and is intended to protect certain political and civil rights of people in Canada from the policies and actions of all levels of government. Since its enactment in 1982, the Charter has had a powerful influence on Canadian federalism, while also communicating true independence from the former British colony. The introduction of the Charter of Rights has undoubtedly assisted Canadians…
One of the biggest issues facing women in American society today has been an issue bouncing around in politics for decades: reproductive rights. Women can never have equal opportunity to men without equal opportunity to make their own decisions about their bodies. Reproductive rights for women not only include the right to abort a pregnancy, but it also involves any choice a woman may make concerning her body. She must have the right to choose when she wants to get pregnant, choose when she wants to have sex, have easy access to information about her body and reproductive system, as well as access to contraceptives and non-stigmatized medical care. Today’s women in American society still have to battle the right to information, the right to contraceptives, and the right to abortion.…
A person can either be in support of abortion or against it, but do you really think that anyone has the right to murder an innocent human being? In my opinion, abortion should be banned because it means to kill a new life, no matter what stage of pregnancy it is in, and its putting a woman's body in danger because the result is not always pleasant; it could go the opposite of what you envisioned. The main and the most important contributing factor to why abortion should not be legal is the physical health risks it provokes, mainly breast cancer. Furthermore, women should have a sense of personal responsibility of their behavior. Abortion should be illegalized because it encourages prostitution. In today's society, with all the technology surrounding us, some people believe it is a very easy process, therefore they mate whenever they want and get an abortion even before reflecting on their own decision of killing an innocent life. Long before, thousands upon thousands women had illegal abortions and died. According to me, if women are responsible enough to have sexual intercourse, they should also be responsible enough to raise a child that is growing in their stomach. Finally, many consider the fetus a human life, and thus ending a human life is murder. I also agree. Women around the world, especially Canada, have been given the freedom of speech, and are honorable to make their own decisions, but they do not have the right to choose when to kill the fetus. According to me, another reason why women choose to have an abortion is because they are insecure of the way they look, but abortion isn't a choice about what a woman does with her own body, there are not one, but two bodies involved. Unborn babies are human beings from the moment of conception and have a fundamental right to life. There are countless number of couples in the world who are struggling to conceive a baby, but they are ready to adopt…