Henry Morgentaler: Canada's Most Possible Pro-Choice Activist
At 82 years old, Henry Morgentaler is still Canada’s most visible pro-choice activist of the last four decades. Despite his age he is still as passionate and committed to his cause as he was in the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s – giving Canadian women access to safe and legal abortions.
Confrontation with authority is familiar to Morgentaler. His journey to earn the title as the country’s best known abortion provider was unlikely, but expected considering the early traumatic experiences which led him to his eventual career.
A Polish Jew who survived the Auschwitz death camp, Morgentaler has pointed out many times that unwanted children fighting against a family that abused them was one of the main causes of Hitler’s destruction against Jews as well as other groups of people. Morgentaler is quoted to have said in June 2005 at the University of Western Ontario, where he was awarded his first honorary degree that "Well-loved children grow into adults who do not build concentration camps, do not rape and do not murder.” Morgentaler said those Auschwitz years gave him a desperate need to accomplish something positive when and if he survived and got out of the concentration camp. His journey to recovery was not and easy one but it is what divides …show more content…
He was acquitted by a jury several times, but the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned that acquittal and sentenced him to prison where he served 10 months at Bordeaux in Montreal. Eventually, the law changed so that a jury acquittal could no longer be overturned on appeal. There would be many more arrests; two more jury acquittals, eight raids on his clinics, one firebombing, and massive legal bills. Then, on January 28th 1988, the greatest day of his life (as he puts it) – the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. The law required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee and on that day, it was declared
Confrontation with authority is familiar to Morgentaler. His journey to earn the title as the country’s best known abortion provider was unlikely, but expected considering the early traumatic experiences which led him to his eventual career.
A Polish Jew who survived the Auschwitz death camp, Morgentaler has pointed out many times that unwanted children fighting against a family that abused them was one of the main causes of Hitler’s destruction against Jews as well as other groups of people. Morgentaler is quoted to have said in June 2005 at the University of Western Ontario, where he was awarded his first honorary degree that "Well-loved children grow into adults who do not build concentration camps, do not rape and do not murder.” Morgentaler said those Auschwitz years gave him a desperate need to accomplish something positive when and if he survived and got out of the concentration camp. His journey to recovery was not and easy one but it is what divides …show more content…
He was acquitted by a jury several times, but the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned that acquittal and sentenced him to prison where he served 10 months at Bordeaux in Montreal. Eventually, the law changed so that a jury acquittal could no longer be overturned on appeal. There would be many more arrests; two more jury acquittals, eight raids on his clinics, one firebombing, and massive legal bills. Then, on January 28th 1988, the greatest day of his life (as he puts it) – the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. The law required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee and on that day, it was declared