Canada the Good by Marcel Martel

Author:Marcel Martel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

“You Have Heard of the Pill, Haven’t You?“, John Collins, ca. 1968. McCord Museum, M965.199.6725

Women were involved in the development of a new narrative centred on notions of sexual liberation, self-determination, and gender equality. Translated into public policy, this narrative advocated for the decriminalization of birth control and abortion. Proponents argued that the latter had to be free, safe, and accessible. Women should no longer have to put their lives on the line when they sought to terminate their pregnancies, and nobody should question a woman’s motives, since abortion was a right. The state’s role should be limited strictly to guaranteeing that women could freely exercise this right.

Other events also fuelled the debate. In 1961, the Planned Parenthood Association of Toronto was founded following the case of a Toronto pharmacist, Harold Samuel Fine, who had been charged, convicted, and fined for selling contraceptives. According to the judge, Fine failed to demonstrate that he served “the public good” by advertising and selling birth control. In reaction to Fine’s case, the Planned Parenthood Association pursued the goal of amending the Criminal Code.16

In the context of the sexual revolution and the counterculture movement, the birth control issue divided Christian churches. Some Protestant churches softened their position and conceded that married couples could use birth control methods and contraceptives. The United Church of Canada agreed that contraceptives were “a moral necessity.”17 Similarly, the Anglican Church acknowledged that married men and women should have access to birth control information and contraceptives. Protestant churches encouraged the state to decriminalize birth control, but only in part. Although married couples were deemed responsible enough to use birth control, the openness of the churches ended with this group. They continued to assert that unmarried individuals should not have access to birth control information and devices. In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, liberal Catholics had high hopes when, in March 1963, Pope John XXIII appointed the Pontifical Commission on Population, Family and Birth-rate, known as the birth control commission and made up of lay people, experts, and clerics, to examine sex and the regulation of births. Many interpreted this decision as a clear indication that church authorities would lift the ban on contraception and approve the use of contraceptives for married Catholics. This change in policy would have meant that the Roman Catholic Church had recognized its inability to govern the sexual behaviour of its flock and was therefore adapting its doctrine to the new reality triggered by the sexual revolution and the greater availability and social acceptance of contraceptives. In an interview with the Globe and Mail on April 9, 1966, Gregory Baum, from St. Michael’s College in Toronto, who had attended the Vatican II Council, disseminated this belief in liberalism by stating that Catholics could now use contraceptives. A year later, Baum claimed that renewed criticism, on the part of the church, of artificial contraception was irrelevant.18 However, when Pope Paul VI released Humanae Vitae on July 25, 1968, he crushed the hopes of those who believed that the church was changing course.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.