While we are talking about abortion law in Jamaica it's worth looking at what happened in Canada: Parliament never passed a law legalizing abortion, and yet abortion is completely legal there without restrictions thanks to this gentleman, Dr. Henry Morgentaler. 1/

Prior to 1988 abortions were illegal in Canada unless they were certified by a hospital's Therapeutic Abortion Committee, a committee of three doctors who would need to certify that the pregnant woman's life is at risk. In 1968 Morgentaler took personal risk to change the law. 2/

Prior to this Morgentaler had patients come seeking abortions who he'd refer to other providers, but eventually he had nobody he could refer them to. After seeing a few of his patients harmed by amateur home-abortions he converted his Montreal office into an abortion clinic. 3/

The Quebec government prosecuted Morgentaler, but after a few court battles Quebec gave up and the clinic was allowed to operate illegally. Morgentaler's desire was to change the law though, so with two other doctors he opened another abortion clinic in Toronto in 1983. 4/

Shortly after its opening Morgentaler's Toronto clinic was raided by police and he and his colleagues were charged. The case went to the Supreme Court, which in 1988 ruled that the current abortion law was unconstitutional. Since then Canada has had no law regulating abortion. 5/

Per the Court, "Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a foetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman's body and thus an infringement of security of the person." 6/

The Court also cited the delay in getting an abortion due to Therapeutic Abortion Committee certification as an additional violation of a woman's bodily rights "which results in a higher probability of complications and greater risk." 7/

Morgentaler's approach was selfless. He spent a huge amount of money on lawyers and risked his entire career and a possibly long prison sentence for himself. But in the end he prevailed and the abortion law he hated so much was invalidated by the Supreme Court of Canada. 8/8

What Morgentaler did was to flip the equation for Parliament: the old law was toast so instead of politicians facing resistance from Church groups to LEGALIZE abortion, they had to face resistance from everyone else if they wanted to replace that law and RESTRICT abortion. 9/

Parliament tried to introduce a replacement under Mulroney in 1988 but never got the votes, and in the end never ended up replacing the invalidated abortion law. And thus, abortion is freely available in Canada as a routine medical procedure thanks to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. 10/

Dr. Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada in 2008 "for his commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations." A very brave man. 11/