Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada ed. by Shannon Stettner (review)

Since the landmark 1988 Supreme Court decision, R. v. Morgentaler, Canada's abortions laws remain largely unchanged. Unlike the United States, the Canadian government largely protects women's access to abortion. Yet, as Without Apology makes clear, the movement to grant all Canadian women access to safe and legal abortion is far from over. In her introduction, Shannon Stettner argues that the public rhetoric around abortion in Canada often portrays women as victims. Few women speak publically about their abortions because of the stigma around the subject. In response, this collection brings together the voices of women's experiences with abortion, abortion rights activists, abortion providers, and academics. Together, each author provides examples for historians and activists alike on how to engage the politics of pro-choice to promote greater access to abortion.

The first section provides a comprehensive legal history of abortion in Canada. While Angus and Arlene McLaren's The Bedroom and the State (McClelland and Stewart, 1986) remains the definitive history of birth control in Canada, Stettner offers a welcome update to this literature by incorporating the history of the pro-choice movement from the 1970s to the present day. Stories of the women who helped Morgentaler challenge Canada's abortion laws in the 1980s provide significant context for the rest of the collection. The overview also situates changes to Canada's abortion laws in their international context. Stettner shows how global developments during the 1930s, when eugenics became increasingly visible, made Canadians believe abortion should be available in some cases. This overview usefully demonstrates the historical significance of the collection and suggests avenues for future research.

The five sections of contributor essays build on the historical context by furthering an in-depth discussion of the abortion debate in Canada from a variety of perspectives. Researchers will find the first section highlighting narratives of women's experiences with abortion particularly useful. First-hand accounts of abortion show the different emotions that women experience dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, upsetting the women-as-victim narrative that the collection seeks to challenge. The second section features essays from activists such as Carolyn Egan and Linda Gardner from the Ontario Coalition of Abortion Clinics and the Radical Handmaids about the 2012 protests around Motion 312 (a bill introduced by Conservative mp Stephen Woodworth to review the section of Canada's Criminal Code that defines a child as a human being at birth). They showcase tactics that worked in the past and stress that the fight for reproductive justice in Canada is not over.

The third section discusses what it means to be pro-choice; it includes the voices of authors who used to be against abortion. Natalie Lochwin's and Tracey L. Anderson's experiences growing up in religious households highlight the anti-women and oppressive nature of the anti-choice movement. Laura Gillespie considers what it means to be pro-abortion, and Laura Wershler talks about the judgment that exists even within pro-choice rhetoric. These authors force the reader to think about how the anti-abortion movement in Canada uses certain language, for example, to construct abortion as a shameful experience, to attack a woman's right to choose.

Section four features the voices of people who provide abortion care, such as abortion counsellors Ruth Miller and Erin Mullan and patient escort Peggy Cooke. Stettner's interview with "Dr James" (whose use of a pseudonym shows the dangers abortion providers in Canada face today) illustrates the complicated role that doctors play in the pro-choice movement. James discusses the challenges doctors face in medical school to become abortion providers. Abortion services receive little financial support, despite being an integral part of the provision of women's health care. The final section underlines the complicated relationship between abortion and Aboriginal and racialized women. By incorporating an intersectional feminist perspective into the collection, these essays demonstrate the importance of thinking outside the pro-choice/anti-abortion binary in writing the history of...