Morgentaler's death quietly revives abortion debate

Dr. Henry Morgentaler faces media in Toronto, Tuesday, Oct.1, 2002. (Kevin Frayer / CANADIAN PRESS)

The debate about whether abortion should be legal in Canada might no longer garner headlines or spark angry protests outside abortion clinics as it once did. But for many, the death of Dr. Henry Morgentaler has helped reignite a debate that for them still simmers below the surface.

On Wednesday evening, a small pro-life group held a prayer vigil for Morgentaler’s soul in a park across the street from the first Morgentaler Clinic in Montreal, where the doctor’s quest for legal abortion began in the late 1960s.

The Quebec Life Coalition stages frequent protests against abortion in the park and the group’s head, Georges Buscemi, said he and his fellow coalition members planned to pray for both an end to abortion and for more people to realize that the procedure involves taking a life.

But he added that they would also pray for Morgentaler’s soul since he was a human, like anyone else, no matter how much he disagreed with the doctor’s views.

“I think he was misguided, ultimately,” Buscemi told CTV Montreal. “What he promoted is ultimately harmful. Millions of lives have been lost because of his work and he himself has killed hundreds of thousands of unborn children.”

For others, like feminist activist Judy Rebick, Morgentaler saved lives.

Rebick worked with Morgentaler for years in the abortion rights fight and says before Morgentaler took up the cause, women with unwanted pregnancies often chose to risk their own lives to end the pregnancies.

“When I went to university, abortion was completely illegal and women were going to get backstreet abortions. The No. 1 cause of admission to hospitals for women under 25 at the time was botched abortions. And you couldn’t access birth control either,” she told CTV’s Canada AM Thursday morning.

Rebick says Morgentaler’s fight to allow women access to safe abortion was courageous and she has no doubt his legacy will be felt for years to come.

“The legacy is we have the right to control our own bodies. We don’t have the fear of criminal charges. If a woman decides to terminate her pregnancy, it’s her decision. And that’s huge. And it’s a victory that’s stayed,” she said.

Rebick says while there were many women like her working behind the scenes to strike down Canada’s abortion laws, Morgentaler became the face of that fight and for many women, he’ll always be seen as a hero.

“Yesterday, I was at a conference and there were women who didn’t even know Dr. Morgentaler coming up to me with tears in their eyes and saying, ‘I was a feminist because of him,’ or ‘I became an activist because of him.’ Because the struggle was so polarizing, a lot of women -- and men too -- got active,” she says.

“I think it had a big impact. It changed my life, for sure. But in a way, it changed all of our lives. He changed all our lives.”

Still, for others, nothing has changed at all.

Ever since the Supreme Court decided in 1988 that Canada’s laws against abortion were unconstitutional, Father Tony Van Hee has sat on the front lawn of Parliament Hill to pray. With him, he brings placards decrying abortion, signs that have become a fixture on the Hill.

He says his mission is simple and will never waver: “To get the law to protect the unborn.”