R. V. Morgentaler Case Study

Summary
R. v. Morgentaler was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada, a verdict which declared abortion laws in the Criminal Code of Canada as arbitrary and unconstitutional. The court ruled the laws to have violated the woman's right to security of the person under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to security of person. After the ruling, you could not be charged under the Criminal Code of Canada for having an abortion without consent of the therapeutic abortion committee.
Reasons
Chief Judge Dickson claimed that a woman’s right to security of person was violated by Section 251, saying: “Forcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction, to carry a fetus to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities
Leslie Franck Smoling, Dr. Robert Scott, and Dr. Henry Morgentaler. The respondent was Her Majesty the Queen. They were charged with conspiring to breach the provisions of s. 251. Section 251 of the Criminal Code stated that women always had to receive approval from the therapeutic abortion committee of a hospital before getting an abortion. Contrary to this, the three doctors created a private clinic to perform abortions for women who did not have the consent of the committee. The ruling of 1988 struck down Canadian abortion law, which allowed all women the choice to have an abortion without consent of the therapeutic abortion committee. There was no constitutional right to abortion. The result of the case was that you could not be convicted under the Criminal Code of Canada for having an abortion without the consent of the therapeutic abortion committee, since it was now unenforceable. In the end, the three doctors were acquitted. Since there were three different opinions given by the majority and none had achieved more than two signatures, the case could not be used as a precedent for future
v. Morgentaler case, women had to receive approval from the therapeutic abortion committee of a hospital before getting an abortion. This led to undue pain and suffering for women denied the right to choose. Since the case’s decision, there have been no abortion laws passed in Canada. This ruling is significant because it gave women the legal right to access a safe abortions and affirmed a woman’s right to control what happens to her own body. The issue of choice of whether or not to continue a pregnancy is the right of women and this ruling empowers them to make their own decisions around their fertility without seeking permission and being denied access to abortions. Although it is unenforceable, this case is coming one step closer to legal abortion in Canada, and has sparked discussion worldwide on whether it should become