PunkAssBlog.com

If only it’d been in the States. I’m so jealous of Canada right now. (via Amanda.)

Morgentaler among those named to Order of Canada

Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean has named a leading abortion rights crusader to the Order of Canada, news that has outraged anti-abortion groups.

Dr. Henry Morgentaler is one of 75 Canadians to receive honours for their contribution to the country. The Governor General announced the new inductees on Tuesday after the names were recommended by an advisory panel.

Now 85, Morgentaler, a Polish Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Montreal after the war, opened his first abortion clinic in 1969 and performed thousands of procedures, which were illegal at the time.

Morgentaler, a trained family physician, argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies.

Morgentaler’s clinics were constantly raided, and one in Toronto was firebombed. Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada.

His victory came on Jan. 28, 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada’s abortion law. That law, which required a woman who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee, was declared unconstitutional.

So awesome.

In another controversial decision, the University of Western Ontario three years ago conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws degree upon Morgentaler, his first honorary degree, sparking campus protests.

Melissa Haussman, author of Abortion Politics in North America and a University of Carleton political science professor, told CTV that it was “fitting and right he should be honoured.”

“I can think of no one who has worked harder on behalf of women’s reproductive choice and women’s reproductive rights than Dr. Henry Morgentaler since the … late 1960s,” she said.

Take that, Washington University.