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On January 28, 2013, Canada celebrated 25 years of no abortion law. The Supreme Court of Canada threw out our criminal law in its entirety in 1988 because it violated women's constitutional rights to bodily security, life, liberty, autonomy and conscience. I've put together the following selection of key works describing the history of the pro-choice campaign, the role of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the Supreme Court decision, the benefits of having no abortion law, and some personal stories. Enjoy!

Books

With several female MPs at his side, Conservative MP Mark Warawa held a press conference Wednesday on Parliament Hill to promote his Motion 408, which would "condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination." How ironic, considering that his Conservative government has been busy institutionalizing discrimination against women since 2006, while Warawa and the rest of the anti-choice movement wants to send women back to the days of unsafe criminal abortions or mandatory motherhood.

It's very odd to see Warawa's sudden concern over the abortion of only female fetuses, when we know he hates all abortions.

In the aftermath of last week's resounding defeat of Motion 312 in the House of Commons by a vote of 203 to 91, the pro-choice movement has not been celebrating. No doubt, some activists downed a glass of champagne or two, but only because they really needed a drink.

The defeat was the biggest loss of an anti-choice motion or bill in Canadian history. So why the tears in our beer? Blogger Fern Hill watched the vote and describes her reaction:

The London Family Planning Summit on July 11 drew an impressive amount of global attention -- and money -- to the vital cause of improving access to contraception in developing countries. While there's much to celebrate in this bold initiative, some troubling concerns need to be addressed if the global community truly hopes to cut the high death toll from pregnancy, most of which is completely avoidable with basic reproductive health care and a little political will.