This article is about the 1988 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. For the 1976 decision, see Morgentaler v R. For the 1993 decision, see R v Morgentaler (1993).
1988 Supreme Court of Canada decision legalizing abortion
R v Morgentaler
Supreme Court of Canada
Hearing: October 7–10, 1986 Judgment: January 28, 1988
Full case name
Dr Henry Morgentaler, Dr Leslie Frank Smoling and Dr Robert Scott v Her Majesty The Queen
Judgment for the Crown in the Court of Appeal for Ontario
Ruling
Appeal allowed, acquittal restored
Holding
Section 251 of the Criminal Code violates a woman's right to security of person under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and cannot be saved under section 1 of the Charter.
Court membership
Chief Justice: Brian Dickson Puisne Justices: Jean Beetz, Willard Estey, William McIntyre, Julien Chouinard, Antonio Lamer, Bertha Wilson, Gerald Le Dain, Gérard La Forest
Reasons given
Majority
Dickson (45–80), joined by Lamer
Concurrence
Beetz (80–132), joined by Estey
Concurrence
Wilson (161–184)
Dissent
McIntyre (132–161), joined by La Forest
Chouinard and Le Dain took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
R v Morgentaler, [1988] 1 SCR 30 was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which held that the abortion provision in the Criminal Code was unconstitutional because it violated women's rights under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") to security of the person. Since this ruling, there have been no criminal laws regulating abortion in Canada.[2]
^SCC Case Information - Docket 19556 Supreme Court of Canada
^Rachael Johnstone (15 September 2017). After Morgentaler: The Politics of Abortion in Canada. UBC Press. p. 11. ISBN 978-0-7748-3441-4.
RvMorgentaler, [1988] 1 SCR 30 was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which held that the abortion provision in the Criminal Code was unconstitutional...
hundred doctors. Morgentaler twice challenged the constitutionality of the federal abortion law, losing the first time, in MorgentalervR in 1975, but winning...
MorgentalervR (also known as Morgentalerv The Queen) is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where physician Henry Morgentaler unsuccessfully challenged...
woman's life or health. In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Morgentaler that the existing law was unconstitutional, and struck down the 1969...
decision R. v. Morgentaler (1988), Supreme Court of Canada decision R. v. Morgentaler (1993), Supreme Court of Canada decision Goldie Morgentaler (born 1950)...
trials in the 1970s and the 1980s. In the 1988 Supreme Court case, R. v. Morgentaler, 1988 SCR 30, a nullification was appealed all the way to the country's...
Rv Keegstra, [1990] 3 SCR 697 is a freedom of expression decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the court upheld the Criminal Code provision prohibiting...
under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in RvMorgentaler (1988). That case, however, while finding the committees were unfair...
limit be "prescribed by law." The Court, citing the Beetz opinion in R. v. Morgentaler (1988), said that a law that can be interpreted differently is not...
judges and juries were often reluctant to convict. For example, Henry Morgentaler, a Canadian pro-choice advocate, was never convicted by a jury. He was...
(Blencoe v. B.C. (Human Rights Commission), 2000) This right has generated significant case law, as abortion in Canada was legalized in R. v. Morgentaler (1988)...
generated significant case law, as abortion in Canada was legalized in R v Morgentaler (1988) after the Supreme Court found the Therapeutic Abortion Committees...
substance deal with a matter outside that jurisdiction?). For example, in R. v. Morgentaler (1993), the province of Nova Scotia passed a law that prohibited certain...
performed in the province. In 1988, following the court decision R. v. Morgentaler, the then-opposition Progressive Conservative Party of Prince Edward...
infringed EC law. RvR [1991]: the House of Lords invalidated the defence of marital rape to reflect a changing view in society. Rv Brown [1993] UKHL...
example of the rational connection test being failed can be found in RvMorgentaler (1988), in which Dickson held that a particular Criminal Code abortion...
Western Ontario, Henry Morgentaler, a gynecologist involved in a legal case decriminalizing abortion in Canada (R. v. Morgentaler), was made an honorary...
many important decisions, including RvMorgentaler (1988), which struck down Canada's abortion law, and Vriend v Alberta (1998), in which the Supreme...
maine.gov. Retrieved 25 May 2019. R. v. Morgentaler, 1993 CanLII 74, [1993] 3 SCR 463 (30 September 1993) Madsen v. Women's Health Center, Inc., 512 U...
not clearly prohibit a state from regulating abortion travel. With Rv. Morgentaler, a 5–2 majority of the Supreme Court of Canada held that the abortion...
intervened in Supreme Court of Canada cases including R. v. Morgentaler (1993) and M. v. H. (1999). In R. v. Sullivan (1991) it argued that a fetus is a person...
Court of Canada; authored the dissent in the landmark abortion case R. v. Morgentaler (1988) Scott Moe, 15th (and current) Premier of Saskatchewan Permanand...
law, although Justice Bertha Wilson did rely on it in her opinion in RvMorgentaler. Finding laws against abortion to be a breach of the rights to liberty...
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