This presentation examines the phenomenon of transnational travel for abortion services in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing the popular English-language print media in Canada. In the 1960s, popular newspapers and magazines carried articles, features, and editorials emphasizing the difficulties of abortion access, the toll of illegal abortion, and the need for abortion law reform. Toward the middle of the decade, print media began carrying a few stories about women who travelled abroad to other countries to secure an abortion, encouraging readers to empathize with their desperation. After the federal government reformed abortion laws in 1969, access to legal abortion services proved to be highly restrictive in practice. Print media published information about abortion referral agencies and even step- by-step accounts of journeys to foreign abortion providers. These accounts stirred readers’ dissatisfaction over the unfairness of abortion laws that only some women could skirt because of their economic privilege. However, the same accounts could also serve as travel advisories for women contemplating pregnancy termination internationally.
About the speaker
Christabelle Sethna is a historian and Full Professor in the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada. Her research deals with the history of sex education, contraception, and pregnancy termination in Canada, with a transnational focus on medicine, law, and activism related to women’s reproductive health. She has authored and edited several articles, chapters, and books, including Just Watch Us: RCMP Surveillance of the Women’s Liberation Movement in Cold War Canada, co-authored with Steve Hewitt in 2018; Abortion Across Borders: Transnational Travel and Access to Abortion Services co-edited with Gayle Davis in 2019; and No Place for the State: The Origins and Legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill, co-edited with Christopher Dummitt in 2020. She is Principal Investigator for a project funded by the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada on transnational travel and abortion services from the 1960s-1980s.
PART OF THE GENDER SEMINAR SERIES
The Gender Centre has developed this series of research seminars in order to offer a platform for exchange for students, doctoral students in particular, and researchers whose work includes a gender perspective. During this monthly series, researchers have the opportunity to discuss their work, meet peers from different disciplines at the Graduate Institute, as well as interact with other students, guest speakers and faculty members.
See the programme of this semester's Gender Seminar Series here.
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