The Women's Movement In Canada

Looking back in history, there have been many successful and unsuccessful New Social Movements. In Canada, the women’s movement has been seen to be very successful. The Women’s Movement is committed to developing unequal power relations in politics and identifying and challenging how gender and other hierarchies affect global politics. This social movement made changes in development that leads to advancement in gender equity over time, fighting for women to participate more in politics. This movement has also expressed the development that leads to improvement in “quality of life” issues for all which is where their fight for abortion comes into place. Lastly, they encouraged and brought development that delivers to expand the distribution …show more content…
One of the major issues the women’s movement fought for, was safe access to legal abortion. Although many individuals are pro choice, there are many who are pro life which made it difficult for women to have the act of legal abortion granted. In the 1960’s, the Canadian government gained constitutional autonomy from Britain and abortion was then made legal for a small number of women under the closely watched control of doctors and hospitals (Haussman, 2001). Later on in 1988, the Supreme Court ruled this law unconstitutional. This is when activists for the women’s movement finally felt the sense of achievement (Haussman, 2001). Along with this achievement, the women’s activists went on to fight against the Conservative government to have abortions become illegal again (Haussman, 2001). If it were not for the women’s movement, it would have been highly likely that abortions would return to being illegal. Secondly, the women’s movement also fought for the right to abortions because they felt that women should have the right to their own bodies. This is due to many reasons including sexual violence, fertility and medical power over women’s health (Eichler & Lavigne, 2015). Although abortion has been granted in Canada since 1988, the access of abortions still vary among provinces due to the cost and availability of clinics and doctors willing to perform the procedures (Eichler & Lavigne, 2015). Lastly, activists within the women’s movement have been encouraging more help and support for women who have either had an abortion or are struggling through their pregnancies. The movement argues that it is not fair for women to carry these issues on their own. Today, they are encouraging more research into male contraceptives. One change that has been made is the legalization and