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Abortion Caravan

A black and white photograph of a group of protesting women standing in front of two buildings, carrying signs and banners with one stating Abortion Is Our Right and another one that states Vancouver Women’s Caucus. One woman walks across the space in front of the group and on the left, a man in a suit speaks to a person in the crowd.
Provincial Archives of Alberta, J-446/8

The 1969 Criminal Code amendment permitted abortion for the first time under specific and restrictive conditions. Abortion was legal only where a doctor agreed to provide the service, and the hospital had an established a three-doctor Therapeutic Abortion Committee and if that committee determined that the pregnancy posed a danger to the woman’s health. This system created serious delays and obstacles, and could make an abortion unattainable, especially for poor and racialized women and those living in rural or remote areas. Under the therapeutic abortion committee model, the average national delay between the first appointment and the actual abortion was nine weeks.