Courtesy of York University Libraries, Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, Toronto Telegram fonds, ASC04612.
Note From Andrea: Thank you all so much for your patience with me while I finish up this condensed summer course! Our last special blog post comes from none other than Shannon Stettner! I am so pleased to be able to share this post with you, since I think it is, unfortunately, extremely topical given events of the past few weeks. That, and Shannon is an extremely talented historian, as well as a wonderful friend. And she’s probably going to kill me for saying that. So I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did! And I’ll be back next week with a brand new post from me!
Shannon Stettner teaches in the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Waterloo. Her research examines women’s abortion rights activism, reproductive justice, and public opinion on abortion in Canada. She is the editor of Without Apology: Writings on Abortion in Canada (Athabasca University Press), and co-editor of Transcending Borders: Abortion in the Past and Present (Palgrave MacMillan) and Abortion: History, Politics, and Reproductive Justice After Morgentaler (University of British Columbia Press). She is also a founding member of the Reproductive Activism and Abortion Research Network. Shannon tweets from @slstettner.
In this post, I would like to share some of the initial reactions to the Abortion Caravan in the immediate aftermath of the event.[1] I do so in light of recent conversations about civil disobedience, especially suggestions that there are right or wrong ways to protest.[2] After writing this piece, conversations about civility came to the fore and commentators have also offered ideas about “proper” ways to protest.[3] Arguments about the effectiveness of a particular tactic suggests that there is only one goal or outcome of an act of civil disobedience. But, the varied reactions to the Abortion Caravan suggest that there are multiple takeaways and when we judge an event as successful or not, we should be aware that the outcome observers may be focused on could well be a secondary (or even a non-) consideration for the organizers and participants. Change does not generally occur through a single act of protest. An event that isn’t “successful” or well received in one respect may still have a lot of value in another. What is valuable to remember is that it is through such actions that activists evolve and grow their messages and techniques.[4]
The Abortion Caravan
In April 1970, close to 20 women set out from Vancouver, British Columbia, on a two-week trek to Ottawa, Ontario in what would become known popularly as the Abortion Caravan. Once there, they intended to protest the 1969 omnibus bill changes regarding abortion. The omnibus bill modified the existing abortion law so that abortion was legal when a therapeutic abortion committee of at least three doctors determined that continuing the pregnancy endangered a woman’s life or health and when that abortion was performed in an accredited hospital. The women who were protesting this law believed that the law did not go far enough: they wanted free abortion on demand.
During the Caravan, the women stopped at eleven cities to perform public outreach activities and to gain supporters for both the Caravan specifically, and decriminalization more generally. Once in Ottawa, on May 9, 1970, the women held a public rally on Parliament Hill, attended by several hundred people, which was followed by a spontaneous march to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s residence where the women pushed their way onto the grounds of 22 Sussex Avenue for a sit-in. Two days later, the women reassembled on Parliament Hill. One group of women marched around the Centennial Flame, burning a copy of the Criminal Code, and giving speeches about the grisly reality of illegal abortion in Canada.
A second group of women, disguised as tourists, made their way into the galleries of the House of Commons. Once there, several chained themselves to their chairs. Around 3:00pm on Monday, May 11, 1970, the women disrupted the House proceedings by shouting out a speech they had prepared for the occasion. The protest from the women was met with a loud and, sometimes crude rejoinder, from several Members of Parliament. Participant Gwen Hauser wrote that when “the guards were unable to stop us, the MPs became increasingly disturbed. Shouting cries of ‘Whores!’ ‘Sluts!’ and other goodies from a male chauvinist repertoire, some of them rushed up into the galleries.”[5] The House was temporarily adjourned while the guards removed the women, which took upwards of half an hour given the chains involved.
This protest was noteworthy for several reasons. Importantly, it was the first national protest on abortion in the country. It was also the first protest to shut down Parliament and is remembered as a gutsy and bold action by both the protesters and historical observers. But how was it received at the time?
Reactions and Legacies
Looking back, the media reaction to the Caravan sounded pretty alarmist. One article read: “Complete disorder and pandemonium took over the Commons Monday as 31 young women rose one after another in the public and members’ galleries and screamed at startled MPs ‘free abortion on demand.’ It was chaos and confusion of the street demonstrations moved into the galleries of the House of Commons.”[6] Many more articles used similar language. In part, the tone likely reflects the fact that the House protests followed within a week of the shooting deaths at Kent State University as well as the recognition that Parliament was vulnerable to such interruptions.
In addition to the reactions of journalists, several politicians were quoted in the press. Some NDP MPs offered support for the women. For example, Andrew Brewin suggested their strategy may have been “a bit dubious,” but showed “a lot of guts and gumption,” and acknowledged that they had succeeded in gaining the attention of Members of Parliament.[7] Less favourably, Progressive Conservative MP Wallace Nesbitt went so far as to compare the protest to the Nazi tactics that had been used in Germany in the 1930s.[8] One of the harshest criticisms came from the Liberal Minister of Justice, John Turner, one of the government officials the women had been most interested in meeting during their time in Ottawa. Turner dismissed the women, claiming that they “don’t understand the democratic process.” He also vowed not to submit to any ultimatum (i.e. their demand for immediate decriminalization of abortion) and did not believe that their “lack of patience” was any way “to convince the Canadian public of the legitimacy of their cause.”[9] Rather than misunderstanding the democratic process, however, the abortion caravan can be seen as a signal that the women had reached a point where the democratic process lacked legitimacy for them. The Abortion Caravan came about because women were angry that laws governing their bodies had been made without them. They were angry that the 1969 omnibus bill changes seemed focused on protecting doctors who performed abortions with little consideration for the women who sought abortions.
There are other outcomes of the abortion caravan to consider. Namely, how did the women view the events and their impact? The participants credited the Caravan with bolstering women’s confidence as political actors and organizers, drawing women into a national movement, and making abortion a subject about which they could speak publicly. For one, the Abortion Caravan “changed the face of so much politically in this country because it empowered us as women.”[10] Similarly, another participant believes “it was successful in pulling together the women’s movement, in giving us confidence as women…not really in tangible ways, but in millions of intangible ways.” For another, the Caravan was an irrefutable success because “It was creative, it was gutsy, and it was a really powerful vehicle for the level of anger women felt.” Another contends, “It certainly changed the way the government and the police force looked at women’s demonstrations…. It had a much broader effect than just one simple issue. There was never again a women’s demonstration that was not taken seriously.” The confidence the participants gained in themselves and their organizational skills would serve them well in the coming years as they continued to fight for the decriminalization of abortion alongside other issues.
In the final analysis, definite successes stemmed from the actions surrounding the Abortion Caravan. The Caravan did not change the abortion laws in the country, but it brought the issue of abortion into the open, particularly in those places where the women stopped and held public meetings, and onto the front pages of Canadian newspapers. The Abortion Caravan, like all activism, was a collaborative protest and took shape and evolved through the input of multiple people. Activist events work best when people feel ownership over strategies. Newer activists, like many of the women who partook in the Caravan, form and shape their identities through trial and error. When we look at reactions to the Caravan, it is clear that many external observers were not impressed by the protestors’ strategies. For them, disrupting Parliament was not the right or proper or civil way to protest. In the long term, however, how important were those external reactions? The real value of the Caravan, I argue, were the lessons that the activists themselves took away from the event. Almost fifty years later, the Caravan is considered one of the most memorable protests of the time and an empowering moment in women’s, activist, and pro-choice history, which suggests to me that we should let organizers respond to and plan activist events in ways that they find meaningful.
[1]This material is drawn from and further information about the Caravan can be found in Shannon Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada: Public Debates and Political Participation, 1959-1970” (PhD dissertation, York University, Toronto, 2012); Shannon Stettner, “”We are forced to declare war”: Linkages between the 1970 Abortion Caravan and Women’s Anti-Vietnam War Activism,” Histoire sociale/Social history 46, no. 92 (2013): 423-441. For additional resources on the Abortion Caravan, see Frances Wasserlein, “‘An Arrow Aimed at the Heart’: The Vancouver Women’s Caucus and the Abortion Campaign, 1969-1971” (master’s thesis, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, 1990); Ann Thomson, Winning Choice on Abortion: How British Columbian and Canadian Feminists Won the Battles of the 1970s and 1980s (Trafford: Victoria, 2004); Judy Rebick, Ten Thousand Roses: The Making of a Feminist Revolution (Toronto: Penguin, 2005); Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt, “Clandestine Operations: The Vancouver Women’s Caucus, the Abortion Caravan, and the RCMP,” Canadian Historical Review 90, no. 3 (September 2009): 463-495; Barbara M. Freeman, Beyond Bylines: Media Workers and Women’s Rights in Canada (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2011).
[2]For example, there have been many public discussions about the “no platforming” strategy whereby usually controversial speakers are prevented from speaking at an event often through the disruption of said event. These discussions often centre around competing ideas of free speech versus hate speech.
[3]For an explanation of the civility debate, see, for example, “The past 72 hours in Sarah Sanders’s dinner and the civility debate, explained,” Vox, June 25, 2018, available at https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/25/17500988/sarah-sanders-red-hen-civility
[4]Social movements, as Robert Benford explains, “devote considerable effort to constructing particular versions of reality” and “the outcomes of frame disputes help shape a movement.” Robert D. Benford, “Frame Disputes within the Nuclear Disarmament Movement” Social Forces 71, no. 3 (March 1993), 677, 698.
[5]As quoted in Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 282.
[6]Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 283-284.
[7]Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 286.
[8]Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 287.
[9]As quoted in Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 287-288.
[10]These and additional reactions can be found in Stettner, “Women and Abortion in English Canada,” 289-297.
I think that this post is an important reminder of the intersections of history and politics, and why understanding the past is so crucial and relevant to the present. As usual, I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog post! If you did, please consider sharing it on the social media platform of your choice! And don’t forget to check back on Thursday for a brand new review of Back in Time for Dinner from Kesia and I! It’s the 1960s, and it’s going to be groovy baby…. (sorry, I had to!). See you then!
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