A group of pro-choice activists has decided that, protocol be damned, they are going public in a last-ditch attempt to have Dr. Henry Morgentaler invested into the Order of Canada.
“Going the prim and proper route doesn't seem to have worked, so we need to change tactics,” said Carolyn Egan of the Ontario Coalition of Abortion Clinics.
Traditionally, all nominations for the Order of Canada as well as the deliberations leading to the selection of candidates are confidential. Public discussion of nominees is frowned upon.
In an unprecedented move, Dr. Morgentaler's supporters have decided to catalogue past rejections and spur a public debate about why one of Canada's iconic figures has never received its highest honour.
Lawyer Clayton Ruby, himself a recipient, said he is at a loss as to explain why Dr. Morgentaler has been repeatedly overlooked. “There are a lot of deserving people who don't have an Order of Canada. But among them Henry stands out as a giant. It's a monumental absence,” he said.
There have been at least three large, organized attempts to nominate Dr. Morgentaler for the Order of Canada, as well as numerous individual nominations.
In the early 1990s, members of the Humanist Association of Canada submitted a nomination. In 2002, Marilyn Wilson, president of the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League, rallied a number of public figures and submitted another nomination.
Next, members of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics took aim at the 2005 list. The nomination letter was penned by bestselling author John Irving (The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules) and signed by dozens of high-profile Order of Canada members such as June Callwood and Pierre Berton.
“It's blasphemy that this hasn't happened, a national embarrassment,” said Cathie Colombo, the long-time assistant to Dr. Morgentaler who is leading the charge. Ms. Colombo said a new nomination will be sent to the Chancellery of Honours within days. “Even if you don't agree with his views, you can't deny the impact he's had on Canadian society.”
It is widely speculated that Dr. Morgentaler has been overlooked because the Chancellery does not want to be seen as taking sides in the abortion debate.
But Mr. Ruby, who has never shied away from taking on provocative causes or clients (including Dr. Morgentaler), does not believe that being controversial excludes one from investiture.
“Clearly, Henry Morgentaler is one of the most courageous Canadians of our generation,” he said. “The longer his exclusion from the Order of Canada persists, the more peculiar it is.”
The sense of urgency is driven, in part, by a sense of history. It has been 20 years since the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada's abortion law (as well as 35 years since the Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court).
The path to that decision arguably began in 1967, when Dr. Morgentaler presented a brief to the House of Commons health and welfare committee in which he urged that Canada's restrictive abortion law be repealed.
The next year, he performed his first abortion and then, in 1969, he defied the law by opening a private abortion clinic. In 1970, the doctor was arrested and acquitted, but the acquittal was overturned and he served 10 months of an 18-month sentence in prison.
Legal battles multiplied until the issue made its way to the highest court. On Jan. 28, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada's abortion law, ruling that Parliament had a legitimate interest in protecting human fetuses but that the existing prohibition on abortion was disproportionate in its means and failed to protect women's right to security of the person.
Supporters of the nomination are also racing against a practical reality: There is no posthumous appointment to the Order of Canada and Dr. Morgentaler is 84 and in precarious health, having suffered a severe stroke.
