Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction / Shannon Stettner, Kristin Burnett, and Travis Hay -- Different histories: reproduction, colonialism, and Treaty 7 communities in southern Alberta, 1880-1940 / Kristin Burnett -- Not guilty but guilty?: race, rumour, and respectability in the 1882 abortion trial of Letitia Munson / Rebecca Beausaert -- Abortion and birth control on the Canadian Prairies: feminists, Catholics, and family values in the 1970s / Erika Dyck -- He is still unwanted: women's assertions of authority over abortion in letters to the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada / Shannon Stettner -- Abortion on trial: abortion tribunals in the 1970s and 1980s / Beth Palmer -- The dark, well-kept secret: abortion experiences in the Maritime provinces / Katrina Ackerman -- When research is personal and political: researchers reflect o nthe study of abortion / Marion Doull, Christabelle Sethna, Evelyne Morrissette, and Caitlin Scott -- Functionally inaccessible: historical conflicts in legal and medical access to abortion / Frances E. Chapman and Tracy Penny Light -- Morgentaler and the technological production of embodiment / Jen Rinaldi -- Between a woman and her doctor?: the medicalization of abortion politics in Canada / Rachael Johnstone -- Subverting the constitution: anti-abortion politics and activism in the United States and Canada / Lori Brown, J. Shoshanna Ehrlich, and Colleen MacQuarrie -- The future of pro-choice discourse in Canad / Kelly Gordon and Paul Saurette -- Reproductive justice in Canada: exploring immigrant women's experiences / Laura Salamanca -- Toxic matters: vital and material struggles for environmental reproductive justice / Sarah Marie Wiebe -- Conclusion / Kristin Burnett and Shannon Stettner.

"When Dr. Henry Morgentaler, Canada's best-known abortion rights advocate, died in 2013, activists and scholars began to reassess the state of abortion in the country. In this volume, Canada's foremost researchers challenge current thinking by revealing the discrepancy between what Canadians believe the law to be after the 1988 Morgentaler decision and abortion experiences on the ground. Showcasing new theoretical frameworks and approaches from law, history, medicine, women's studies, and political science, these timely essays reveal the diversity of abortion experiences across the country, past and present, and make a case for shifting the debate from abortion rights to reproductive justice. Part 1, "History," explores how Indigenous and settler women experienced abortion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Part 2, "Experience," highlights the active role that ordinary women have played in shaping debates about reproductive health, rights, and law in Canada. Part 3, "Politics," focuses on the implications of the Morgentaler decision and its impact on abortion access in different regions. Part 4, "Discourse and Reproductive Justice," illuminates the opportunities afforded by the reproductive justice framework and the limitations of focusing debates on "choice" or medicalization without taking the well-being of those seeking abortion into full account."--Provided by publisher.