Creating Change to Maintaining Change:
The Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances and the Pro-choice Movement
Nora Milne
Department of History and Classical Studies,
McGill University, Montreal
December 2011
A Research Paper submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts
© Nora Milne, 2011
Abstract
Abortion services are more accessible in Quebec than in any other Canadian province. An analysis of the actions and interventions coordinated by the Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances, the province’s spokesperson for the pro-choice movement, shows that the fight to maintain and improve the quality of abortion services, contributed significantly to the current state of affairs. Feminists fought with great strength to gain the right to abortion. This analysis shifts the focus from the creation of change, to the maintenance of change to understand the ways in which feminists fought to retain these fragile gains.
“How do you do it?” asked a Canadian colleague, reacting with envy to the mobilization of 5000 people in Montreal, as part of a Canada-wide day of action on September 28th 2008, denouncing private member bills that risk re-criminalizing abortion. Events outside of Quebec gathered comparatively little support with 150 to 200 participants at most. The answer was clear, “In Quebec, we have the habit of working together and collaborating,” replied Nathalie Parent, a former coordinator of the Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (FQPN) and one of the organizers of the event.[1] More than forty years of building solidarity among dedicated women’s groups and strong demands for liberation and autonomy are behind this noteworthy habit. The fight for abortion initially mobilized and united the women’s movement in Quebec in the 1970s. It continues to join diverse groups and individuals at critical moments. Consequently, Quebec has the most accessible abortion services in Canada. This paper demonstrates that without the efforts of coordinated actions, enabled through the mobilization of alliances of solidarity committed to retaining services in public and community networks, Quebec would not have the abortion services it has today. I argue that beyond the establishment of services, the fight to maintain and improve the quality of abortion services throughout the province contributed significantly to the current state of affairs. The FQPN drew on the solid foundation of a strong and spirited feminist movement and emerged as the vigilant spokesperson for Quebec’s pro-choice movement in the early 1980s. It led the actions that contributed to the current reality, by coordinating feminist health activists in the fight to demand and ensure the development and maintenance of abortion services. Critical research and analysis combined with the initiation of political actions led to the achievements of the FQPN. These strategies enabled the group to place pressures on the government to obtain financial resources for quality services and to fight mounting threats by anti-choice groups and government projects. Unwavering commitments to the defense of a woman’s right to abortion and to prioritizing accessibility guided the strategies of the work of the FQPN. Feminists fought hard for the right to abortion. They fought equally as hard to maintain these fragile gains, as the right to abortion can only be exercised if services are available. This paper traces the actions initiated by the FQPN to fulfill its objectives, as it evolved from a professional male-dominated family planning organization to an autonomous feminist health collective. The analysis incorporates the perspective of the women who were the necessary public manifestation of the movement’s demands. It explores how they voiced their concerns, most effectively through the collective mobilization of the general public, community and women’s groups, to succeed in ensuring the provision of complete and accessible abortion services throughout Quebec.[2]
The motivation for this approach is twofold. Firstly, it is important to consider the work of committed militant feminists, who carried on the fight after abortion was removed from Canada’s Criminal Code in 1988. Quebec is a unique site for assessing these contributions as abortion became part of the province’s agenda against federalism and the promotion of a new secular nationalism as early as 1976. The provincial government permitted the practice of abortion despite the regulations of the Criminal Code. While women in the rest of Canada were necessarily dedicated to a repeal of the law for services to be implemented, women in Quebec were able to focus on improving the services that were already in place, alongside joining actions for legal reform. We are more familiar with the reality that women created the change in the fight for abortion rights. Historians have raised awareness regarding the importance of recognizing the critical role played by countless women, grass-roots organizations and local health collectives in creating change in women’s health care in the United States and Canada. It is the actions and the ideologies of the women’s movement, not simply physicians, politicians and professional organizations that are largely responsible for creating change. For example, women in Canada were often overshadowed by, or reduced to being labelled, the “cheer-leaders” of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, who is synonymous with the decriminalization of abortion.[3] Historians have recognized the inadequacy of such interpretations and have given women due credit, as Morgentaler’s victories would not have been possible without the individuals and feminist organizations who did the work of the movement. Historians have also countered the interpretation that achievements were made by a homogenous liberal, middle-class population by demonstrating the diversity of the movement. Women from varied backgroundsas well as liberal, radical and socialist feminists, acted individually or collectively to transform women’s health care.[4] Therefore, the history of the FQPN adds to the scholarship that details the work and achievements of particular organizations of the women’s movement, by shifting the focus from the creation of change to the maintenance of change, and from the legal battles to gain abortion rights to the improvement and maintenance of services once implemented. This is not to suggest that the FQPN did not create change. I aim to add to the scholarship by highlighting the fight of women in Quebec to maintain services over the last forty years. Histories of second-wave feminism in Canada often stop short by labelling Quebec as unique or different and focus on the rest of Canada. Those studies that focus on Quebec feminism specifically, detail the movement in general, its development and the reasons for it being classified as unique.[5] Less is written about the feminist health movement specifically, with one important exception; Louise Desmarais’ Memoires d’une Bataille Inachevée la lutte pour l’avortement au Québec 1970-1992 which chronicles the fight for abortion rights in Quebec. This paper attempts to add analysis by concentrating on the actions and contributions of one group to understand the strength of the Quebec feminist health movement, how they built the solidarity and collaboration necessary to ultimately influence and mobilize public opinion and to affect policy and women’s health care.
Secondly, I am answering a call to historians of sorts, made by Susan Reverby, Professor of women's studies and history, who expressed concern over historians neglecting their own life times. She writes, “Many students have a better sense of the women who wanted water cures in the 19th century than they do of the struggles within the New York Women’s Health and Abortion Project of the early 1970s or what happened to the feminist health centres.”[6]This paper is one attempt to write the history of the recent past, to contribute to Reverby’s call to, “determine whether the voices of women patients/consumers spoke out loud in individual confrontation, collective demonstrations[...]affected those who made policy or provided care.”[7] Although it is often difficult to measure the direct impact of certain actions, it is clear that in Quebec, policy makers heard the voices of women. This paper details how the FQPN mobilized women, as advocates, patients or consumers to collectively voice their concerns and demands, to maintain gains and improve the quality of services.
Foundation to Feminism
The FQPN has promoted access to critical information and family planning services since its foundation in 1972. However, it did not begin as a feminist organization. The FQPN was officially incorporated on June 22nd 1972 as a provincial branch of the Family Planning Federation of Canada (FPFC) with the primary objective of implementing family planning associations in all regions of Quebec.[8] Initially, the FQPN, based in Montreal, and its regional associations offered training, information and consultation on contraceptive methods and sexual education. Following the decriminalization of contraceptives in Canada as part of the Omnibus Bill of 1969, the federal government refused to establish a national policy on family planning but agreed to fund a family planning program.[9] The FPFC received a $400,000 budget to implement a program which adhered to the guidelines of the Department of Family Planning.[10] The Department defined the practice as to the methods and knowledge that enabled couples to, “avoid unwanted pregnancies, to bring about wanted births, to regulate the interval between births, to control the time at which birth occurred in relation to the ages of the parents and to decide the number of children they will have.”[11] The government funded the FPFC in an attempt to deflect political flack and to avoid becoming the target of protests.[12] It also funded SERENA, the first official francophone family planning association founded in Quebec in 1955 by Rita Henry and Gilles Brault. The couple taught a natural method of contraception, known as the sympto-thermic or basal-temperature method, as a way to reconcile the teachings of the Catholic Church with changing perspectives on reproduction.[13] At first, the FPFC did not establish a branch in Quebec as alongside SERENA, family planning services were already in place. Basic services were available in Montreal at the Notre-Dame Hospital and the Centre de Planning Familial, run by Dr. Serge Mongeau, provided psycho-social and medical consultation in family planning. The latter was already affiliated with the FPFC. Once Mongeau chose to disaffiliate in December of 1971, steps were taken to establish a new branch in Quebec. Dr. Yves Lefebvre, a gynecologist at the Notre-Dame Hospital and Claude de Mestral, the president of the Centre de Planning Familial set out to create the FQPN.[14] The very first meeting, held at the home of Lefebvre, brought together people interested in forming a Federation that would play the role of coordinator and animator for groups working in the domain of family planning throughout Quebec. Those present clarified the objectives; to unite local and regional associations, to offer training and support services in family planning to professionals, to promote research and development of medical and social services in family planning, and to encourage responsible parenthood.[15] The executive held an orientation congress in the fall of 1972, uniting doctors, nurses and social workers and other professionals. Individual, non-professionals were coldly received. Fernande Menard, who remains an active member of the FQPN, described her initial reception, “When the Federation started, someone suggested that I be a member of the first administrative council and people said, ‘No, she’s not a professional, she is only a mother.’ ”[16] The FQPN was hierarchical with an executive body and administrative council at the level of the Federation, with several affiliated regional associations. At its foundation, the philosophy and objectives of the FQPN were allied with the FPFC, meaning they were to address couples and promote a positive image of the family.
Quickly, however, the FQPN began to diverge from the FPFC. The federal government’s failure to address the needs of the population by essentially limiting family planning services to legally married couples was the impetus for the regional associations to step in. For example, the Association de Planning des Naissances d’Outouais, or the Family Planning Association of Outouais, offered a phone counselling service and unlike SERENA, who had a strong presence in the region, spoke with women or men individually, rather than couples.[17] The executive body and administrative council engaged in political actions to pressure the government to establish free and direct family planning services in a public network. Members fought for the law which defined the age of consent for minors as fourteen, to apply to family planning, enabling youth to access services without the permission of their parents. They also pressured pharmaceutical companies to make all necessary information about contraceptives available to the public.[18] Beginning in 1973, members also engaged in political actions to pressure the provincial government to create policies on abortion and to make direct and follow-up abortion servicesaccessible to all women in Quebec. Although the FQPN’s definition of family planning excluded abortion they justified their actions, “because we can’t stay indifferent to this social phenomenon, with heavy consequences for individuals and society.”[19] The FQPN was careful to clarify that they were not promoting abortion, but recognized that limited access often resulted in problematic clandestine abortions.[20] These actions and demands clashed directly with the expectations of the FPFC. The ideological divergence that developed throughout the 1970s culminated in the FQPN’s refusal to support the FPFC’s politics on population control. Whereas the FPFC promoted a policy of population zero, the FQPN actively defended an individual’s freedom of choice in contraception and saw their role as helping women and men have the number of children they wanted, when they wanted and not to impose values or attempts to regulate. The politics of population control were particularly controversial in Quebec. For five years the FQPN worked hard to create a positive image and to separate the notion of family planning from population policy, to avoid the reaction that contraception and abortion could lead to the genocide of French-Canadians.[21] This decision was irreconcilable. In 1979 the FPFC cut sixty-fiver per cent of its funding. By 1981, funding was cut entirely. Divergent ideologies, an end to funding and disagreements over the anti-democratic functioning of the FPFC led the FQPN to officially announce its decision to disaffiliate on October 21st 1981.[22] To the members this was, “a big relief, we didn’t have to fight with them anymore. It was a period of freedom.”[23] This sense of freedom was one of three significant developments that influenced the FQPN’s decision to officially become a feminist organization in 1983.
The second was sparked by the provincial government’s decision to implement a public network of family planning clinics, largely in response to pressures demanding services, including abortion. The reform of Criminal Code in 1969 also changed the laws on abortion. Prior to 1969, abortion was an indictable offence liable to life imprisonment.[24] The new law decriminalized abortions that were performed by licensed physicians in an accredited hospital and approved by a therapeutic abortion committee, to preserve the life or health of the pregnant woman.[25] Physicians maintained control of the practice and access to abortion remained limited. Hospitals were not required to implement a therapeutic abortion committee and those that did were mostly in urban centres. Decisions by the committee were final.[26] Consequently, illegal abortions continued. In Quebec, access was particularly difficult for francophone women. In 1970, approximately 180 therapeutic abortions were performed in Quebec, eighty percent of which were performed in the Montreal General Hospital. Only one was performed in a francophone hospital.[27] In the first half of 1972, Quebec registered 1386 therapeutic abortions while Ontario registered close to 10,000.[28] A Montreal gynecologist, Lise Fortier, described the law as a, “monstrous inequality” because accessibility was dependent on a woman’s wealth, language and community. During International Abortion Week 1972, approximately 15,000 signatures were collected and presented to the Quebec Legislature demanding of a repeal of abortion laws.[29] Clearly there was a need and demand for change. Illegal abortions became increasingly organized as doctors performed the procedure in private clinics and for-profit clinics. In 1970, Dr. Henry Morgentaler was arrested for performing illegal abortions in his Montreal clinic and jailed in 1974.[30] The FQPN responded by writing a letter to the Liberal Premier Robert Bourassa, expressing the urgent need for abortion services to be developed, “We regret that government action is centered on pursuing doctors to satisfy a minority instead of implementing services and establishing policy.”[31] By 1976, the number of therapeutic abortion committees in Quebec had only increased from twenty-three in 1970 to twenty-nine. Francophone hospitals performed only seven per cent of the 6610 therapeutic abortions in that year.[32] The situation changed with the election of the separatist Parti Québécois in 1976, whose nationalism justified breaking federal law, making important political and institutional changes affecting the provision of abortion services.[33] Morgentaler was released from jail when the Minister of Justice granted immunity to all doctors who were qualified to perform abortions. Responding to the demands of the population, the provincial government created and funded family planning clinics. In December 1977, the Minister of Social Affairs announced the implementation of twenty Cliniques Lazure, named after the Minister, Denis Lazure, who introduced the idea. These clinics specialized in all medical and social services relating to family planning. The object was to have at least one facility per region of Quebec offer abortion services.[34] By the end of the 1970s, family planning services were established throughout the province, in part due to the work and pressures of the FQPN. In a way, their initial objectives were obtained. This victory divided the FQPN, and led to a shift in orientation and membership. Some regional associations considered their role as obsolete and left to help establish the Cliniques Lazure. Those who subscribed to a more vigilant attitude were skeptical and adopted a role of critical surveillance towards the new clinics. The departure of several associations and loss of membership caused the FQPN to dismantle and rebuild with new objectives. A new orientation was defined in the early 1980s by the growing militancy of its members and obvious increase in social action.