The Bedroom and the State: The Changing Practices and Politics of Contraception and Abortion in Canada, 1880-1997. 2nd ed.

Andrea Levan is an associate professor and co-ordinator of the Women’s
Studies Program at Thorneloe College, Laurentian University.

Originally published in 1986, this second edition is virtually identical
to the first except for the addition of a new chapter titled “Back to
the Future.” The book’s greatest strength remains its examination of
the historical attitudes toward birth control and abortion in Canada.
Chapter 1 outlines the types of contraception that were available and
used. Chapter 2 presents evidence of the common practice of using
abortion to control fertility in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The
book’s middle section outlines arguments that were developed by
various players in the birth-control debates, including feminist
arguments that were influenced by the campaigns of Margaret Sanger in
America and Marie Stopes in Britain. Particularly interesting is the
authors’ analysis of socialist concerns about the impact of family
planning on the working classes, and the ways in which socialist and
Malthusian approaches to the issue conflicted. The last section of the
book looks at the campaigns by A.F. Kaufman in the 1930s that eventually
made it acceptable (if not yet legal) to promote birth-control
information, and the eventual reforms to the law in 1969.

The new chapter, which attempts to review all of the events in Canada
since 1980 that have further changed attitudes toward and practices of
fertility control, is at times frustrating, because it rushes through
complex and momentous events with little analysis. For example, the
events beginning with the opening of Morgentaler clinics outside Quebec
and leading to the eventual Supreme Court decision to strike down the
abortion law are dealt with in a single paragraph. The complex modern
debates around abortion are only cursorily covered—a striking contrast
to the detail of the earlier chapters examining historical attitudes.
The new chapter also covers changing Canadian patterns in the use of
contraceptives; the impact of AIDS, the evolution of new reproductive
technologies (and the controversy surrounding the Royal Commission
devoted to studying them); and recent restitution to victims of
sterilization under provincial laws passed in the 1920s and 1930s.
Obviously, so much material can hardly be covered well in 16 pages, but
the chapter nevertheless provides an effective summary of events. Taken
altogether, the new edition gives a broad understanding of how attitudes
toward abortion and contraception have evolved in Canada.