Grant: Operating Grant

In 1969 Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau flippantly remarked that, 'the state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation,' as he introduced landmark legislation that decriminalized contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Since then, however, the state has remained in the bedrooms of some Canadians and attempted to creep back into others, in particular, by revisiting laws on abortion and reproductive autonomy. A closer look at the realities of reproductive rights since the 1970s reveals a much more complicated picture of modern reproductive health and family planning than one celebrated as simply a new era for modern reproduction, freed from state surveillance. We will conduct an historical examination of reproductive politics in Canada. While the common interpretation of this period offers a narrative of liberation with feminists campaigning for greater access to reproductive technologies, that interpretation captures only one aspect of the relationship between the state and family planning. Far from simply creating a new marketplace for reproductive services, the changes beginning in the 1970s altered the culture of reproductive politics in Canada by re-politicizing family planning within a framework of middle-class, healthy, and heteronormative values; our project aims to unpack that interpretation by tracing alternative experiences and producing a more complicated analysis. To do so, we are considering four case studies: Aboriginal women; women and men with intellectual and physical disabilities; teenage girls; and men seeking vasectomies. By bringing together and comparing these various categories we will produce a more comprehensive history of reproductive politics in this era.