Abortion in Canada became legal in stages, not all at once, and the key dates are 1969 and 1988.

Quick Scoop

  • 1969 – Partial legalization:
    Parliament passed the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which allowed abortions in hospitals if a committee of at least three doctors agreed that continuing the pregnancy would endanger the pregnant person’s life or health.

Outside this narrow system, abortion was still a crime.

  • January 28, 1988 – Full decriminalization:
    The Supreme Court of Canada, in the landmark decision R. v. Morgentaler , struck down the existing abortion provisions in the Criminal Code as unconstitutional because they violated the right to “life, liberty and security of the person” under section 7 of the Charter.

After this ruling, there has been no federal criminal law restricting abortion; it is treated as a healthcare service rather than a criminal matter.

  • So, when did abortion become legal in Canada?
    • 1969: Abortion became legal in limited, medically approved cases within hospitals.
* 1988: Abortion was decriminalized nationwide, making access to abortion a legal medical procedure without specific criminal restrictions.

In everyday terms, people often point to 1988 as the moment abortion became fully legal across Canada, because that’s when the criminal law against it was struck down.

TL;DR: Limited legal abortion started in 1969, but abortion as a decriminalized medical service across Canada dates from the Supreme Court’s Morgentaler decision on January 28, 1988.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.