Section 251(4) of the Criminal Code of Canada (the Code) permitted abortions to be performed only at accredited hospitals and then with approval from the performing hospital’s therapeutic abortion committee. Drs. Morgentaler, Smoling, and Scott had together established an abortion clinic in Toronto to perform abortions not approved by a therapeutic abortion committee.  Following public …Read more

The first defendant was a fourteen and a half year old girl who became pregnant after being raped by a family friend. Her parents (second and third defendants) reported the rape to the police and inquired whether there was a process available to test the paternity of the fetus before the defendants aborted the pregnancy …Read more

The Applicants were two Irish companies that provided counseling to pregnant women, Open Door Counselling Ltd. and Dublin Well Woman Centre Ltd.; two counselors who worked for Dublin Well Woman, Bonnie Maher and Ann Downes; and two women of childbearing age, Mrs. X and Mrs. Geraghty. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children brought …Read more

Planned Parenthood brought suit challenging the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982 (the Act) in federal court on constitutional grounds. The Act included the following requirements for women seeking an abortion in Pennsylvania: A woman seeking an abortion must give her informed consent prior to the abortion procedure, and she must provide certain information at …Read more

Two groups of petitioners, one pro-life and the other pro-choice, challenged provisions regulating abortion in Article 29(4) of the Health Act, Decree 76/1988. (XI.3.) MT, and its implementing Decree 15/1988. (XII. 15) SZEM. Article 29(4) established that abortion would be permitted in circumstances outlined under the regulations. The implementing regulations in Decree 15/1988 provided that …Read more

In 1970, Congress enacted Title X of the Public Health Service Act (the Act), which provided federal funding for family planning services. Section 1008 of the Act prohibited the use of Title X federal funding “for programs where abortion [was] a method of family planning.” The Regulations to the Act (the Regulations), introduced by the …Read more

The plaintiff, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, an Irish company whose purpose was to prevent the decriminalization of abortion, brought a suit against the defendants, including Stephen Grogan and fourteen other officers of Irish student organizations, for their distribution of “specific information relating to the identity and location of clinics” in other …Read more

The Appellants brought this case challenging an amendment to the Minors’ Consent to Health Services Act (the Act) on the basis that it violated the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Subdivision 2 of the Act provided, with certain exceptions, that no abortion shall be performed on a …Read more

The Respondents, including a facility that provides abortions, a physician who performs abortions, and a minor woman who sought an abortion, brought suit challenging the constitutional validity of Ohio’s Amended Substitute House Bill 319, which made it a criminal offence, except in four specified circumstances, for a physician or other person to perform an abortion …Read more

The appellant, Mr Borowski, challenged the validity of s 251(4), (5) and (6) of the Canadian Criminal Code on the basis that the provisions contravened the rights of the fetus. He argued these provisions allowed for abortions to occur in circumstances that were too liberal, and, as such, they infringed a fetus’s rights to life, …Read more