Quebec reverses plans to include abortion ‘freedom’ in new constitution

As LifeSiteNews reported in October, the National Assembly of Quebec introduced the Constitutional Act – Bill No. 1 – on October 9 of last year to formally establish a constitution for the province that recognizes the province’s particular values. Included among those “values” was a recognized “freedom” to abortion.

Bill No. 1, which also recognizes a “right” to euthanasia, stated in item number 29 that “The state protects women’s freedom to have an abortion.” With regard to euthanasia, the bill states that “[a]ny person whose condition requires it has the right to receive end-of-life care,” a euphemistic phrase for suicide-by-doctor.

Last month, however, the justice minister told Radio-Canada in a statement that abortion will be removed from Bill No. 1 prior to its review. According to the CBC, abortion groups “raised concerns that such a provision could open the door to legal challenges from anti-abortion groups, given that this right to abortion is already protected by Supreme Court of Canada rulings.”

In fact, the Supreme Court did not recognize an explicit right to abortion.

In 1988, the SCC overturned Canada’s existing legal regime in R v. Morgentaler and gave Parliament a mandate to pass new legislation restricting abortion, which the justices – including the only female on the bench, Justice Bertha Wilson – fully expected legislators to do. The Mulroney government attempted to pass a new abortion law (Bill C-43). It failed on a tie vote in the Senate in 1991, and since then Canada has had a legal vacuum – no laws – with regard to abortion.

A de facto system treating abortion merely as another “healthcare service” has arisen in that vacuum, and abortion activists have fiercely fought any attempt to pass new legislation and to actively censor any attempts to educate the Canadian public on the country’s complete lack of abortion laws. Canada is the one of the only democracies that permits abortion on demand until birth, and abortion activists wish to preserve this status quo. This prompted them to warn the Quebec justice minister against reopening the political abortion debate.

“These concerns were communicated directly to the minister during public consultations into Bill 1, titled the Québec Constitution Act, 2025, as well as in the public sphere,” the CBC reported. “In an open letter…in the Journal de Montréal, Jolin-Barrette detailed the reasoning that led him to include, and then remove, an additional safeguard to protect women’s free choice regarding abortion. He said the government’s goal with the provision has always been to ‘defend women’s free choice.’ To be consistent, he said the government must acknowledge the fears expressed by women.” The decision was lauded by Quebec’s order of nurses and other abortion activists.

Jolin-Barrette insisted that although he would be excluding abortion from the proposed constitution, threats to Canada’s abortion regime are real. Predictably, he highlighted the overturn of Roe v. Wade, and stated: “In Canada, the issue of abortion resurfaces with every federal election, and every year in Ottawa, motions or bills are introduced to tighten or recriminalize the right to abortion.”

Jolin-Barrette also noted that Canadian case law “is fragmented and does not explicitly recognize a right to abortion.” He is certainly right about that, although abortion activists work hard to keep that fact a secret.