The Abortion Caravan, Karin Wells
The Abortion Caravan, Karin Wells
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The Abortion Caravan
When Women Shut Down Government in the Battle for the Right to Choose

Author: Karin Wells

Narrator: Karin Wells

Unabridged: 12 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 10/30/2022


Synopsis

Spring 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of a group of remarkable women who helped bring about abortion reform. The caravan left Vancouver with 17 activists and arrived in Ottawa on May 8th 1970, where over 500 women rallied and shut down parliament.In the spring of 1970, seventeen women set out from Vancouver in a big yellow convertible, a Volkswagen bus, and a pickup truck. They called it the Abortion Caravan. Three thousand miles later, they “occupied” the prime minister’s front lawn in Ottawa, led a rally of 500 women on Parliament Hill, chained themselves to their chairs in the visitors’ galleries, and shut down the House of Commons, the first and only time this had ever happened. The seventeen were a motley crew. They argued, they were loud, and they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They pulled off a national campaign in an era when there was no social media, and with a budget that didn’t stretch to long-distance phone calls. It changed their lives. And at a time when thousands of women in Canada were dying from back street abortions, it pulled women together across the country.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kimba on March 06, 2020

For many citizens of the United States, the cross-Canada trek made by a group of Canadian women in 1971 to protest women's lack of access to legal, safe abortions sadly is a little known event, as most of us learn little about the history of Canada in school. This book offers a fascinating and detai......more

Goodreads review by Stephanie on September 04, 2021

In excellent history of one of the events at the birth of the pro choice movement in Canada. Unfortunately, free abortion on demand continues to be out if reach for many Canadians 50 years later. Even for those not interested in abortion rights specifically, I think it would be worth reading as a ca......more

Goodreads review by Gillian on August 08, 2024

Such a jaw dropping look at such an important part of Canadian feminist history. A microcosm of the first to second wave feminism that is the giant's shoulders we stand on today.......more

Goodreads review by Margie on September 19, 2024

My bookshelf contains a number of books written by friends and/or colleagues, and one of the best is this one, by Karin Wells, a former CBC radio producer and three-time recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists documentary award. The subtitle is When Women Shut Down Government in the Batt......more

Goodreads review by Jo on October 28, 2022

A fascinating walk through the history that until recent roe v wade controversy and abortion being legalised in Ireland I believe (in my own circles) was an a basic human right. A female right. It’s something I feel strongly about, and believe that these amazing woman that came before us, and formed......more