During the 1960s, Canadians were grappling with the social and legal changes that directly affected women’s reproductive lives. One of the contexts in which these changes were occurring was the growing secularization of society. The authors’ analysis of letters to the editors of the Globe and Mail on abortion, however, reveals that over 70% of the letters referenced religious beliefs or institutions. The authors use these letters to explore the ways that readers who commented on abortion referenced religion to legitimize their positions. Specifically, they explore the expressions of the place of Christian beliefs and institutions in discussions of law reform and ideas about women’s roles in a modernizing Canadian society. Examination of the readers’ letters on abortion illuminates perceptions of the churches’ place in a modernizing society, and the degree to which churches were seen as responsive and responsible to their constituents. While religion was a contested field in the abortion law reform debate of the 1960s, it was not ignored; this analysis helps to complicate our understandings of secularization in Canada during the 1960s.
Dans le quartier torontois de Yorkville, entre 1965 et 1970, les Églises et les membres du clergé (catholiques, protestants traditionnels ou évangélistes) sont entrés en relation de bien des façons avec les jeunes des mouvements contreculturels. Dans le contexte du christianisme canadien des longues années 1960, ces efforts d’interaction avec les hippies mettent en lumière les changements culturels en cours au sein des principaux groupes confessionnels du pays, notamment l’écart de plus en plus marqué entre protestants traditionnels et évangélistes. Ces initiatives sont aussi importantes en ce sens qu’elles illustrent certains espaces frontières, c’est-à-dire les points de rencontre entre cultures. Au final, elles s’inscrivent dans le contexte plus large de l’engagement des Églises auprès des jeunes au cours de cette période.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.