Dear editor,
On October 9th, 1968, The Peak ran a small ad which read as follows:
“Girls — need help? in trouble? Contact the Women’s Caucus Counsellor by letter ℅c/o SFU Student Society or phone her 299-**** evenings for information.”
As euphemistic as this ad was, the SFU Women’s Centre has been digging, and has been unable to find any examples of advertisement for surgical abortion (for this is indeed what is being referred to) in British Columbia — and perhaps Canada as a whole — earlier than this date. Whether or not this comes as a surprise to you will likely depend on how well you know the role this campus plays in Canadian women’s history.
In the early days of the Canadian feminist movement, SFU wasn’t just involved — to a large extent, it was the feminist movement. The Vancouver Women’s Caucus was founded by SFU students who were dissatisfied with the status quo; in the Sept. 18, 1968 issue of The Peak Marcy Toms wrote an editorial announcing the Women’s Caucus; the very next week it was followed with a column (by a young Maggie Benston) simply titled “On abortion”. The piece was meant to be educational. It made no calls for changes in law or policy, and merely addressed the consequences of unavailable birth control or abortion on women in Canada. It nevertheless inspired significant controversy. Meanwhile, the Women’s Caucus doubled down and tried to find out how it could provide birth control or abortion services to women in need, resulting in the above Peak ad.
The SFU Women’s Caucus was also the origin of the 1970 “Abortion Caravan,” which crossed from Vancouver to Ottawa, educating and protesting along their way. When they arrived at Parliament Hill on Mother’s Day 1970, they numbered 500 strong and succeeded in promoting a national discourse around abortion rights.
I mention these pieces of history in the aid of contextualizing our current “debate on abortion”. This ground has been tread before. Nationally, the Supreme Court has ruled on this before. At SFU, Marcy Toms founded the precursor to the Women’s Caucus in late 1967, 45 years ago, with this issue in mind.
When Maggie Benston wrote “On abortion”, when the Women’s Caucus placed that ad in The Peak (and got frantic replies from students at SFU, UBC and even elsewhere in the province), there was a conversation about abortion. In the decades since, this conversation has ended. And anyone suggesting otherwise is willfully ignorant of the history that SFU students helped to create. SFU helped jumpstart Canadian feminism, and those echoes remain to this day.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Boulding
Women’s Centre collective member
SFU student
