The Wombs of the Nation: Reproductive Health Services and National Healthcare in Canada and the United Kingdom, 1967-1980s

This project investigates and compares the activist, political, and public responses to new reproductive health legislation and services in Canada and the United Kingdom from 1967 to the 1980s. Set during a period when national healthcare systems had to incorporate newly decriminalized reproductive health services, like abortion and contraception, this history underscores the role of activist lay-health practitioners as part of healthcare landscapes. This small research project contributes to my larger research program at the University of Edinburgh that analyses how specific places, politics, and nationalisms influenced discourse about reproductive health and citizenship in Canada and the United Kingdom in the late twentieth century. With the support of this grant I will consult archival sources from the Canadian Women’s Archives, gather and analyse newspaper coverage of reproductive policy and service changes, and employ a research assistant and transcription service to assist in archival source organization and oral history interview transcription.