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No Place for the State
The Origins and Legacies of the 1969 Omnibus Bill
Christopher Dummitt (Edited by), Christabelle Sethna (Edited by)
9780774862424
Hardback, published 15 April 2020
300 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.56 kg
"There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation," Pierre Elliott Trudeau told reporters. He was making the case for the most controversial of his proposed reforms to the Criminal Code, those concerning homosexuality, birth control, and abortion. In No Place for the State, contributors offer complex and often contrasting perspectives as they assess how the 1969 Omnibus Bill helped shape sexual and moral politics in Canada by examining the bill's origins, social implications, and repercussions. The new legal regime had significant consequences for matters like adoption, divorce, and suicide. After the bill passed, a great many Canadians continued to challenge how sexual behaviour was governed, demanding much more exhaustive changes to the law. Fifty years later, the origins and legacies of the bill are equivocal and the state still seems interested in the bedrooms of the nation. This incisive study explains why that matters.
Introduction / Christopher Dummitt and Christabelle Sethna Part 1: Regulation, Rupture, and Continuity 1 Because It's 1969: The Omnibus Bill and the New Morality of the Self / Christopher Dummitt 2 "Is Abortion Ever Right?": The United Church of Canada and the Debate over Abortion Law Reform, 1960–1980 / Katrina Ackerman, Bruce Douville, and Shannon Stettner 3 Not a Gift from Above: The Mythology of Homosexual Law Reform and the Making of Neoliberal Queer Histories / Gary Kinsman Part 2: Activist Responses 4 "The State's Key to the Bedroom Door": Queer Perspectives on Pierre Elliot Trudeau's "Just Society" in an Era of Bathhouse Raids / Tom Hooper 5 Law Reform, Liberal Democracies, and the Transnational History of Gay Liberation / Scott deGroot 6 Seeing Red: The Toronto Women's Caucus, the RCMP Security Service, and the Campaign to Repeal the 1969 Abortion Law / Christabelle Sethna and Steve Hewitt Part 3: Beyond the Omnibus Bill 7 Insulated from the Law: Married Women, the Pill, and the "Public Good" / Jessica Haynes 8 "Something More": The State's Place in the Bedrooms of Lesbian Nation / Karen Pearlston 9 Life Interrupted: The Biopolitics of Abortion and Attempted Suicide in Canada in the Late Sixties and Early Seventies / Isabelle Perrault Part 4: Back to the Future 10 The Law (and) Unintended Consequences: Adoption and the Omnibus Bill of 1969 / Lori Chambers 11 Is That Really Necessary? The Regulation of Abortion in Canada and the Framework of Medical Necessity / Rachael Johnstone Index