Cover of Morgentaler

Morgentaler

Henry Morgentaler has long been a figure of controversy: his initial decision to establish an abortion clinic in Montreal challenged Canadian law, leading to several trials and a jail sentence—and finally to changes in the law itself.

Read more

What kind of person is Henry Morgentaler? Why did he choose to defy the laws of the land? Was it idealism? Desire for fame, money, martyrdom? Eleanor Wright Pelrine searches Henry Morgentaler's life for answers. Born in Poland, condemned to a death camp by the Nazis, he managed to survive the Second World War and immigrate to Canada as a young man. She describes his medical practice in a low-income Montreal neighbourhood, and the circumstances that led him to found an abortion clinic there. Finally, she chronicles the decade-long battles that ensued between Morgentaler and law-enforcement authorities.

Morgentaler: The Doctor Who Couldn't Turn Awayis a fascinating account of the difficult life and unending struggles of one of Canada's most controversial figures.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 222 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Morgentaler? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Morgentaler. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Abortion Shares doctors, abortion, history
  2. Pursuit For Lucidity Shares doctors
  3. Angels Do Have Wings Shares doctors
  4. Forget You Ever Knew Me Shares doctors

“If you want more of the same (biography about doctors), start with these.”

  1. Inside the Hot Zone
  2. AIDS doctors : voices from the epidemic
  3. Kuwait Diary: Email from the Desert Camps
  4. Shattered dreams?

“If it was the doctors that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. A Doctor in the West
  2. Trailblazers in medicine
  3. Peter Mark Roget
  4. East African Doctors. A History of the Modern Profession

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Her body, our laws
  2. Won by Love: Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe V. Wade, Speaks Out for the Unborn As She Shares Her New Conviction for Life
  3. The Walls Are Talking: Former Abortion Clinic Workers Tell Their Stories
  4. Targets of Hatred: Anti-Abortion Terrorism