Moment in time: Nov. 13, 1973 -- Morgentaler acquitted in jury trial
The jurors took 10 hours to deliver their verdict: Not guilty. Doctor Henry Morgentaler was still at the start of his legal crusade to secure safe abortions for Canadian women. He would go on to face Crown appeals, jail, more arrests, more trials and a lifetime at the centre of an issue that divided the country. But the 10 men and one woman who first acquitted Morgentaler on charges of performing an illegal abortion in Montreal set a pattern that would stick for successive juries. The day after the verdict, Morgentaler was back at work in his Montreal clinic, confident that public opinion would pave the way for women to access abortions ''safely and with dignity instead of going to butchers.'' It was a principle he defended until the day he died. -- Ingrid Peritz
Photo: The Canadian Press