and to implement measures to eliminate violence
against women.
The issues of pornography and its definition were
also addressed in Canada as topics closely related to
violence against and dehumanization of women. In
1992, the entire inventory of a store in Winnipeg
that sold pornographic materials was seized and the
merchant brought to trial. In a reconsideration of
what constituted obscenity and consequently por-
nography, the Supreme Court of Canada stated that
it was not a question of offense to a certain concept
of sexual morality but rather that obscenity and por-
nography were undue exploitation of sex in combi-
nation with horror, cruelty, violence, or crime. The
court further classified such materials as porno-
graphic because they subordinate, degrade, and de-
humanize women and thus encourage violence
against them.
Abortion in Canada In 1988, the Supreme Court of
Canada had ruled that, under the 1982 Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the provisions in
the Criminal Code making abortion a punishable
crime were unconstitutional. The court had stated
that a woman’s right to abortion was guaranteed as
part of her right to the security of her person. In May,
1990, under the leadership of Conservative Brian
Mulroney, Bill C-43 was introduced into the House
of Commons in an attempt once again to make abor-
tion a criminal offense. It passed in the House of
Commons, but in the Senate, after a tie vote, the bill
simply died.
Abortion remained a legal medical procedure.
The funding of abortion costs, however, was incon-
sistent. While the cost of an abortion performed in
the hospital was funded, the cost of an abortion in a
private clinic sometimes remained the financial re-
sponsibility of the woman. From 1992 to 1997, a
number of shootings and attacks on abortion clinics
were carried out by those opposing the procedure.
Women’s Rights in the United States In the United
States, in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the
ERA dead because it had not received ratification by
its extended deadline. Therefore, one of the major
issues of women’s rights in the United States was cen-
tered on the continuing argument over the need
and justification of such an amendment. Other is-
sues of concern included women in government,
the right to an abortion, equal opportunity and pay
in the workplace, and violence against women.
In the 1990’s, the women’s rights movement was
led by the National Organization for Women
(NOW) and the Feminist Majority Foundation
(FMF), a feminist organization founded in 1987 by
former NOW president Eleanor Smeal. Both NOW
and FMF lobbied for women’s rights legislation and
organized marches for recognition of women’s
rights and protests against discriminatory practices.
From 1989 to 1992, FMF recruited female candi-
dates through its Feminization of Power campaign.
In 1990, NOW launched its Freedom Caravan for
Women’s Lives to recruit female candidates. In
1992, NOW again encouraged women to run for
public offices with its Elect Women for a Change
campaign. In that year, labeled the Year of the
Woman, twenty-four new women joined the House
of Representatives and four new women joined the
Senate, the largest increase in the number of women
ever elected to Congress.
In 1991, FMF, in conjunction with the music
group L7, organized a series of concerts called Rock
for Choice. In 1992, both NOW and FMF were key
organizers of the March for Women’s Lives, which
drew 750,000 participants to Washington, D.C. The
event also included an illegal speakout in front of
the White House in protest of the U.S. Supreme
Court’s decision inPlanned Parenthood v. Casey.
During the early years of the 1990’s, both NOW
and FMF worked for passage of the Equal Rights
Amendment. In 1995, however, the NOW member-
ship voted to withdraw its active support from the
ERA in favor of its own amendment, the Consti-
tutional Equality Amendment (CEA). This amend-
ment, an expanded version of ERA, was not in-
troduced in Congress, however, while the ERA
continued to be presented at every session.The U.S. Workforce and Poverty In 1989, the U.S.
Supreme Court severely weakened the Civil Rights
Act with its decision in theWards Cove Packing Co. v.
Atoniocase. This decision all but eliminated the pos-
sibility of a successful suit for sex discrimination or
sexual harassment. NOW was instrumental in the
drafting of a new Civil Rights Act passed in 1991. The
new act gave women the right to jury trials and mon-
etary damages for sex discrimination and sexual ha-
rassment.
The 1990’s was also the period in which American
women made another major gain in the workplace.930 Women’s rights The Nineties in America