Dorothea Palmer

Dorothea Palmer (Ferguson) (born 1908 died 1992) was a Canadian who played a prominent role in the effort to legalize birth control in that country.

In September 1936, Palmer was arrested and charged under section 207 of the Criminal Code, which stated that the selling or advertising of contraceptives was illegal. Unfortunately for her, she was arrested while promoting contraception to women in the poor Roman Catholic Ottawa community of Eastview.

A nurse by training, she had been hired by the Parents' Information Bureau, which was funded by A. R. Kaufman, the wealthy owner of the Kaufman Rubber Company in Kitchener, Ontario and prominent eugenics supporter. Kaufman welcomed the chance to test Canada's laws in court, and spent the then considerable sum of $25,000 mounting a defence in what would later be known as The Eastview Birth Control Trial, which lasted from 1936 to 1937.

The trial attracted both Canada's most prominent advocates for birth control and representatives of the major churches and other birth control opponents. During the trial Palmer was the subject of attacks and abuse by those who opposed her. In one incident a man pulled her into an alley and attempted to rape her, telling her that he'd "show you what it's like without any birth control." Palmer managed to knee him in the groin and escape.

On March 17, 1937, the court acquitted Palmer on the basis that her actions had passed the criminal code's pro bono publico clause: that her actions were done entirely in the interest of the public good. Here was a landmark trial. Even still, although contraception was not fully legalized in Canada until 1969, no other person was ever prosecuted for distributing information about birth control in the country.

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