It makes me proud to be Canadian

Dr Henry Morgentaler, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust, and emigrated to Canada has been awarded the Order of Canada for his work as an abortion rights campaigner. He opened his first clinic in 1969, at a time when abortions were illegal, and performed thousands of procedures. He was arrested, jailed for several months and his Toronto clinic was firebombed. As late as 1987 a woman seeking abortion in Canada had to appeal to a three-doctor committee. The Supreme Court struck this down as unconstitutional in 1988.

Unsurprisingly the pro-lifers and the Catholic clergy are not happy. Father Lucien Larré has become the first person to return theirs in protest. Larré might be trying to return his before its taken away however. In 1992 he was placed on trial for physically abusing children in his care (he later received a pardon and does not have a criminal record.) More recently in 2006 he was suspended from the British Colombia College of Psychiatrists, and in 2007 the A.B.C. Supreme Court upheld this ruling stating that "that there are serious public protection concerns and an immediate risk to the public" if he continued to practice. Subsequently, Madonna House, a Catholic lay community has also returned the medal awarded to its founder.

Not everyone on the pro-life side feels the same way. Rabbi Emeritus Erwin Schild, who is opposed to abortions unless the life of the mother is threatened, said “I'm very proud of my Order of Canada and certainly I see no reason at all [to believe] that it is denigrated in any way by sharing it with Dr. Henry Morgentaler.”

Tip o' the hat to Pharyngula