Therapeutic abortion committee

In Canada, from 1969 until 1988, under the amendment to Section 251 of the Criminal Code of Canada one of the requirements for an abortion to be legal was that it be ruled to be medically necessary to the health of the mother by a Theraputic Abortion Committee (commonly known as a TAC) of a hospital.

A TAC was composed of three doctors who decided whether an abortion fit under the exemptions to the criminal code and the birth of the child would cause the mother medical harm. TACs were almost always composed of men (due to fewer women practicing medicine and even fewer having these types of high level positions). It is interesting to note that before there were TACs and before the legal change there was still a similar process on approving abortions, but that these generally only occured when the mother's physical health was in great jeopardy. In order to make prosecution difficult these decisions would be made by large numbers of doctors. With the advent of the changes in the law only three doctors were required to approve an abortion.

Hospitals had Theraputic Abortion Committees only if they opted to provide abortions, and there was no requirement that they do so. As a result many towns and cities did not have a hospital that provided abortions.

There were great discrpancies between what one TAC would consider a risk to the mother's health and what other TAC's would. This led to uneven access to abortion across the country. In some areas mental health problems resulting from carrying a baby to term were acceptable to the TAC as endangering the mother's health. In other TAC's the law was interpreted much more closely making it difficult to get an abortion in the hospital even if they did have a TAC.