ff

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4 S

. her actions)

Page 42, January 10, 1979 -

~ Birth control pioneer

Code did pl

Forty years ago Dorothea
Ferguson, then 29, stood
trial under her maiden
name, charged with
providing contraceptives
and information concerning
contraception to women in a

small town — risking jail to --

battle Canadian
governing birth control.

laws

She was acquitted on the
grounds that she had acted
*“in the public good.”

“I was either a damn fool
or a pioneer,” she chuckles

today.

Now 70, Mrs. Ferguson is
‘being honored by Ortho
Pharmaceutical
Ltd. (a company that
doubtless has benefitted by
where her
photograph is to be included
alongside that of another
contraception pioneer, A.R.
Kaufman, in the firm’s
museum on contraception
over the ages.

Mrs. Ferguson's acquittal |

in 1936 opened the way to
acceptance of birth control
even though the Canadian

Your first ski lesson...and

a chance to wear your new

ski suit! (It seemed a bit

snug, “but the material will

stretch’ you were told.)
One trip up the rope tow
may have entertained

your classmates, but it left

(Canada).

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‘Criminal
change until 1969.

When the law finally did
change, Mrs. Ferguson says
she only felt it was fifty years
too late. “I'd already done

That’s men for you: — when
there’s a dirty job to do, get
a woman to do it,” she says.

"control

After the trial, Mrs.

: Ferguson quit working with

the Parents’ Information
Bureau founded by Mr.
Kaufman of Kitchener. “I'd
done what-Iset out to do: I'd

proven the work should be —

done. I told Mr. Kaufman
I've done my job, that’s it.”

She went back to her quiet
family life to avoid further
publicity and displeasing her
already not-too-pleased
husband and relatives.

Widowed for the last 18
years, she finally agreed to
‘speak out on the trial
because “I’m old enough
now; I've reached the age of
indiscretion and I have no
one to protect anymore.

Besides, I ‘have a_ lovely

Has this ever
happened

you humiliated. And chilly.
Now you're off to Skyline
Sports—for the best selec-
tion of ski clothing around
and the best advice. Sky-
line's ski suits will stretch,
too, but in all the night
places.

their dirty -work- for them.~

owe it to her to show that I
wasn’t just a dirty old
woman.” .

In 1936, Mrs. Ferguson
and her husband were
running a ‘bookstore when a
social, worker . trying to
educate people to birth
aproached them,
apparently upset because
she had been instructed to
bring -information to the
small village of Eastview, a
poor community outside
Ottawa where almost all

families were  French-
speaking, Catholic and
unemployed. Oo

The woman said that she

_ dared not go there. “All

right, TH go,” said Mrs.

Ferguson, who had training-

as a nurse acquired in

pocket.

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granddaughter of 18 and I

the trial, she was alone
during the entire ordeal. Her
entire family disapproved,
including: her husband and
her church, Anglican, which

formation that women of
‘higher classes received

England, from “where she
had previously imigrated
nine years previously.

easily from their doctors.

Mrs. Ferguson. felt it was

wrong that poor . women Except for’ her lawyer at ..

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