Dorothea Palmer

Dorothea Palmer (Ferguson) (1908 – 1992), a former employee of the Parents' Information Bureau, was arrested and charged under section 207(c) of the Criminal Code for advertising information on family planning and birth control by means of a pamphlet. Palmer was acquitted on March 17, 1937 when her actions were deemed to have been carried out in the interest of the public good or pro bono publico. Palmer is honoured for her role in advancing family planning in Canada.

Biography Palmer was born in England in 1908. Palmer immigrated to Canada in the mid-1920s from England, where she had trained in Sheffield as a social worker. Funded by A. R. Kaufman, the wealthy owner of the Kaufman Rubber Company in Kitchener, Ontario, and prominent eugenics supporter, the PIB distributed information about family planning and birth control. The organization employed roughly 50 people like Palmer in cities across Canada. She was arrested for promoting contraception to women in the poor Roman Catholic Ottawa community of Eastview. At the time, 1,000 of the 4,000 people living in the area were on social assistance, many with large families. During questioning at the police station, Palmer expressed her belief that: "A woman should be the master of her own body. She should be the one to say if she wants to become a mother."

A defense motion for dismissal of charges was filed and ruled by Magistrate Lester Clayton. 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 with no excess in her actions beyond serving the public good. 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. Palmer spoke publicly about the position she was placed in by men involved with the birth control movement and the trial expressing that she had done the "dirty work" on their behalf. In 1986 the trial was reenacted as part of the CBC radio series Scales of Justice. The episode script was drafted by Frank Jones, using trial transcripts and related papers held by the University of Waterloo Library, and featured Canadian actress Nicky Guadagni as Palmer.

Palmer died in Ottawa on November 5, 1992.