1932 when the British Medical Association council formed a committee to discuss making changes to the laws on abortion. On 17 February 1936, Janet Chance, Alice Jenkins and Joan Malleson established the Abortion Law Reform Association as the first advocacy organisation for abortion liberalization. The association promoted access to abortion in the United Kingdom and campaigned for the elimination of legal obstacles. In its first year ALRA recruited 35 members, and by 1939 had almost 400 members. The ALRA was very active between 1936 and 1939 sending speakers around the country to talk about Labour and Equal Citizenship and attempted, though most often unsuccessfully, to have letters and articles published in newspapers. They became the most popular when a member of the ALRA's Medico-Legal Committee received the case of a fourteen-year-old girl who had been raped, and received a termination of this pregnancy from Dr. Joan Malleson, a progenitor of the ALRA. This case gained a lot of publicity. However, once the war began, the case was tucked away and the cause again lost its importance to the public. In 1938, Joan Malleson precipitated one of the most influential cases in British abortion law when she referred a pregnant fourteen-year-old rape victim to gynaecologist Aleck Bourne. He performed an abortion, then illegal, and was put on trial on charges of procuring abortion. Bourne was eventually acquitted in Rex v. Bourne as his actions were "an example of disinterested conduct in consonance with the highest traditions of the profession". This court case set a precedent that doctors could not be prosecuted for performing an abortion in cases where pregnancy would probably cause "mental and physical wreck". Finally, the Birkett Committee, established in 1937 by the British government "to inquire into the prevalence of abortion, and the law relating thereto", recommended a change to abortion laws two years later. The intervention of World War II meant that all plans were shelved. Another prominent figure in the reform of abortion laws was Dr. Morgentaler. Although born in Poland he made a name for himself in Canada, opening multiple illegal abortion clinics in Toronto, Ontario. Liberalization of abortion law Canada Prior to 1969, abortion was considered a crime for which the maximum punishment was life imprisonment for the doctor performing the abortion and two years imprisonment for the woman receiving the abortion. Abortion remained illegal until 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada overruled