A biography of Henry Morgentaler is as self-contradictory and hypocritical as he

In the early 1950's a Montreal psychiatrist got a panic call from a younger colleague, a fledging general practitioner: "I have this patient and she's in a hypnotic trance...and I can't get her out of it." The psychiatrist had the woman admitted to hospital where she spent two days recovering. The GP, arrogantly confident in his abilities had been conducting hypnosis experiments on his patients in one of his earlier quests for "personal power." Thus began the long and controversial medical career of fame-and-fortune seeking Dr. Henry Morgentaler, as chronicled in his latest biography.

Biographer Catherine Dunphy, a Toronto Sun feature writer, is a self-proclaimed abortion advocate, feminist, and regular contributor to the Morgentaler cause. She tries to portray its leader as a courageous --albeit flawed --hero of the Canadian abortion rights movement. Instead, in many previously unreported anecdotes, she reveals him more as a troubled egomaniac more concerned with pleasure, money and public recognition than with "women's rights."

Ms. Dunphy's account of Dr. Morgentaler's life -- from his upbringing in a non-traditional Jewish home and his survival in a Nazi concentration camp, through his campaign to legalize abortion and become Canada's leading abortionist -- is as contradictory as the man himself. She excuses her hero's many "difficulties" by advancing the dubious premise that he can be at once a noble humanitarian and a flagrant exploiter of all his personal relationships.

He fathered four children by three different women, shuttling them however young between their mother's homes and the love nest he shared with his latest concubine. To get out of one of his two failed marriages, he audaciously accused his wife of adultery, although his own rejection of monogamy was public knowledge. His two ex-wives currently will not speak to him; his only daughter is wont to claim that their shared surname is a coincidence.

Ms. Dunphy, consistently obsequious, asserts that he "loved women...respected them," but then describes his notably lascivious attitudes. He made sexual overtones to many different women, including his employees; there was always a "look in his eye...[or] a hand straying too far up a supporters leg." Some of his many conquests were rewarded with jobs. Assessing two potential jurors, he wrote that one "looked like a feminist -- her nipples were standing out and in my mind she was wearing no bra," while the other "gave the impressions she didn't know anything about anything [and] was sort of waving her hips and walking in a provocative manner, very sexually sort of enticing."

Close friends acknowledged that his break-ups, one he tired of a woman, "were often abrupt and careless. Many times his liaisons overlapped, making the women feel betrayed as well as abandoned...there was talk that [he] was a chauvinist, insensitive to individual women." But author Dunphy valiantly defends this so-called champion of women's rights. His litany of sexual exploits are his "emotional protection," and he views women as sexual objects because he has an "exuberant, spontaneous, sensual and needing side."

That the doctor is in general a hedonist she makes abundantly clear in a narrative littered with references to his aggressive pursuits of pleasure. He hosts innumerable lavish parties, drops acid and smokes marijuana, visits a sex guru camp and a "feel good" hippie haven, buys luxurious homes, attends a "laughter and play" conference, and takes countless long and expensive holidays around the world. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the fact he was taking a Club Med holiday every six weeks, she insists that "he never became addicted to the finer things [money] could buy."

In fact, money seems to be one of Dr. Morgentaler's key obsessions, and his abortion business had certainly been a lucrative enterprise. He performed at least 15 abortions a day, raking in hundreds of dollars each and complaining when patient counselling slowed him down. He has also had a substantial tax-free income from pro-abortion donors. Even so, according to an executive member of the leading abortion advocacy organization CARAL (Canadian Abortion Rights Action League), he constantly pressured her group to raise more.

Other key members of pro-abortion organizations quit when they realized they were "investing in his business," not their cause. They resented his refusal to support not-for-profit abortion clinics which were intended to benefit women unable to afford his high fees. Biographer Dunphy nonetheless insists that , as a humanist, "he genuinely was not doing abortions for money." (A Quebec medical disciplinary committee disagreed, however, suspending his medical licence for a year on the grounds that he had "an attitude which is primarily directed to protecting his fees.")

But a quest for public adulation may have matched or even outweighed money as the key motivating factor for his relentless drive, and he went to almost any length to win public support for his clinics. When Manitoba attorney-general Roland Penner opposed opening one in Winnipeg, for example, Dr. Morgentaler unabashedly misled the public into believing that a girlfriend of one of Mr. Penner's sons had been a customer of his. Ms. Dunphy repeatedly observes that he was a "showman" and "the media's darling," and that he courted and basked in all the attention.

His own memoirs are filled with such nauseating self-congratulatory remarks as "Of course, I was the star attraction...I felt so much in touch with my power." Even his most devoted supporters, Ms. Dunphy reports, were not as enamoured with Henry as he was. They noticed his narcissistic preoccupations, like making late entrances so as to be better noticed and acknowledged. Many were angered by the media-mongering way he usurped their efforts to open their own clinics. Others resented his failure during press conferences to acknowledge their contributions.

Media stardom and repeated victories notwithstanding, it seems that Henry Morgentaler is an unhappy man, beset by nightmares and bouts of severe depressions which require medication. He has participated in "primal scream" therapy, which purports to return a subject to childhood, thus releasing suppressed emotions through baby talk and infantile cries. In one bizarre week long session, Ms. Dunphy "complicated hero" spent three hours daily in a padded room, "weeping, talking, raging, banging his arms, legs and torso against the walls." An arresting portrait indeed.

Dr. Morgentaler's previous biographer, pro-abortion Eleanor Pelrine, acknowledged omitting details of his life "for the sake of the cause." By contrast, Ms. Dunphy, an award-winning investigative reporter, presents a facade of objectivity. But she glosses over damming details like botched Morgentaler abortions and other abusive treatment, including his "standard procedure" of stuffing sanitary napkins in a clients mouth in lieu of painkillers.

To a considerable degree, biographer Dunphy is herself an example of fawning media bias in favour of the abortion-on-demand crusade, but her book is worth reading for anyone interested in meeting "the real Dr. Morgentaler." She deserves credit for the fact that, despite earnest explanations, her subject emerges plentifully adorned with warts -- as an egocentric, insecure chauvinist who has used the abortion-rights movement to feed an insatiable appetite for praise and prosperity.

Mrs. Bowles surveys the social scene from an acreage outside Ottawa, where she and her husband are raising two sons; a third child is on the way.