Barriers remain for women seeking local abortions, says advocate

The recent Supreme Court leak that revealed a plan to overturn Roe v. Wade, the legislation that gave women in the US the right to abortions 50 years ago, has shocked many around the world and sparked protests ever since.   

It has also opened the conversation about abortion care here in Canada and shone a light on a system that still has barriers despite decades of progress.

“We're not really great at taking an honest look at what abortion access looks like in Canada,” says TK Pritchard, executive director for SHORE Centre, a service that began helping women access medical abortions in 1972 as Planned Parenthood Kitchener-Waterloo.

“There are large portions of the country that don’t have any access. Providers tend to be in large cities. Most are in 150 kilometres of the US borders.”

Only 1 in 6 hospitals offer abortions in Canada, added Pritchard, making access to treatment, support and care more difficult.

The SHORE Centre has been helping people in Waterloo region with sexual health education and pregnancy options for 50 years. 

They often support people from out of town and across Southwestern Ontario because there is no access in their communities.

“Outside of an urban centre it can be really hard to find a provider and that’s particularly true beyond the first trimester. Even here in the Waterloo region, you can only access an abortion up to 14 weeks,” Pritchard said. 

They see about 600 people a year for medication abortions.

“What we don’t want when we see these conversations happening in the US, we don’t want to further stall improvements to access to abortion and reproductive care in Canada.”

“We need more clinics, more funding, better pieces in place so if folks do need to travel they can travel and we need to improve the social conversation around it as well.”

Choiceconnect.ca, a national search tool, gets 500 to 700 searches a month from people looking for an abortion provider somewhere in Canada.

Camilla Gunnarson, public relations for Cambridge Right To Life, is happy to get the debate going and create a dialogue to educate people on alternatives. 

“Our focus is always the same, to try to educate people on the value of every human life. We want women to never feel pressured to have an abortion. It’s a good opportunity to talk about it.”

“We would like a pro-life law where every human life is protected.”

Gunnarson is interested to see if any politicians reopen the conversation with the election coming up. 

“In every single election it’s always one of the major questions. A lot of them say it has already been dealt with, but it’s not really been dealt with.”

Pritchard hopes more people will ask their local governments the hard questions surrounding abortion access and care. 

“How are they going to increase or improve access to healthcare, including abortion in Ontario? We want to see real committed change and real sustainable supports in place so we can continue to improve for years to come.”

The conversations Canada has to have surrounding abortion include creating more clinics in rural areas, decreasing the social stigma and increasing the amount of supports in place, including funding for travel, so abortion care is safe, Pritchard said. 

Restricting access to abortion care has consquences for women including maternal death.

WHO released a study that found out each year, 4.7 per cent to 13.2 per cent of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion. 

Restricting access can also force mothers to have babies they don't want, which can have grave consequences for the children.

The Canadian Child Welfare research portal statistics from 2018 reports over 8,000 child maltreatment investigations in Ontario were due to neglect. That year there were 148, 536 child maltreatment investigations in Ontario.

“It’s a very uncomplicated health care procedure but it has so many complications that have been added,” Pritchard said.

“There are so many more conversations that need to happen but overall we have to be aware how what’s happening in the US, even though it's not legally the same situation here, that social conversation really does permeate over here too.”

Action Canada announced May 11 that over $2 million in Health Canada funding will go towards strengthening their sexual and reproductive health and rights services.

The funding aims to better support individuals who face the most significant challenges to abortion access, such as anyone experiencing a disability or intimate partner violence.