'We don’t want people believing that what they’re hearing in the United Sates is the case here,' says UBC researcher
Sharon Kirkey
Published Apr 15, 2023
Doctors in Canada fear the extraordinary legal battles over abortion pills unfolding in the U.S. could shake confidence in the safety of medical abortions here.
The country’s largest pro-life organization hopes the court rulings do just that, and lead to more “kitchen-table” conversations about a drug it considers a “human poison.”
by Camille Bains The Canadian Press
March 1, 2023
Proponents of British Columbia’s move to provide free prescription contraception say the policy could spur other provinces to follow suit but a national plan would best serve people’s reproductive needs and slash health-care costs overall.
Obstetricians and reproductive rights advocates say other countries, including the United Kingdom, already provide free contraception as part of their health-care plans.
Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/9520731/free-contraception-birth-control-canada-bc/
Sarah Ratchford, Reader's Digest Canada
Nov 10, 2021
Angie Deveau had planned to spend Boxing Day of 2013 lounging in front of the Christmas tree with her family. Instead, she had morning sickness and found herself rushing back and forth to the bathroom. That evening, after she read her three-year-old son his favourite bedtime story, cuddled him, and kissed his forehead goodnight, Deveau took a pregnancy test. She’d already guessed what it would say: positive.
At the time she was 34 and lived in a house in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Though she shared custody with her son’s father, she was the boy’s primary caregiver and had only her part-time income as a researcher to sustain them both. She made $25 per hour, working 15 hours per week, and had all the bills that everyone does: housing, groceries, clothing, utilities, and on it went.
UBC-led study offers lessons for other nations on deregulating mifepristone
UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, Research News
NEWS RELEASE 14-SEP-2020
Removing restrictions on how mifepristone--the medical abortion drug--can be prescribed and dispensed in Canada greatly improved access to abortion, especially in rural communities across the country.
That's one of
the key findings of new University of British Columbia-led research published
today in the Annals of Family Medicine.
Continued: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/uobc-ero090920.php
Mifegymiso Can Be Prescribed Without An Ultrasound: Health Canada
"Health care practitioners across Canada have been asking for removal for this restriction."
By Maija Kappler
Apr 17, 2019
Canadian doctors are no longer required to perform an ultrasound before prescribing medicine that will end unwanted pregnancies. Experts say the change will eliminate a significant barrier to abortion access, particularly for women living in rural areas who often had to travel major distances or wait long periods of time before they could get ultrasounds.
Health Canada made the announcement that an ultrasound was no longer required before a doctor could prescribe Mifegymiso, the "abortion pill," in a press release on Tuesday.
Continued: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/04/16/mifegymiso-health-canada_a_23712955/
Two-pill abortion drug Mifegymiso prescribed at least 13,000 times since becoming available in Canada
Since Alberta began covering the cost of Mifegymiso last July, at least 2,190 doses have been prescribed — the overwhelming majority of them in Calgary
Tyler Dawson
October 15, 2018
EDMONTON — It was Calgary’s Kensington clinic that prescribed the first dose of Mifegymiso, the two-pill abortion drug, after it became available in Canada in January 2017.
“When it arrived on our doorstep, we had a patient that day and we offered it to her; we were ready to go,” said clinic executive director Celia Posyniak.
Abortion-pill inequality: How access varies widely across Canada
Two years after Canadians got access to Mifegymiso, some regions have seen thousands of prescriptions, but others have had hardly any, according to figures obtained by The Globe and Mail. The numbers point to deeply rooted problems in regional abortion care
Carly Week
October 12, 2018
Women’s health advocates have hailed the abortion pill as the key to eliminating barriers to abortion in Canada because it can be prescribed by a family doctor and taken at home, no matter where a woman lives. Yet, nearly two years after Mifegymiso became available, many women still have to travel to abortion clinics, endure lengthy waits and pay out-of-pocket if they want to use it to end their pregnancies.
Prescribing data provided to The Globe and Mail show large regional disparities in access to the abortion pill, which the World Health Organization says is a safe and effective method of terminating pregnancies in the first nine weeks. In Manitoba, where nearly 4,000 abortions are performed every year, no prescriptions for Mifegymiso have been dispensed from retail pharmacies since it came on the market, according to the data. But in Ontario, which has about 40,000 abortions every year, more than 6,600 prescriptions were dispensed last year and this year, up to August, 2018.
Doctor calls for stop of 'demeaning' practice of watching women swallow Mifegymiso 'abortion pill'
Not required in Canada, but doctors at Regina General Hospital still do it
By Stephanie Taylor, CBC News
Posted: Aug 11, 2017
Doctors should stop the "demeaning" practice of supervising a woman while she swallows the Mifegymiso abortion pill, a professor says.
Dr. Wendy Norman teaches at the University of British Columbia and chairs family planning research for the Public Health Agency of Canada and Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
She said a myth exists that physicians are required to watch a patient ingest mifepristone — one of a two-drug combination packed together as Mifegymiso, for medical abortions.
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