Canada – How pro-life bias is limiting reproductive healthcare access in rural Ontario

Right-to-life groups are increasing stigma and barriers to preventing and eliminating pregnancies

By Mary Baxter
August 2, 2023

After the condom broke, Amanda’s* boyfriend hurried to the drugstore to get the morning-after pill. Anxiety eddied as Amanda waited for him to return. The teenage couple had experienced pregnancy scares before but had never resorted to emergency contraception. A baby couldn’t be in the picture yet, Amanda knew.

In 2018, Amanda was 19 years old. The teen from Chatham-Kent, a rural municipality in southwestern Ontario, had dropped out of high school in Grade 11. They struggled with mental health and lived with their parents. They were unemployed. Their boyfriend, the same age, hit them.

Continued: https://broadview.org/abortion-access-rural/

02.08.2023

Commentary

Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada

abortion stigma

access to abortion

Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights

anti-choice bias

anti-choice deception

anti-choice lies

anti-choice misinformation

anti-choice stigma

April Rietdyk

B.J. Kivell

British Columbia Humanist Association

Carolyn Martin

Chatham-Kent Public Health

Christine Button

emergency contraception

Frédérique Chabot

Jen Belcher

Joyce Arthur

Lambton Public Health

Ontario Medical Association

Ontario Pharmacists Association

Refuge CPC

Right to Life Kent

sexual and reproductive health services

Sheila dunn

Shore Centre

TK Pritchard

Women’s College Hospital

Could free birth control be on the horizon in Ontario?

British Columbia will soon fully cover hormone-based contraception — and Ontario advocates are hoping this province will follow suit

Written by Diane Peters
Mar 15, 2023

Several times a month, a client at the SHORE Centre in Kitchener admits they can’t afford to pay for their birth control.

And SHORE’s executive director, TK Pritchard, suspects many more clients have a hard time paying for their birth control. “We know people who are choosing between buying food that week and getting their birth control,” Pritchard says. “Sometimes they tell us; sometimes they don’t.”

Continued: https://www.tvo.org/article/could-free-birth-control-be-on-the-horizon-in-ontario https://www.tvo.org/article/could-free-birth-control-be-on-the-horizon-in-ontario

Canada – The abortion pill shortage is easing — but for some, access remains a struggle

By Rachel Gilmore, Global News
December 21, 2022

Abortion pills are slowly returning to some pharmacy shelves after a shortage that left Canadian women and people who can get pregnant across the country in a lurch for more than two weeks.

Linepharma, which manufactures mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs sold together under the brand name Mifegymiso in Canada — has confirmed product is being shipped out to providers across the country.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/9365017/abortion-pill-shortage-mifegymiso-canada/

21.12.2022

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News

abortion pill shortage

National Abortion Federation Canada

Canada has been facing an abortion pill shortage. Here’s what to know

By Rachel Gilmore Global News
Posted December 16

Canada has been facing a shortage of its supply of Mifegymiso, the two-drug combination commonly known as the abortion pill, according to the manufacturer of the medication — though supplies are expected to become available next week.

People who can get pregnant have been unable to access the abortion pill in some parts of the country for the last two weeks, according to a spokesperson representing the pharmaceutical company Linepharma.

Continued: https://globalnews.ca/news/9354358/abortion-pill-shortage-mifegymiso-canada-access/

Barriers to abortion in Canada make it an unlikely haven for Americans

By Amanda Coletta
July 3, 2022

TORONTO — The Women’s Health Clinic in Winnipeg is stretched. The facility is one of a handful of abortion clinics in Manitoba, a Canadian province of 1.3 million. It fields about 100 inquiries each week and says it is providing as many as 30 percent more abortions than it receives government funding for.

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, the nearly 50-year-old precedent protecting abortion rights across the United States, some of those inquiries about abortion were from Americans. Now the clinic, 70 miles from the border with North Dakota, where a trigger ban goes into effect this month, is watching for more.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/03/canada-abortion-access-roe-wade/

Canada – ‘Reluctant to prescribe’: Local clinic says women wait weeks to access abortion pill

'Reluctant to prescribe': Local clinic says women wait weeks to access abortion pill
The executive director of the SHORE Centres says many family doctors are still not prescribing the pill

Paula Duhatschek · CBC News
Posted: Jul 22, 2019

A local sexual health resource centre says it's experiencing so much demand for the abortion pill, Mifegymiso, that patients often must wait two to three weeks to get it.

Mifegymiso is the brand name for the combination of two pills that is used to terminate pregnancies—but only up to nine weeks along.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/reluctant-to-prescribe-local-clinic-says-women-forced-to-wait-weeks-to-access-abortion-pill-1.5220512

22.07.2019

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College of Family Physicians of Canada

Mifegymiso prescriptions

Abortion-pill obstacles: How doctors’ reluctance and long-distance travel stop many Canadians from getting Mifegymiso

Abortion-pill obstacles: How doctors’ reluctance and long-distance travel stop many Canadians from getting Mifegymiso

Two years ago, Canada was one of the last developed countries to make available a drug hailed as a safe alternative to surgical abortion. But it’s still out of reach for many beyond the major cities, a Globe analysis has found

Carly Weeks Health Reporter
July 13, 2019
The Globe and Mail

Doctors across Canada are refusing to write prescriptions for the abortion pill, forcing many women to travel to out-of-town clinics to get a prescription, according to a Globe and Mail analysis that reveals provincial access barriers and widespread reluctance on the part of medical professionals to provide abortion care.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-abortion-pill-obstacles-how-doctors-reluctance-and-long-distance/

App that connects users with abortion providers launches across Canada

App that connects users with abortion providers launches across Canada
Choice Connect app was first released locally and in southwestern Ontario in 2017

CBC News
Posted: Jun 19, 2019

A smartphone app that matches people with their nearest abortion provider launches across Canada on Wednesday.

The web-based app was developed by Waterloo region's Shore Centre, a sexual health resource centre.
Choice Connect was developed with the help of Kitchener's Zeitspace and was first launched in southwestern Ontario in 2017.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/choice-connect-app-national-launch-shore-centre-1.5179940

19.06.2019

Canada – ‘Completely cross the line’: Anti-abortion ads on buses taken down

‘Completely cross the line’: Anti-abortion ads on buses taken down
Controversial anti-abortion ad removed from buses

Chase Banger, CTV Kitchener
Published Thursday, April 4, 2019

A local sexual health centre is condemning anti-abortion advertisements on GRT buses, calling them “wholly inaccurate.”

The advertisements state abortion is linked to suicide, substance abuse, breast cancer, depression and infertility.

They direct people to KW Right to Life, an anti-abortion organization based in Kitchener.

Continued: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/completely-cross-the-line-anti-abortion-ads-on-buses-taken-down-1.4366142

Abortion-pill inequality: How access varies widely across Canada

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.

Continued: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-abortion-pill-inequality-how-access-varies-widely-across-canada/