Canada – Young adult novel tackles heavy topic

What Friends Are For sheds light on history of abortion in Canada

By: Simon Fuller
Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025

Harriet Zaidman’s latest book, her sixth, sharpens the focus on abortion — a subject that remains the subject of much discussion and polarization, especially in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court 2022 overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling.

What Friends Are For, published by Heritage House … is described in a publisher’s press release as a “nuanced, important, and unfortunately timely (young adult) novel set in 1983 at the height of Canada’s abortion debate, following a young girl grappling with an unplanned pregnancy.”

Continued: https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/east/2025/11/12/young-adult-novel-tackles-heavy-topic

12.11.2025

Film, Art, Books

abortion novel

Dr. Henry Morgentaler

Study reveals uneven access to abortion pill mifepristone in British Columbia

Nov 7 2025

Most pharmacies in British Columbia can provide the abortion pill mifepristone within days, but uneven access still leaves some women facing barriers to this time-sensitive medication, according to new research.

The study, published Nov. 6 in JAMA Network Open, offers the first province-wide look at pharmacy-level access to mifepristone in B.C.

Continued: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251107/Study-reveals-uneven-access-to-abortion-pill-mifepristone-in-British-Columbia.aspx

07.11.2025

Research

abortion pills

abortion pills at pharmacies

Dr. Elizabeth Nethery

A global reminder that the fight for abortion rights is far from over

Women’s right to control our own bodies is not a battle that can be checked off as won

Review by Pamela Cross
October 21, 2025

The A Word: A Global History of the Abortion Struggle, by Elizabeth Casillas and Higinia Garay, University of Regina Press, 2025

The A Word is aptly named. I’m always struck by how, even in Canada, people still feel compelled to whisper when they talk about abortion. It’s a legal medical procedure—we don’t whisper about appendectomies, heart surgery, or root canals. And yet abortion continues to carry, for many, a faint air of impropriety.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In television and film, when a character with no plans for children becomes pregnant, the script rarely includes abortion. Instead, she either miscarries conveniently or turns her life upside down to give birth and, somehow, happily raise a child. Abortion is seldom even mentioned.

Continued: https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/a-global-reminder-that-the-fight-for-abortion-rights-is-far-from-over

Canada – Unregulated pregnancy centres should not provide non-medical ultrasounds

Release: 19 October 2025

The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) has uncovered seven unregulated pregnancy centres (UPCs) across Canada that are offering recreational, non-diagnostic ultrasounds. This is a deeply concerning increase in the misuse of medical imaging equipment by organizations with no medical oversight or accountability.

“Ultrasound is a medical tool that should only be used under proper clinical supervision,” said Joyce Arthur, Executive Director of ARCC. “When anti-abortion centres use it recreationally as a non-diagnostic tool, it creates a dangerous illusion of medical legitimacy. Clients may be falsely reassured about the health of a pregnancy or be discouraged from seeking real medical care. This puts pregnant people’s health and safety at risk.”

Continued: https://www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/2025/10/19/upcs-non-medical-ultrasounds/

Canada – Fake ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ run by right-wing religious groups use ‘deception and manipulation’ to trick vulnerable women

Taxpayer scam: ‘No charity should be in the business of deceiving people who are considering an abortion and possibly delaying them from seeking health-care’

by Paul Henderson
Oct 19, 2025

The ad on the bus stop bench in front of Chilliwack Senior Secondary School has been there for many months, maybe years: “Cherish Women’s Resource Centre.” It includes a logo with arms forming a heart, hands clasping with the words “Pregnant? Unplanned? Here to help.”

The location in front of a high school where the ad is seen daily by hundreds of teenage girls is no coincidence.

But while “The Cherish Project” claims to be there to support girls and women with information and guidance about reproductive health, in reality it is simply a group of non-medically trained evangelical Christians intent on misleading vulnerable young women into doing what church fathers say they should do with their bodies. Continued: https://www.pauljhenderson.com/fake-crisis-pregnancy-centres-run-by-right-wing-religious-groups-use-deception-and-manipulation-to-trick-vulnerable-women/

Canada – The evidence is clear: National pharmacare for contraception can’t wait

October 9, 2025
Elizabeth Nethery, Amanda Black, Amanda K Downey, Laura Schummers, Wendy V. Norman

Why should women in British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and the Yukon have access to free contraception while the rest of Canadians do not? Our new research, published in the British Medical Journal and JAMA Pediatrics, underscores the urgent need for universal prescription contraception coverage nationwide. Spoiler alert: cost matters.

When B.C. launched universal coverage for prescription contraception in April 2023, more people used contraceptives, and importantly, more chose the most effective methods. When Ontario introduced universal coverage for those younger than age 25 in January 2017, we found a similar jump in the most effective contraceptive methods.

Continued: https://theconversation.com/the-evidence-is-clear-national-pharmacare-for-contraception-cant-wait-264967

Trudeau made headlines with free birth control. Why didn’t Canada follow through?

Nearly a year after a historic law promised free contraception, most provinces still haven’t signed on

Olivia Bowden in Toronto
Wed 24 Sep 2025

It was touted as a historic move that would change lives: in October 2024, Canada passed new legislation making all birth control free.

Justin Trudeau, then prime minister, called the bill’s passing “real progress”. The leftwing New Democratic party took credit, saying they had convinced Trudeau’s governing Liberals to move ahead with it. The bill didn’t just cover birth control: it made diabetes medication free, too, and ushered in a legal framework to possibly cover all prescription medication in the future: a national pharmacare plan.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/24/canada-free-birth-control-law

Lawless: The complete decriminalization of abortion… only in Canada

Needs No Introduction
September 3, 2025
Rabble.ca podcast: 1 hour

In our season nine premiere, we welcome Martha Paynter, nurse, scholar and author of Lawless: Abortion Under Complete Decriminalization. We discuss Canada’s complete decriminalization of abortion (the only country to do so), the fascinating and often fraught history that brought us to this point, abortion as a public good, the influence of the anti-choice lobby here and the overturning of Roe vs. Wade in the US, and what it takes to make abortion truly equitable when decriminalization is not enough.

Reflecting on the need to understand abortion as a public good, Paynter says:
“We have these major cultural forces that just reiterate this idea that abortion is rare and hard. And it’s not, it’s very normal. It’s very common and it takes seven minutes. And actually it will allow you to follow your dreams. Whether that dream is to escape a violent relationship or to finish your graduate degree or whatever. So we do need to have this shift in the way we talk about abortion. And we need to understand abortion, not just as healthcare, but as this force of good in our society.”

Continued: https://rabble.ca/podcast/lawless-the-complete-decriminalization-of-abortion/

04.09.2025

Interviews/Podcasts

decriminalization of abortion

Henry Morgentaler

Lawless: Abortion Under Complete Decriminalization

She died of infection after an abortion. Now, her sister wants accountability

Investigations into Ontario woman’s treatment reveal missed red flags

The Globe and Mail (BC Edition)
27 Aug 2025

WENDY GLAUSER

From the moment Rheanna Laderoute was born, her older sister Kassandra Costabile doted on and protected her. Eight years younger, Ms. Laderoute was deeply empathetic, with a quiet grace and an offbeat sense of humour, Ms. Costabile recalls. And she remembers fondly how Ms. Laderoute could pull off silly sound effects and voices that no one else could – always making her laugh, even when she was upset.

Ms. Laderoute adored her older sister, too. Ms. Costabile once asked her sister why she would sometimes tell their mother about a relationship or school problem, but not her. “You’re the one I’m most fearful of disappointing,” Ms. Laderoute told her.

Continued: https://globe2go.pressreader.com/article/281487872460648 

Canada’s Largest Anti-Abortion Organization Facing Allegations of “Toxic” Workplace Culture

LifeSiteNews, Canada most influential anti-abortion and anti-2SLGBTQ+ organization, has reinstated its CEO amid accusations of discriminating on the basis of gender and religion and financial wrongdoing.

Posted on August 13, 2025
Canadian Anti-Hate Network

There is a schism within LifeSiteNews (LSN), one of Canada’s largest far-right media outlets. On July 2, several board members of LifeSiteNews heard evidence alleging that CEO John-Henry Westen contributed to a “toxic” work environment, discriminated as an employer on the grounds of gender and religion, and engaged in financial wrongdoing. The meeting ended with a slim majority of the board voting to remove Westen as CEO.

Westen characterized the allegations against him, which have not been tested in court, as false, misleading, and based on distorted statistics in a statement published on July 29, 2025.

Continued: https://www.antihate.ca/canada_largest_anti_abortion_allegations_of_toxic_workplace_culture

13.08.2025