Even if abortion rates drop after this period, it is still important that the option is accessible. A decision to interrupt later may be made for personal reasons, medical concerns, or factors beyond the person`s control, including transportation difficulties, limited access to specific pregnancy tests, or desperate domestic circumstances. Currently, after 20 weeks, abortion treatment is only available in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. After 24 weeks, people are forced to leave the country in search of safe supplies – a luxury reserved for the privileged few. In France, an abortion after 14 weeks of pregnancy requires the agreement of a doctor. In Germany, anyone seeking an abortion must follow mandatory counselling. Norway aborts on request, but only in the first quarter. Stories like Sarah and Natalie`s show how abortion remains inaccessible in Canada despite their federal status. Due to the lack of facilities in small provinces and rural areas, women were often forced to travel to large cities at their own expense. In Newfoundland, there was only one gynecologist who performed abortions. Many women have had to buy expensive plane tickets to Toronto or Montreal to have an abortion. [33] Other women chose to travel to the United States, where abortions were performed in many private clinics after Roe v.
Wade in 1973. In 1982, 4,311 Canadian women travelled to the United States for abortions. [34] We must call on provincial and federal officials to ensure compliance with the CHA and to remove significant barriers to abortion in Canada. Funding needs to be improved to cover all costs associated with access to abortion services. In addition, the scope of practice of health professionals such as nurses and midwives could potentially be expanded to offer abortions. At the provincial level, the Alberta government has sought to introduce “right of conscience” laws to further undermine access to abortion, and in 2020 it suggested that abortion care should not fall under the province`s Public Health Act, continuing the government`s hostile approach to sexual and reproductive health care. Overall, this resurgence of anti-right activity occurred when actors felt emboldened by the rise of authoritarian governments, particularly in the United States, and many conservative provincial governments gained majority status and encountered limited resistance. Anti-choice actors in Canada have financial and political ties to like-minded groups in the United States, which have strengthened and gained a stronger political foothold under the Trump administration and right-wing state governments.
The Conservative Party struggled with the combination of contradictory social policies of its two predecessor parties, the moderate Progressive Conservative Party and the more right-wing Canadian Alliance, which merged in 2003. Many supporters of the social-conservative alliance were irritated by the prospect that Belinda Stronach, an abortion rights advocate, would win the leadership election in early 2004, while some Progressive Conservative supporters protested in the 2004 federal election against the new party`s perceived openness to laws that would restrict abortion rights. At the March 2005 Political Convention, the party narrowly voted not to introduce legislation on abortion (members can still introduce parliamentary bills on the subject), despite the condemnation of sex-selective abortions. [91] The Party`s position on abortion is often voted on at Party congresses. Motion 312 was introduced in 2012 by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth and called for the creation of a House of Commons committee to determine when human life begins, but it was defeated by a vote of 203 to 91. [92] In 2013, Conservative MP Mark Warawa tabled a motion condemning discrimination against women through sex-selective abortion. [93] In 2021, Conservative Cathay Wagantall introduced a private member bill that would prohibit a doctor from performing a sex-selective abortion. Although the bill was defeated by 248 votes to 82, a majority of Conservative MPs voted in favour of the bill. [94] “This shows that one of the implications of the decision is that people realize that there are access problems in their own country and that they wanted to be able to do something,” Doctoroff said.
In Canada, long-standing anti-choice regulations continue to violate the human rights of people who may become pregnant in the province of New Brunswick. The 30-year-old Ordinance 84-20 limits the province`s health care system`s funding for surgical abortions to hospitals, meaning patients at the province`s only self-contained abortion clinic had to pay for abortions out of their own pockets. New Brunswick is the only province to have such a provision that violates Canada`s central health legislation, the Canada Health Act. In 2020, the only autonomous abortion clinic closed, cutting off access to abortion and gender care for thousands of patients in the provincial capital. With other providers of surgical abortion treatments located in just two other cities, individuals are forced to travel hundreds of miles to get basic health care at a time when travel is discouraged or completely restricted. A legal challenge was launched to overturn the discriminatory regime in the face of the lack of political will at the provincial level to reverse the policy. Reform Party MP Deborah Grey, who supported the bill, denied that this death, the first known death by illegal abortion in Ontario in two decades, could have anything to do with the publicity surrounding the passage of Bill C-43. [Citation needed] But in Ontario, the link has been made.
MPP Richard Johnston suggested to Premier David Peterson that Ontario announce that it would not take third-party action against women or doctors to prevent further tragedies and reassure doctors that they could continue to provide services to women in Ontario. [59] For example, billing codes for medical abortions, timely access to ultrasound services, a guideline for timely coverage of foreign care, etc. Governments should also work closely with provincial vocational schools to ensure they have strong policies on conscientious objection and support expanding the scope of practice of midwives and nurses to provide medical abortions when this is not already the case.3 Create health Canada`s promised web portal that contains accurate and unbiased information on sexual and reproductive health and rights and addresses misinformation about abortion. Fortin said about one in three Canadians will have an abortion in their lifetime and nearly 60 per cent of people seeking abortions already have children. She said ensuring equal access should come first, especially for those who are racialized, Indigenous, living in poverty or part of the LGBTQ community. Even if the law simply enshrines abortion as a right, inclusion in books could open the door to more restrictive changes made by subsequent governments, proponents fear. Until recently, the Liberal Party had anti-abortion MPs, such as Liberal MP Paul Steckle, who introduced a bill in June 2006 that would have made abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy a criminal act. [95] Current Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has required all Liberal Party candidates to vote in accordance with the party`s abortion rights policy since he took over the leadership of the Liberal Party in 2013.
[96] Nationally, abortion is legal during the nine months (40 weeks) of pregnancy,[11] however, no provider in Canada offers treatment beyond 23 weeks and 6 days. [7] Restrictions are based on professional medical guidelines, available resources (equipment, trained staff) and individual institutional mandates, so access to all types of services varies by region in each province and territory. [7] [68] [6] Each province and territory regulates and funds its own health care system. The federal government provides funding to each province and territory as long as they meet the requirements of the Canada Health Act. One of these requirements is comprehensiveness, which means that all insured health services defined in the legislation must be covered by a provincial or territorial health plan in order for that province or territory to receive federal funding. [69] Abortion is not explicitly mentioned in the Canada Health Act. It is simply included in the broad definition of “insured health services,” just like other medical and surgical procedures. [70] In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada repealed the Abortion Prohibition Act, 1969 because it prevented women from having equal access across the country and was unconstitutional.
Although the court lifted this ban, it wrote that parliament had the right to enact a new abortion law, and subsequent Supreme Court cases reflected this sentiment. Having found that the legislation violated the right to security of the person, the majority considered whether this violation was consistent with the principles of fundamental justice, which constitute the second branch of section 7 of the Charter. The majority of the judges agreed that the procedural requirements of abortion, as set out in the law, are particularly problematic. Only accredited or licensed hospitals could perform abortions, which was a barrier to local access. The law also stipulated that women who wanted to have an abortion had to seek approval from a “therapeutic abortion committee” in a hospital. The committee was composed of at least three physicians appointed by the hospital`s board of directors and did not include the physician who was to perform the procedure. [50] The Court found that the committee`s requirement was profoundly flawed, in part because of the long delays caused by the committees, and that the committees at many hospitals were only paper committees and did not really approve of abortions.