What does abortion access look like in Canada?
As we wait to hear what unfolds across the States, many in Canada now ask: could this happen here, and should we be worried?
Welcome to the 73rd issue of The Supplement, a newsletter that fills in the gaps of your other news intake. This is Sam, one-third of The Supplement team!
Each week, we pick a question submitted by you, our readers. If you’d like to submit a question for a future week, then email us at thesupplementnewsletter@gmail.com or reach out to us on Twitter or Instagram.
Now seems like a good time to toot our own horn a little bit and announce that for the second year in a row, we’ve been nominated for a Digital Publishing Award for Best Editorial Newsletter! This truly could not have happened without you, our readers, so thank you.
This week, we’re tackling this question: What does abortion access look like in Canada?
TL;DR: You’ve likely already heard the leaked news about the US Supreme Court voting to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision which protected abortion rights in America. As we wait to hear what unfolds across the States, many in Canada now ask: could this happen here, and should we be worried? Abortion might be decriminalized on our side of the border, but actually getting access to one is a whole other story.
You’ve likely already heard the news that came out last week from our neighbors down south: according to an initial draft majority opinion circulated internally and obtained exclusively by POLITICO, the US Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, which constitutionally protected abortion rights across the country.
The final release of the decision is not expected until late June or early July, but it already draws a pretty hard line: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences,” writes Justice Samuel Alito.
(POLITICO also put together a Q&A that’s worth checking out.)
What does this actually mean?
Though any state could still legally allow abortions, if Roe is overturned, about 23 would likely use the ruling to impose stricter limits on the procedure almost immediately, with those states concentrated in the South and Midwest.
(Of course, this debate over the attempted clawback of abortion access has been ongoing for a while now. In September 2021, we wrote about Texas’ restrictive new abortion law.)
The decision has sparked heated debate and anxiety for many, which has trickled up to Canada as well.
What does this mean for Canada?
Not everyone is worried. The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson writes in a recent column that “the Canadian commentariat enjoys dabbling in culture-war porn. Some terrible thing is happening in the United States. It could happen here, too! No, it can’t.”
In Canada, the issue of abortion is largely one of access, not legality. Abortion was decriminalized in 1988, so there are no federal laws governing it in Canada and it’s treated as a medical procedure discussed between doctor and patient. Being able to get one is another story.
Legal, but inaccessible
In BC, for example, all five surgical abortion sites are located in the south of the province in bigger cities, making access for people in northern and remote areas a much different picture. That discrepancy in access is a problem nationwide: provinces and territories without a single rural clinic include Alberta, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
Meanwhile, Trudeau has renewed his pledge to protect abortion rights in Canada — likely through using legislation to ensure it — but hasn’t yet offered a timeline for doing so.
“Every woman in Canada has the right to a safe and legal abortion,” he tweeted almost immediately upon the American news. During the 2021 election Trudeau said he would ensure that abortion services were publicly funded, but has yet to fulfill that promise. Americans will also be able to come to Canada for abortions, officials have said, and Canadian clinics are prepping for the possibility.
Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen confirmed that her party would not support legislation limiting the right to an abortion — and told her MPs to stay quiet on the Supreme Court decision — as five out of six incoming leadership candidates all released statements to the same effect. That being said, PC MPP for Niagara West Sam Oosterhoff pledged to make abortion “unthinkable in our lifetime.” (Remember that healthcare is a provincial matter and this factor might come into the Canadian conversation later on.)
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Bonus mention:
One other story I’d like to mention, because I think it’s flying under the radar for far too many people: we’re now entering the fourth week of eight miners being trapped underground in a flooded, Canadian-owned mine in West Africa. The mine belows to Vancouver-based Trevali Mining Corp.
According to reporting from The Toronto Star, officials in Burkina Faso “are launching an investigation into the incident and the mine’s management has reportedly been prevented from leaving the country.”
Here’s someone to follow:
We love young talent over at The Supplement, so that’s why I want to draw your attention to some other Digital Publishing Award nominees, this time for the Emerging Excellence Award. Congrats to Michelle Gamage with The Tyee, Alex Migdal with CBC Vancouver, and Inori Roy with The Local!
Here’s a story to check out:
You probably know by now that my favourite reading recommendation is a juicy reading recommendation. Enter this two-part series from Vanity Fair, the second part of which just dropped. It’s all about a Grey’s Anatomy writer who turned her harrowing experiences with illness and other traumas into viral personal essays and TV episodes — except everything was a lie.