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Travel to Access Abortion Services in Canada Christabelle Sethna University of Ottawa Summer 2012 World SOCIAL SCIENCES RESEARCH AT THE of IDEAS UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA Travel to Access Abortion Services in Canada Christabelle Sethna On April 26, 2012, Conservative Party Member individual must be paramount and take precedence of Parliament Stephen Woodward introduced a over that of the state ... I do not want women to go motion asking for a special committee to consider back to the previous era where some were forced the legal beginnings of human life. Woodward’s to obtain abortions from illegal and medically action revived fears that the Conservative dangerous sources. This should never happen in a Government has a “hidden agenda” regarding civilized society.1 changes to the status of abortion in Canada even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated Abortion is recognized globally as a vital he opposed the motion and Party whip Gordon component of sexual and reproductive health O’Connor made the following statement: care for women. It is a commonplace, albeit time- sensitive medical procedure that has good health The decision of whether or not to terminate a outcomes for women when trained personnel pregnancy is essentially a moral decision and, in a perform it under sanitary conditions within the first free and democratic society, the conscience of the trimester. Yet abortion has become a stigmatized 1 Gordon O’Connor quoted in Warren Kinsella, “Harper proves true to his word,” Toronto Sun, April 30, 2012 http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/30/harper-proves-true-to-his-word, Retrieved May 2, 2012 Faculty of Social Sciences www.socialsciences.uOttawa.ca World of IDEAS - Travel to Access Abortion Services in Canada Since 1988 access to abortion services throughout the country remains patchy because of numerous extra-legal obstacles, thereby making travel a necessity for many women. practice. Legal or extra-legal obstacles can impede such as Canada. Thanks to the assistance of Dr. access to abortion services; indeed, abortion does Marion Doull, now a post-doctoral researcher at the not have to be illegal in order to be inaccessible. University of British Columbia, as well as research Travel is a major extra-legal obstacle to abortion as assistants and volunteers from the University of the further a woman has to travel to access abortion Ottawa, I undertook a four-year SSHRC-funded services, the more likely she is to be young and study tracking, mapping and analyzing the journeys underprivileged. of Canadian women to freestanding abortion clinics across the country. We are now wrapping up this Women cross international and national borders for study and preparing the findings for publication. abortion services. This form of travel is commonly known as “abortion tourism.” It can be considered In Canada, abortion was traditionally used as a back- an insensitive term that portrays women’s decision up birth control method. However, abortion, as well to have an abortion as frivolous or opportunistic. as the sale, dissemination and advertisement of Nevertheless, abortion tourism has become the contraception and abortifacients, was criminalized generic designation for the transnational travel that in the late nineteenth century. The eugenics women undertake for abortion services. Ireland movement lent some support for contraception 2 is often upheld as a prime example of abortion and sterilization to prevent the birth of individuals tourism; it is estimated that five to seven thousand deemed “unfit,” but abortion remained a clandestine women travel to England for pregnancy termination practice. Women who attempted to terminate every year. The Irish example distracts us from their pregnancies injured themselves, swallowed understanding that travel to access abortion potions and pills of various efficacy and/or inserted services also occurs within the borders of a nation instruments into their cervixes. Others turned to World of IDEAS - Travel to Access Abortion Services in Canada medical personnel or non-medical abortion providers Canadian women seeking abortions made their way who performed abortions surreptitiously, sometimes to abortion services south of the border. under unhygienic conditions. Some women survived, others developed septic infections and a number died Soon after the passage of the 1969 abortion law, as a result. a groundswell of feminists, doctors, lawyers and politicians insisted upon its repeal. Some of their In the 1960s, the terrain surrounding abortion began organizing coalesced around Dr. Henry Morgentaler, to shift significantly due to several developments. a Montreal doctor who first opened an abortion clinic The birth of babies crippled by their mothers’ in that city and later in Toronto and Winnipeg. In consumption of thalidomide, a drug prescribed 1970, the Vancouver Women’s Caucus journeyed from for morning sickness, had sensitized the public to Vancouver to Ottawa, encouraging women to join abortion and disability. Illegal abortions, particularly their “Abortion Caravan” to protest the 1969 abortion among young, white, university-educated women, law on Parliament Hill. The protesters camped out on came to be seen as a major public health issue. the lawn of the Prime Minister’s residence and a few Various countries began to liberalize their abortion even managed to sneak into the House of Commons laws. Simultaneously, as transportation networks and to make their voices heard. This action shut down middle class incomes expanded, international tourism Parliament for the first time in its history. Women boomed. When American children’s television host from different jurisdictions began travelling within Sherri Finkbine flew to Sweden for an abortion after Canada looking for abortion services. Some ended taking thalidomide, her journey drew global attention. up at the Morgentaler clinics. However, because clinic Soon, Canadians who could afford the costs began abortions did not have TAC approval, Morgentaler was to travel abroad to countries like Sweden, Japan and held to be in violation of the law. His legal struggles England where abortions were legally available. led the Canadian Supreme Court to strike down the abortion law on January 28, 1988 in R. v. Morgentaler By the end of the decade, repeated lobbying by as contravening women’s rights under the Canadian politicians, doctors and public interest groups to Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982). reform the country’s birth control legislation had succeeded. The Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau In publicly funded hospitals, abortion services have passed an omnibus bill in 1969, reforming the decreased from 20.1 percent in 1977 to 15.9 percent Criminal Code such that contraception and abortion in 2006. Some hospitals have imposed gestational were both legalized. Nevertheless legal abortion was limits and TAC-like approval procedures that can be now available only under very restrictive conditions. burdensome. Cost-saving mergers between publicly A woman seeking a legal abortion needed a referral funded hospitals with Catholic hospitals can further from her doctor and the approval of a Therapeutic reduce the availability of abortion because the Abortion Committee (TAC) composed of three resultant institution often operates under Catholic to five doctors based in an accredited hospital. regulations that prohibit abortion. Hospitals are Referrals were not always forthcoming and TACs had located in urban centers, which mean that urban to rule on an individual basis if continuation of the women are best served; those residing outside that pregnancy threatened the woman’s “life or health.” center must travel to it. Freestanding clinics, which Yet, the new law did not determine the meaning of exist apart from hospitals and operate in the public “health.” Doctors serving on TACs applied their own or private sectors, are also located in urban centers. medical, psychological or sociological interpretations Some provinces have only one abortion clinic while of the word. Moreover, accredited hospitals were women living in cities like Toronto, Vancouver or located primarily in urban centres, no hospital had Montreal can choose from abortion services offered to strike a TAC, no doctor was required to participate at numerous local clinics and hospitals that can on a TAC or to perform abortions, Catholic hospitals be reached relatively cheaply and easily by dense refused to deliver abortion services and there was no transportation networks of cars, buses, subways, mechanism to appeal a TAC’s rejection of a woman’s streetcars or trains. request for an abortion. The number of abortion providers has decreased due The new legislation resulted in long delays, arbitrary to ageing, inadequate training at medical school, decision-making and regional unevenness in the and harassment and/or violence from anti-abortion 3 accessibility of abortion. As a result, women continued activists. Three abortion providers in Canada have to travel. Once American states liberalized their been shot and wounded. Morgentaler himself has abortion laws, and the American Supreme Court been physically attacked and his Toronto clinic was ruled in 1973 that abortion was permissible without firebombed. Anti-abortion protests can disrupt state interference in the first trimester of pregnancy, World of IDEAS - Travel to Access Abortion Services in Canada patients, doctors and staff at hospitals and clinics. to transportation and accommodation costs they Anti-abortion gatekeepers at hospitals (for example, incur in travelling for abortion services. Provincial switchboard
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