A decision from the Supreme Court in the U.S. on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, which secures protections for abortions in that country, may fuel the anti-choice movement here, worries the executive of SHORE Centre.
“Sometimes when announcements like this happen we look and say ‘at least that’s not what we’re dealing with,'” said TK Pritchard, executive director of SHORE Centre. “But we are dealing with limited access already. The conversation we need to be having in Canada is about actually not just how do we protect what we have but how do we actually increase because there isn’t access for so many people in the country.”
SHORE Centre provides abortion supports, including counselling, in Kitchener-Waterloo and Guelph. The centre also offers Choice Connect to help people find the nearest abortion provider.
“We actually don’t have very good access to abortion in Canada,” they said.
In medium-sized cities like Guelph, access to surgical abortions are not readily available. If a pregnancy is over 14 weeks gestation a surgical abortion is necessary. People sent to nearby cities to access those procedures.
Part of the barriers in accessing abortion in smaller cities is some doctors and health care groups are not willing to provide abortions, said Pritchard. Access to later term abortions are often not available in Canada and patients can be sent to the U.S. for the procedure, continued Pritchard.
News like Roe v Wade being overturned can spark discussions in Canada.
“This tends to really embolden anti-choicers and what we do have in Canada is well-organized anti-choice movements. Who are often well funded and resourced,” said Pritchard. “These pieces can really push more anti-choice sentiment in the country.”
There is a lot of misinformation out there about abortion and this is the kind of false information anti-choice organizations cling to, to get their message across. They make Canadians fear they won’t have access to abortion, explained Pritchard.
Pritchard said there will likely be an influx of people from the U.S. asking if they can access abortion procedures in Canada. Though the amount of people will be limited because of the cost of travel, cost of abortion and other circumstances may not make it easy for everyone to access, they explained.
