Women living in Canada, whether they belong to Labrador, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island or New Brunswick; find it difficult to access timely abortion services. There exist common factors among these provinces that create certain barriers for the people trying to get an abortion. There are only limited abortion clinics available in the provinces and that too only in urban areas. The costs associated with the process and the journeys to abortion clinics are very high. A few provinces have also set unnecessary standards for the women who wish to get an abortion, which includes waiting for a certain period and referrals from certain doctors. Also, women are made to rethink their aborting decision which is not considered healthy from a medical point of view (Prasad, 2015).
Abortion services are not easily accessible to women in certain provinces of Canada. The reason for the lack of services includes limited resources, incorporative medical staff and long wait times.
Although abortion was made legal in Canada in the year 1969 the availability of abortion services throughout Canada is quite uneven. Women mostly have to cross provincial borders and travel long distances to get access to the services. The women living in the Northern, coastal or Atlantic communities are most likely to suffer as there exist only a few numbers of freestanding abortion clinics in the country, that too only in urban areas. Plus, certain expenses are also associated with these trips, which are not affordable for everybody. The cost of the abortion process itself is not very cheap (Pittman, 2016).
In Canada, the federal government is held responsible for providing necessary funds to the territorial or provincial governments that look after the health care for the people. The Canada Health Act has set five principles to provide the public with medical care. These principles made it a must for health care to be universal, portable, comprehensive, and accessible and administered publicly throughout the country.
The basis of this act lies in providing the common people with easy access to the health care services. But the people living in remote areas still find it difficult to access some healthcare services, especially the ones related to diagnosis. No advanced resources are available in such areas along with rapidly increasing wait times. The abortion services are very rarely available and that too with many flaws. The abortion rate has been reported to decrease in Canada recently. One reason for it might be the decrease in sexual activity and an increased use of condoms among young people. But the unavailability of the procedure is also one of the reasons. A study suggests that if a young or underprivileged woman has to travel long for an abortion, it is less likely that she will obtain one (Sethna & Doull, 2013).
There are certain extra-legal obstacles involved that create further restrictions for the people trying to get access to abortion services. These obstacles include the costs associated with the services, institutional policies that regulate the procedure, lack of confidentiality, certain gestational limits, violence, and anti-choice harassment and the place where the abortion clinic is situated. Only 15.9% of the total hospitals are reported to offer abortion services in Canada, and all of them are located in urban areas (Sethna & Doull, 2013).
There also exist some public and private freestanding abortion clinics in the country that is separated from these hospitals, but they too are reported to be situated far away from the access to rural areas. They offer much better services as compared to the hospitals, but the fees of private clinics are quite unaffordable for common people. Thus, most women are forced to travel long distances and cross provincial services to get an abortion. The federal government of Canada has been long ignored this issue, and the Canadian women are not provided with abortion services, considering they are not any necessary medical services (Sethna & Doull, 2013).
Although, Canada comes under the list of the few countries who have made the abortion process legal and have no restrictions on obtaining the services at any stage of pregnancy the implementation of this law is found to be quite unstable throughout the country. The Medical services payment act says that the provinces are only responsible for ensuring abortion care under certain circumstances. The New Brunswick policy of abortion services has faced a lot of criticism. In the year 1995, Diane Marleau, then federal health minister issued a statement; instructing the provinces to fund the medical procedures in the clinics and announcing penalties for those who would fail to do so. It has been two decades, but still, New Brunswick remains unsuccessful in funding abortion care in the clinics (Foster, LaRoche, El-Haddad, DeGroot, & El-Mowafi, 2017).
In 2014, the only private clinic that offered abortion services in the province at that time, also shut down because it could not afford to continue providing abortion services without enough funds from the provincial government. This closure resulted in some rallies and campaigns to protest against the nature of the province’s abortion legalization. By the end of the year 2016, four places were reported to provide abortion services in the province of New Brunswick that included one freestanding clinic, one regional hospital along with two public hospitals. However, all of them, except for the freestanding clinic, do not entertain people with abortion services after the women have been pregnant for more than 14 weeks (Foster, LaRoche, El-Haddad, DeGroot, & El-Mowafi, 2017).
Before 2015, it was also required for the women who wished to get an abortion from a public hospital to bring referrals from two separate physicians that must be specialized in gynecology. It created further barriers for the women to get access to abortion services as often physicians would not agree to sign off referrals for them because of their personal beliefs. Even after 2015, a referral was required in New Brunswick. Also, to get an abortion, women have to pay multiple visits to hospitals causing them both money and time (Foster, LaRoche, El-Haddad, DeGroot, & El-Mowafi, 2017).
The average number of visits reported is to be three. Most of the women have to pay the costs of the procedure out of their pockets as they did not get the provincial funding. Even the women, who meet the policy requirements to get funds from the provincial government, still have to bear the expenses of travel and accommodations. Women living in rural areas have to pay multiple visits to a hospital located in totally another province; it makes the process even harder and costly for them. The high costs associated with the abortion procedure are one major problem as women mostly decide to end their pregnancy due to financial instability in their lives (Foster, LaRoche, El-Haddad, DeGroot, & El-Mowafi, 2017).
In Nova Scotia, the women are made to wait for a weeklong to get an ultrasound before terminating their pregnancy. However, it is not required in other provinces of Canada. The experts say that this wait can also have some serious impacts on the health of pregnant women. It is simply burdensome for a woman to visit a clinic that makes her wait for days for a scan before actually giving her an appointment for the abortion. This delay can affect the type of process a woman can obtain. It might push her past the limit of 9 weeks in which the whole process of abortion can be finished through a pill without having to undergo surgery. This delay might also expose the pregnant woman to some pregnancy symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, which would be traumatizing for her as she wishes to terminate it (Weeks, 2018).
Nova Scotia has now remained to be the only province of Canada that still demands a physician referral to obtain an appointment for abortion care. Along with the long wait times and required multiple visits to the hospital, Nova Scotia also provides no provincial coverage for abortion services. Also, there exist absolutely no freestanding abortion clinics in the province. The hospitals do not book abortion appointments for women who are not at least 2 months pregnant already, making it necessary for every woman who desires to have an abortion; to carry the child inside their womb for minimum eight weeks (Bundale, 2017).
In the end, it is concluded that even though Canada along with China, is one of the few countries that have made the process of abortion legal for women, still there exist some areas in the country were getting access to these services to possess many obstacles. Women have to face various challenges to terminate their pregnancy. It includes various problems from a shortage of resources to long waiting times, the requirement of unnecessary referrals to blood tests and scans. Along with all that, high costs are also associated with the procedure. As if it was not enough, women who belong to rural areas have to pay multiple visits to the hospitals that are most probably located far away from their homes to get abortion care services. Provinces like Nova Scotia and New Brunswick do not even provide provincial funding for abortion services, and women have to bear the expenses of travel and accommodations out of their own pockets.
References
Bundale, B. (2017, August 14). Abortion access in Nova Scotia among worst in Canada: advocates. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/
national/nova-scotia-one-of-canadas-worst-places-for-abortion-access-advocates/article35983543/
Foster, A. M., LaRoche, K. J., El-Haddad, J., DeGroot, L., & El-Mowafi, I. M. (2017). “If I ever did have a daughter, I wouldn’t raise her in New Brunswick:” exploring women’s experiences obtaining abortion care before and after policy reform. Contraception, 95 (2017), 477-484.
Pittman, D. (2016). Barriers to Abortion. https://cusjc.ca/abortion/barriers-to-abortion/
Prasad, S. (2015, September 9). There Are Still Many Barriers to Abortion in Canada. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sandeep-prasad/canadas-abortion-myth_b_8198478.html
Sethna, C., & Doull, M. (2013). Spatial disparities and travel to freestanding abortion clinics. Women’s Studies International Forum, 38 (2013), 52-62.
Weeks, C. (2018, September 27). Nova Scotia says week-long wait acceptable for dating ultrasound before abortion, but experts disagree. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada
/article-nova-scotia-says-its-abortion-rules-are-reasonable-but-experts/
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