New Paper: Travel and Access to Abortion

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With the Abortion: The Unfinished Revolution Conference beginning tomorrow, ActiveHistory.ca is proud to publish “Travel and Access to Abortion,” a paper written collectively by Nancy Janovicek, Christabelle Sethna, Beth Palmer, and Katrina Ackerman.

nboutline2bOn July 18th, the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton performed its last abortion. Without government funding, and the generous support of Dr. Henry Morgentaler, the clinic is no longer sustainable financially. The closure of this clinic is a reminder that although abortion is legal in Canada, there are still significant disparities in timely access to abortion services. The closure of the clinic is part of a long history of the undermining of women’s access to abortion services at the local level before and after the legalization of abortion in 1969 and the decriminalization of abortion in 1988. The lack of access at the local level has a major impact on access to abortion services in much wider contexts because women have tended to travel to other jurisdictions for pregnancy termination. Travel is one of the main barriers to access to abortion. Yet travel is often the only way women can access abortion services. In this essay, we use four responses drawn from an article we published in Labour/Le Travail that examines Canadian women’s transnational travel to access abortion services as well as their attempts to defend access in their home communities. [read more]

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