Placeholder while article actions are loading
TORONTO — The Winnipeg Women’s Health Clinic is busy. The facility is one of a handful of abortion clinics in Manitoba, a Canadian province of 1.3 million residents. It fields about 100 inquiries each week and says it provides up to 30 percent more abortions than it receives government funding.
Even before the US Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wadeon nearly 50 years of precedent protecting abortion rights in the United States, some of these abortion inquiries were from Americans. Now the clinic — 70 miles from the North Dakota border, where the trigger ban goes into effect this month — is expecting more.
“It’s too early to tell” if inquiries from Americans will increase and by how much, said Blandin Tona, the clinic’s director of programs. But even a small number can tax the clinic, “so one of the things we do is organize, prepare,” including considering whether to offer abortions on more days each week.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other Canadian leaders condemned the US Supreme Court decision; the government has told him it won’t turn away Americans who can’t get an abortion at home. But with long distances between many clinics, providers are thin and barriers to cross-border travel, this may not be much of a decision.
Abortion is now banned in these states. See where the laws have changed.
Canada decriminalized abortion in 1988, and abortion rights have attracted widespread political support here. But while access has improved over the decades, it remains limited outside major metropolitan centers and depends on one’s ability to travel.
“We’ve supported people where the nearest abortion provider is a few days’ drive away,” said Jessa Millar, who runs Action Canada’s sexual health and rights hotline.
Some patients of the women’s health clinic travel to Winnipeg from Kenora, Ontario, about 130 miles away. TK Pritchard, executive director of the Shore Centre, which provides medical abortions in Kitchener, a city in southwestern Ontario, said he has clients from northern Ontario. Appointments are booked in three to four weeks.
The center has received calls from a small number of people in Michigan since the rollover of the Rowe who are curious about abortion access in Canada, Pritchard said, but “you’re not hearing from people who actually want to book appointments.”
“One of the challenges we face is that … it’s really hard to keep up with the demand that’s already there,” Pritchard said.
When abortion pills became available here in 2017, there was optimism that they would help improve access, especially in remote and rural areas. But advocates say it’s still uneven.
“Most family doctors won’t prescribe it and will just refer to an abortion clinic,” said Mohini Datta-Ray, executive director of Planned Parenthood Toronto.
Jill Doctoroff, executive director of the National Abortion Federation of Canada, said about 600 people have signed up for her training on prescribing abortion pills since it launched in April 2021. Last weekend, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling, 70 people have registered.
“It shows that one of the impacts of the decision is that people recognize that there are access issues in their own country and that they want to be able to do something,” she said.
Canada’s Trudeau to raise US crackdown on abortion with Pence
Several states that border Canada have or will soon ban abortions. In other border states, such as Michigan and Montana, the status of abortion rights is uncertain.
Even if access in Canada were to improve, advocacy groups said, there are other hurdles — including the need for a passport and the cost of the procedure, which can be as high as $600 — that would likely dissuade Americans from crossing the border and make them more likely to to travel to other US states.
Those costs “will put it out of reach for many Americans,” said Joyce Arthur, executive director of the Canadian Abortion Rights Coalition. “It’s still early days and we don’t know how things will turn out.”
In 2020, there were more than 74,000 abortions in Canada, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Most abortions in the country are performed during the first trimester of pregnancy.
Each province and territory has different gestational limits for medical and surgical abortions and rules governing whether and when parental consent is required.
Is the US a liberal aberration on abortion, as the Supreme Court opinion says?
In Prince Edward Island, where government policy kept the island abortion-free for more than three decades until 2017, surgical abortions are not performed after about 12 weeks. The islanders are often referred to as other Atlantic provinces, including neighboring ones New Brunswick, where the procedure is only covered if performed at one of three hospitals.
Abortion after 24 weeks is restricted in Canada, sending a small number of people to the United States each year — cross-border trips that advocates worry could be threatened by the ruling.
Analysts and advocates are eyeing other potential cross-border ripples, especially as some federal and state lawmakers signal intentions to block women from obtaining abortions in other states, penalize out-of-state practitioners or stem the flow of abortion pills by making them illegal to mail.
What if these bans were extended to other countries, or if people who were prosecuted for performing or performing abortions in the United States sought asylum in Canada?
A key test under Canadian extradition law is “dual criminality” — whether the conduct sought is also illegal in Canada. Because neither performing an abortion nor prescribing abortion pills is illegal in Canada, such requests are unlikely to meet the test, said Robert Curry, a law professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.
But in some cases, he said, dual criminality analysis can involve “transposing” America’s legal past.
In a case where prosecutors sought to extradite a Canadian who prescribed the abortion pill to an American, “we can imagine a court saying that the ‘core of the crime’ is selling prescription drugs in a market where it is illegal to sell them,” , Curry said, “and the fact that it’s an abortion drug is just ‘background.’
“This could be a serious problem.”
US decision on abortion sparks cheers and consternation abroad
The Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized abortion in the 1988 case R. v. Morgenthaler.
“Forcing a woman, through the threat of criminal sanction, to carry the fetus to term, unless it meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with the woman’s body and thus a violation of the security of the person.” , the court said in a 5-2 decision.
The decision does not establish a right to abortion in Canada, and there is no federal law governing it.
Before the ruling, abortion was limited to those who received approval from a “therapeutic abortion committee” of doctors at an accredited hospital. A majority of the panel had to agree that continuing the pregnancy “would or would endanger [the woman’s] life or health.”
Some hospitals did not have enough doctors for a committee. Others only see patients who live in a certain geographic area or impose quotas for the procedure. All other abortion providers or women who performed them face criminal penalties.
A Canadian woman has crossed the abortion line. In 1984, more than 3,480 Canadians obtained legal abortions in the United States, according to a Statistics Canada report at the time. At the trial in R. v. Morgenthalerthe director of a women’s health center in Minnesota testified that many Canadian clients have experienced delays at home.
Arthur of the Canadian Abortion Rights Coalition flagged this story.
“The clinics have been very welcoming and I know the word up here is that things are now turned around,” she said. “We want to help Americans coming here. We want to reciprocate, but we also realize that this will be a challenge for us, and ultimately we won’t be able to help as many Americans.
Add Comment