Abortion Is An Essential Service, But The Pandemic Is Making It Harder To Access
Canada’s provincial and territorial governments have deemed abortion an essential medical service, and one that continues to be available during the COVID-19 pandemic. But reproductive health advocates say existing barriers to abortion access have become even more significant now.
Calls to a 24-hour info line provided by Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights increased by 30 per cent in the last two weeks of March, according to communications director Laura Neidhart.
“Our team who runs the access line has heard from an increasing number of people who have a lot of questions or are facing new barriers and old barriers to abortion access,” Neidhart told HuffPost Canada. STI testing and contraception are harder to access, too.
What’s happening in New Brunswick is ‘absolutely infuriating’: advocate
One of the country’s most significant barriers is in New Brunswick. The province’s only freestanding abortion clinic, Clinic 554 in Fredericton, is on the brink of closure and has been up for sale since October. Because the province’s health service funds abortions only if they take place in hospitals, and not private clinics, patients who need abortion services have to pay out-of-pocket for clinic procedures, which can cost up to $850.
For people who cannot travel to Fredericton or who can’t afford the fee, the only option is to seek out abortion care by going into crowded hospitals. Under normal circumstances, this isn’t ideal — but during a pandemic, it’s downright dangerous and “absolutely infuriating,” said Jessi Taylor, a spokesperson for Reproductive Justice New Brunswick.
“People are risking their health and safety during the pandemic because going to hospitals, they’re much more likely to contract the virus,” she told HuffPost Canada.
“We’ve seen a lot of hospitals that have policies trying to limit the amount of visitors or people in the hospitals who don’t need to be there. But we haven’t seen that with abortion...
