Canada is doing marginally better than the US in terms of abortion law.  The problem is gap between legality and accessibility.  Following the letter but not the spirit of the law gives Canadian women the short end of the stick, as usual.  It’s a legal medical procedure, and a government that respected women as autonomous human beings would ensure that women access to the medical procedures they required with as few encumbrances as possible.  The fuckery still goes on here in Canada though.

“Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1988 when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down laws against it. But for women living outside of big urban centres like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, accessing the procedure “becomes really tricky,” Chabot said.

Some of those barriers include funding. Under the Canada Health Act, abortion services are insured in all provinces and territories. But some provinces have placed limits on funding for the procedure.”

I swear, mandatory male vasectomies ought to be the way to go with the amount of bullshit that surrounds this issue.

Ontario does not fund abortions at every clinic, while New Brunswick does not fund abortions at clinics at all, only hospitals. Health Canada, in its 2016-2017 annual report, said New Brunswick’s lack of coverage “remains a concern.

And in the case of New Brunswick, the “federal government has failed to penalize the province by withholding transfer payments.”

Distance to abortion services can also be a barrier. In many remote communities, specifically northern communities, there are no abortion clinics in town and no hospitals that perform the procedure.

So, small check mark, but we need to continue to push to make sure that all Canadian women have access to the reproductive health care they need, not just the ones in the major cities.