SuppliedFollowing a lengthy legal process, RU-486, commonly referred to as the “abortion pill,” has been approved for sale in Canada. While the pill’s availability will increase reproductive health freedoms for women, it appears that access to RU-486 will be difficult.
Marketed as Mifegymiso, the abortion pill was legalized in July 2015, and won’t become available in Canada until late 2016. When the pill does become available, it can only be administered by a doctor, and not a pharmacist. The pill has been legal in the United States since 2000, and has been legalized in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.
According to Michelle Meagher, Women’s and Gender Studies professor at the University of Alberta, the long process behind making the pill available likely stems from a greater problem with attitudes towards contraception.
“Reproductive technology often moves really slowly because of general suspicion around control — women’s control of their own reproductive health,” she said.
Women in Alberta can currently visit two abortion clinics: one in Edmonton and one in Calgary. Women in other provinces have even less access — for example, on Prince Edward Island there are no abortion clinics and hospitals do not offer the procedure.
The abortion pill could provide easier access to abortion for women in rural and Northern communities. The drug is administered in two parts, with 24 hours between dosages, and terminates pregnancy by causing contractions. Because the pill must be dispensed by doctors and not pharmacists, access might be “deeply limited,” Meagher said.
“Doctors don’t have experience in dispensing and storing drugs, so access to (the abortion pill) is just theoretical,” Meagher said.
Inconsistent access to abortion across Canada is a central issue in national reproductive health care, U of A Law professor Erin Nelson said.
“One of the biggest problems we have is that we don’t have any kind of national strategy for how we approach reproductive health services in this country,” she said.
Nelson is also critical of the limitations on abortion pill access, but suggested that being able to abort pregnancy through a doctor and not an abortion clinic has definite benefits, particularly for students.
“Especially when women are studying outside of their home province, it would be substantially easier if they could go to a university health office and get a prescription for a medication abortion,” Nelson said, when comparing access to surgical abortion access.
For Meagher, it’s important that the abortion pill is included on the “plate of options” of reproductive health tools, which includes condoms, diaphragms and birth control pills, and the more options the better.
“It was a hard fight (to increase access to contraception) and I think it’s dangerous to take for granted,” she said.
