Carly Weeks, The Globe and Mail
Doctors across Canada are refusing to write prescriptions for the abortion pill, forcing many women to travel to out-of-town clinics to get a prescription, according to a Globe and Mail analysis that reveals provincial access barriers and widespread reluctance on the part of medical professionals to provide abortion care.
Mifegymiso is the name for two oral medications, mifepristone and misoprostol, that safely and effectively terminate pregnancies in 95 per cent to 98 per cent of cases. When the medication first came on the market in Canada in 2017, it was heralded by abortion-rights advocates as a safe, less invasive way to terminate a pregnancy compared to surgery. And since any family doctor or, in most provinces, nurse practitioner can prescribe the abortion pill, many believed its arrival would make abortions more accessible – fewer women would need to travel to a clinic, pay out of pocket for costs or take time off work to end a pregnancy.
But The Globe’s investigation shows that in eight provinces where detailed data was available, at least 69 per cent of the 10,092 Mifegymiso prescriptions dispensed last year came from abortion clinics located mainly in large urban centres. Interviews with clinic employees, physicians, researchers and abortion-rights advocates across the country suggest that many primary-care providers avoid prescribing the abortion pill.