As one of the largest pro-choice organizations in Canada, the Board of Directors and leadership of Planned Parenthood Toronto have been paying close attention to the growing radical anti-choice movement in the United States and its determination to erode the hard fought and long-established abortion rights in that country.

The PPT Board of Directors and leadership are deeply in solidarity with the incredible organizing happening by reproductive justice and pro-choice activists on the ground in the US as Roe v. Wade is closer than ever to being repealed by the US Supreme Court. Lead overwhelmingly by Black, Indigenous and Latina women, trans and gender-non conforming people, the powerful resistance to this horrifying attempt to roll back human and civil rights is profoundly inspirational, crucially important, and holds lessons for all of us.

This moment has significant implications outside the US, including here in Canada. Above all, it is emboldening to the well-funded radical anti-choice movement, rooted in misogyny and racism that is growing everywhere. In communities across Canada, anti-choice organizations have worked tirelessly for years to stack their members in all levels of government ensuring that the results of their activism are felt by us all whether or not we are always aware of it. As with the US, the point of purposeful barriers to reproductive justice is to have power and control over Indigenous and racialized communities, low income women, and trans people by maintaining the violent colonial and misogynist logic of the anti-abortion movement.

Thanks to the fierce work of Canadian pro-choice activists, no laws govern abortion in Canada.

Therefore, the anti-abortion battle here is not a legal one. However, to this day, access to abortion care is not, in reality, universal and is often a challenge for anyone outside of the most privileged of communities in urban centres to access. Years of stagnating funding to abortion providers has ensured that fewer and fewer people are adequately served. Calls from Indigenous and racialized communities for community-driven reproductive justice initiatives go forever unanswered, and to this day there are no logistical supports for people travelling to a faraway abortion provider.
Canada has demonstrated no political will to hold clinicians accountable for providing universal abortion care that is anti-racist, culturally competent, supportive and non-judgemental. Access to reproductive and sexual health care is wildly inconsistent and often hostile at worst.

To this day, provinces such as New Brunswick continue to be in violation of the Canada Health Act in refusing to fund abortions outside of a hospital context, with no consequence.  

At PPT we have first-hand experience of what the impact of these quiet attacks on reproductive services are – we experience them every day. We would like to take this moment to acknowledge the truly incredible, tireless staff and volunteers at organizations like Planned Parenthood Toronto who do their best to increase reproductive care access in very challenging contexts. The barriers to abortion in this country make their jobs incredibly complex, and too often, heartbreaking, as we struggle to find the resources and the capacity to meet the vast and ever growing demand for our unfortunately quite unique, youth-centred, sex-positive, non-judgemental services.

With every new crisis, whether it be funding cuts, the housing crisis, inflation, or the pandemic, the demands for the services of non-judgemental and client-centred care continues to skyrocket, with no funding increases to reproductive care organizations in sight. In 2020/2021, we had a sharp increase in folks seeking reproductive care from across the country as abortion access dropped everywhere.

Without staff at organizations like PPT going far beyond to provide trusted and non-judgemental services and support, the abortion access crisis in this country would be so much worse.

We know that this is not the society that Canada envisions for itself. That in our minds, abortion in this country is free, it is legal and it is available on demand. We thank you, our community for your unwavering support of PPT and other tireless community and reproductive care organizations. We urge you to pay renewed attention to the local politics in your community, to ask your political candidates about their position on reproductive justice and what they intend to do to push for that justice and access in their communities, and then hold them accountable if they win.

We encourage you to learn about reproductive justice and to become an active and engaged participant in the organizing around it, whether through volunteering, financial support, or political support. The fight for reproductive justice is not over here in Canada and we need your support now.

If you would like to learn more about Planned Parenthood Toronto or support our work, please go to our website.

Mohini Datta-Ray
Executive Director
Planned Parenthood Toronto

Tom Gleason
Board Chair
Planned Parenthood Toronto