The decision to end a pregnancy can be both difficult and complex, and there are many reasons you may choose to have an abortion.<\/p>\n
The health of women and people with the ability to give birth is at risk in the United States, but even in Canada, the right to have an abortion has only been in effect since 1988 when the Supreme Court of Canada decriminalized abortion, citing the law as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
According to the\u00a0Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(SOGC), \u201cAbortion is the second most common reproductive health procedure, experienced by 31% of Canadian women, and according to an interview I conducted with a local physician who offers the procedure of abortion, it\u2019s the most common procedure for women.<\/p>\n Prior to that, in 1967, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women was convened by the federal government, and after three years of public hearings, the commission issued a groundbreaking report on women\u2019s affairs. It stated that abortion would be legal for the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy and could still be legal after 12 weeks if the pregnancy threatened the health of the pregnant person.<\/p>\n In the 1980s,\u00a0Henry Morgentaler<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a Polish Canadian physician and abortion advocate \u2014 was prosecuted again for providing abortions. In 1988, his case\u00a0R. v Morgentaler<\/i>\u00a0went to the\u00a0Supreme Court<\/span><\/a>. It evaluated his actions this time in relation to the 1982\u00a0Charter of Rights and Freedoms<\/i><\/a>. The court found that the\u00a0Criminal Code<\/span><\/a>\u00a0provision on abortion violated a woman\u2019s right to \u201clife, liberty and security of the person\u201d guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter. Chief Justice\u00a0Brian Dickson<\/span><\/a>\u00a0wrote: \u201cForcing a woman, by threat of criminal sanction to carry a foetus [sic] to term unless she meets certain criteria unrelated to her own priorities and aspirations, is a profound interference with a woman\u2019s body and thus a violation of her security of the person.\u201d<\/p>\n Specifically, the court did not say there was an inherent right to abortion under the Charter. Rather, it said the system regulating access to abortions \u2014 particularly the hospital review committees that were meant to approve abortion requests \u2014 had so many barriers and operated so poorly that it was \u201cmanifestly unfair.\u201d As a result, the abortion law was struck down. (It was repealed entirely in 2019.) Because no other law has replaced it, abortion has remained legal throughout Canada since 1988.<\/p>\n But despite its legalization, abortion remains of the most divisive political issues of our time.<\/p>\n In July 2015, after a lengthy review process, the\u00a0federal government<\/span><\/a> allowed Canadian doctors to begin prescribing Mifegymiso a drug regime more commonly known as the \u201cabortion pill.\u201d The two drugs that make up Mifegymiso allow women to end an early pregnancy (within 70 days of becoming pregnant) at home. Designed in part to improve access to abortion, the drugs act by inducing a miscarriage.<\/p>\n