Thursday 3 November 2016

Ruckus Raising Time. Again.

Up here in smug Canada -- and getting smugger by the minute as the US election approaches -- it's not often that the US has us beaten on any aspect of abortion care.

Well, they've got us all beat to hell on medical abortion.

Although many limitations remain, innovative dispensing efforts in some states, restricted access to surgical abortions in others and greater awareness boosted medication abortions to 43 percent of pregnancy terminations at Planned Parenthood clinics, the nation's single largest provider, in 2014, up from 35 percent in 2010, according to previously unreported figures from the nonprofit.

To recap, the abortion pill, aka mifepristone or RU486, was just approved in Canada in July 2015, a mere three decades after France approved it and two decades after the US did.

Juxtapose this. A year later, in July 2016 the assisted dying bill became law.

Estimated number of assisted deaths in the three months since, about 200.

Number of medical abortions in the fifteen months since the abortion pill's approval: ZERO.

There has been unconscionable fuckery associated with the abortion pill.

Looooong approval process, stupid dispensing requirements, mandated online training for physicians, weird bureaucratic hurdles for its inclusion in provincial drug plans.

But assisted dying? No such rigamarole. Law is passed. Doctors offer it. Patients want it. So.

In sensible places with universal healthcare, medical abortion is recognized for the boon it is -- both to patients and to the system. Like Australia.

But here, the regulators and politicians are kow-towing to the minuscule -- but LOUD -- anti-choice fringe who call the abortion pill "human pesticide".

It's time to do something about this idiotic situation.

An NDP MLA in Manitoba is calling for the province to cover the abortion pill.
A new resolution from St. Johns MLA Nahanni Fontaine describes the Mifegymiso pill as an essential medicine for women that should be easily accessible.

And it's not just Ms Fontaine who describes it as essential medicine. The World Fucking Health Organization listed it on its List of Essential Medicines in 2005.

Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights has a new campaign to help persuade the powers that be to get the damned lead out and make this essential medicine available.

Check it out.

Under Take Action there are five steps you can take.

1. Write and/or meet with your local MPP, MP, Provincial/Territorial Minister of Health, and/or Federal Minister of Health.
2. Write an op-ed or pitch the story to local news outlets.
3. Take to social media! 
4. Engage your community: host an event, share information through your networks. 
5. Encourage your physician to become a medical abortion provider of Mifegymiso.

After all, provincial healthcare plans fund surgical abortion. Why would they not embrace this earlier, quicker, less expensive alternative?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Great Column Fern.

Pseudz said...

The film, 'The Corporation", sought to display how well many corporations (by their actions) display the symptoms of profound mental illness. Was it sociopathy?

It sounds as if Health Canada may also be suffering with a distorted view of themselves and the world. They're 'off' on their mandate, human rights, gender equity, frugality,and the protocols/conventions of good and proper service. Are they going through 'a phase'. Or does Health Can have a serious mental illness? Or perhaps they have a 'right to life' infection.

If it's that last possibility, maybe there's a pill . . .

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