OVERALL FINDINGS
COMMUNITY UPDATE POSTER
This poster was created as an overview of some of the outcomes of our projects. Zoom in to see the details!
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PROJECT FINDINGS REPORT
Questions of access and barriers to procedural abortion services animate the research shared in this report. Specifically, the research team asked: What does abortion access in New Brunswick look like after 2015? And what, if any, barriers exist to this health care service? We found that people in New Brunswick continue to access costly fee-for-service abortions, which suggests that funded abortion care is not “very accessible” and the option of having a clinic-based abortion is something New Brunswickers need and want. This report shares the research findings to provide readers with an improved understanding of the landscape of procedural abortion (also called surgical abortion) in New Brunswick since 2015, and to contextualize the current state of this reproductive health care service within the political history of the region.
History Report
This report explores, in three main sections, the process and outcomes of the initial phase of the Reproductive Justice Access New Brunswick Project’s historical inquiry into procedural abortion access in the province. The project centers questions of history, legislation and policy, and healthcare as they relate to access to procedural abortion. In New Brunswick, a unique combination of social, legal and cultural factors have created a specific history of access. This report outlines this project’s exploration of that history and its impact on the modern fight for reproductive justice in the province.
The report also expands on some of what interviews with key informants uncovered. It also describes the use of the program Zotero to create a citation base for the project, as well as early work done on what is becoming a public facing timeline.
We want to say a very big thank you to our history team for all of their hard work!
TIMELINE
Check out our timeline that was based on archival work our team conducted throughout the project!
THANK YOU!
We want to say a special thank you to the archivists at the NB Provincial archives. We could not have completed this project without their help!
INFOGRAPHICS AND SUMMARIES
Designed by Kalum Ng, Jessi Taylor, and Mary Milliken
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Summary – Patient Barriers
Our data shows that long-standing abortion access barriers remain in New Brunswick.
- Legal and regulatory barriers continue to create access barriers, including a shortage of funded, locally accessible clinic-based abortion care.
- Reliable and complete information is scarce and overshadowed by a culture of stigma and misinformation.
- Both service providers and patients are faced with practical and logistical challenges that can be hard to overcome.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
Read about some of the ways we have been sharing our research! Click in to read the abstracts and find out more.
Niceness as the Status Quo: Regulating abortion activist rage in New Brunswick
By Tobin Leblanc-Haley and Jessi Taylor
Presentation
“Regulating Women’s Rage. Women, Gender, and Politics.” — Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) Annual Conference / Association canadienne de science politique (ACSP)
May 30-June 1, 2023 | Toronto, ON
“So Sue Us”: Reproductive Justice and a Feminist Public Health Framing of Abortion Access in New Brunswick
By Tobin Haley, Jessi Taylor, and Kalum Ng
Presentation
“Feminist sociology and reproductive lives, bodies, and politics – Session 2” — Canadian Sociological Association (CSA) Annual Conference / Société canadienne de sociologie (SCS)
May 29-June 2, 2023 | Toronto, ON
Abortion in New Brunswick: Past and Present Struggles
Panel presentation
Women’s and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes Annual Conference
May 29-June 1, 2023 | Toronto ON
Chair: Tobin LeBlanc Haley, PhD
Valuing Access: Policy Barriers to Reproductive Health Access in New Brunswick
By Jessi Taylor, PhD and Kalum Ng
Government officials in New Brunswick are operating with an incomplete picture of the need for, and provisioning of, procedural (surgical) abortions in the province. Access to a more complete data set is urgently needed. This paper provides an overview of the current abortion policy landscape in New Brunswick and shares early data analysis from a mixed-methods project that seeks to provide a more fulsome picture of the highly contested and systematically under researched issue of access to procedural abortion in the province. Methods include interviews, focus groups, a survey, secondary analysis of abortion data in NB and archival research.
“An Unreasonable Professional Burden”: The Role of Physicians in New Brunswick’s Abortion History
By: Christine Hughes and Jula Hughes
As part of a larger research project examining the historical and current pathways to abortion access in New Brunswick, we explore the impact of pre-Morgentaler (1988) political and medical engagement with abortion. We argue that, contrary to common narratives, the 1969 partial decriminalization of abortions and the implementation of the Therapeutic Abortion Committees improved access in New Brunswick for a decade before it began deteriorating in the mid-1980s. Using newly accessible archival material from the Moncton Hospital’s OBGYN department, we show how the hospital’s TAC played a significant role in advancing access to abortion in New Brunswick. We aim to demonstrate how physicians’ concerns with legal liability and efforts to improve patient care offer insights into how they worked to improve access prior to 1988, and why looking to the needs, interests, and impacts of physicians matters to understanding historic and current barriers to access in Canada, particularly New Brunswick.
Not Just Procedural Abortions: Restrictions on Reproductive Healthcare in New Brunswick
By Mary Milliken
While the discussion about reproductive freedoms in New Brunswick has centered around procedural (surgical) abortion, the anti-abortion political tradition in New Brunswick has far-reaching effects. This paper draws on focus group and interview data with abortion stakeholders in New Brunswick, documenting denials and obstructions in accessing reproductive care in New Brunswick; from a tubal ligation to termination of unviable pregnancy. Mapping the political decisions of successive governments since 2015, this work demonstrates the continued restrictions on access to reproductive health care and analyzes the entrenched political culture that undervalues the reproductive health, bodily autonomy, and therefore rights, of anyone with a uterus.
Policy Barriers to Reproductive Health Access in New Brunswick
By Jessi Taylor, Marina Kwak, Mandi Parsons, and Kalum Ng
Poster Presentation
“Value Judgements: Focusing on Patients’ Health and Health Care Outcomes” – UBC Center for Health Services and Policy Research Annual Conference
March 9-10, 2023 | Vancouver, BC
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Preliminary findings on Policy Barriers to Abortion Access in NB – Impacts on Queer Community Panel Presentation: Jessi Taylor and Karen Pearlston With poster: Jessi Taylor, Marina Kwak, Mandi Parsons, and Kalum Ng ConneQT NB Symposium March 24-26, 2023 |
PUBLICATIONS
Learn more about some of our results and the places we are publishing the data! Click in to read the abstracts and find out more.
