https://wiki.ubc.ca/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=RiniRajput 2026-09-29T04:45:05Z User contributions MediaWiki 1.43.9 https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523986 2018-08-04T06:53:32Z

<p>RiniRajput: /* Conclusion Summary */</p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Norman|first=et al|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=|pages=|via=cIRcle: UBC's dSpace IR}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services. Leora Paradise states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Paradise|first=Leora|date=2017|title=Enabling Choice: Addressing Barriers to Abortion Services in Rural British Columbia|url=|journal=SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Thus, it is obvious that abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services &lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women–especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbour anti-abortion sentiments.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in Leora Paradise's analysis, she writes, “there have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly (if not only) perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that not only require a referral from a general practitioner (GP) but also require various multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation, however, many hospitals will indirectly favour non-abortion related ultrasound appointments consequently delaying abortion related appointments. To make matter worse, in rural areas, just getting an appointment with a GP has long wait time let alone other appointments. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavourable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Bohn,|first=G|date=2007|title=Rural women still face abortion hurdles|url=|journal=The Vancouver Sun|volume=|pages=|via=ProQuest}}&lt;/ref&gt; Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [intersectional dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies. In other words, rural women are oppressed because lack of abortion clinics in rural area poses a logistical [planning] barrier and it is the responsibility of the B.C. government to ensure its entire population has equal access to facilities. It can then be inferred that the oppression of rural women is indirectly due to power relations between B.C. government and rural communities because the B.C. government has [chosen] to neglect the issue of inaccessibility of abortion clinics in rural communities. <br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; Such long travel times means that many of these women will also have to pay for other accommodations such as hotel, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes rural women and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed, have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite news|url=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|title=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|last=FOWLER|first=DAWN|date=Oct 2017|work=The Globe and Male|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt; (a.k.a abortion pill). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where she states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that here, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion and the physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create confidential, safe spaces for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute another intersecting socio-cultural dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has experienced a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot;&gt;{{Cite news|url=https://nationalpost.com/health/new-family-doctors-dont-feel-competent-to-perform-abortions-due-to-lack-of-training-study|title=New family doctors 'don't feel competent' to perform abortions due to lack of training: study|last=Kirkey|first=Sharon|date=June 2018|work=The National Post|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt;  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot; /&gt;  There are two main factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said, one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions. Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services”&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Dressler|first=et al|date=2013|title=The Perspective of Rural Physicians Providing Abortion in Canada: Qualitative Findings of the BC Abortion Providers Survey (BCAPS)|url=|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=8|pages=6|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physician who, “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills&quot;.&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals. This again represents an imbalance in the power relations between rural communities (who are being increasing marginalized) and the provincial government of B.C. <br /> <br /> == Conclusion Summary ==<br /> It has been about 30 years since the legalization of abortion practices yet many women in Canada still face and experience systematic barriers which prevent them from having access to safe abortions. In particular, women who live in rural areas of any province are more marginalized than their urban counterparts. The purpose of this wiki is to use an intersectional analysis in other to understand and outline the multiple intersecting dimensions which explain why rural women in British Columbia are more oppressed than urban women in terms of ability to access abortion services within B.C. I argue that there are 5 main barriers which prevent rural women from accessing their rights to safe abortions: i) there is a geographical mismatch between where services are available and where women who use these services live  ii) there is a huge lack of abortion clinics in rural communities iii) the cost associated with inadequate access to abortion further adds to the marginalization of rural women iv) rural communities stigmatize abortion and v) there is a huge decline in the availability of rural healthcare professionals who can perform abortion services. All these barriers manifest as a result of underlying intersection dimensions which combine to marginalize and oppress rural women from accessing safe abortion services. These underlying dimensions are, geographical location, economic status, dominant socio-cultural narratives, all of which intersect in the context of unequal power relations between the provincial government of B.C. and small rural communities. Simply put, rural women are oppressed because they live in rural areas where dominant socio-cultural narratives stigmatize abortion practices, they are not financially well off and they are on the losing side of the unequal power relationship with the provincial government. <br /> <br /> == Works Cited ==<br /> &lt;references /&gt;</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523971 2018-08-04T06:32:28Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Norman|first=et al|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=|pages=|via=cIRcle: UBC's dSpace IR}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services. Leora Paradise states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Paradise|first=Leora|date=2017|title=Enabling Choice: Addressing Barriers to Abortion Services in Rural British Columbia|url=|journal=SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Thus, it is obvious that abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services &lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women–especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbour anti-abortion sentiments.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in Leora Paradise's analysis, she writes, “there have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly (if not only) perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that not only require a referral from a general practitioner (GP) but also require various multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation, however, many hospitals will indirectly favour non-abortion related ultrasound appointments consequently delaying abortion related appointments. To make matter worse, in rural areas, just getting an appointment with a GP has long wait time let alone other appointments. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavourable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Bohn,|first=G|date=2007|title=Rural women still face abortion hurdles|url=|journal=The Vancouver Sun|volume=|pages=|via=ProQuest}}&lt;/ref&gt; Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [intersectional dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies. In other words, rural women are oppressed because lack of abortion clinics in rural area poses a logistical [planning] barrier and it is the responsibility of the B.C. government to ensure its entire population has equal access to facilities. It can then be inferred that the oppression of rural women is indirectly due to power relations between B.C. government and rural communities because the B.C. government has [chosen] to neglect the issue of inaccessibility of abortion clinics in rural communities. <br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; Such long travel times means that many of these women will also have to pay for other accommodations such as hotel, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes rural women and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed, have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite news|url=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|title=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|last=FOWLER|first=DAWN|date=Oct 2017|work=The Globe and Male|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt; (a.k.a abortion pill). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where she states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that here, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion and the physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create confidential, safe spaces for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute another intersecting socio-cultural dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has experienced a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot;&gt;{{Cite news|url=https://nationalpost.com/health/new-family-doctors-dont-feel-competent-to-perform-abortions-due-to-lack-of-training-study|title=New family doctors 'don't feel competent' to perform abortions due to lack of training: study|last=Kirkey|first=Sharon|date=June 2018|work=The National Post|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt;  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot; /&gt;  There are two main factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said, one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions. Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services”&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Dressler|first=et al|date=2013|title=The Perspective of Rural Physicians Providing Abortion in Canada: Qualitative Findings of the BC Abortion Providers Survey (BCAPS)|url=|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=8|pages=6|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physician who, “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills&quot;.&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals. This again represents an imbalance in the power relations between rural communities (who are being increasing marginalized) and the provincial government of B.C. <br /> <br /> == Conclusion Summary ==<br /> Rural women in B.C are oppressed due to multiple intersecting dimensions which hinder access to their rights to safe abortions which is guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada. These intersecting dimensions are: i) geographical location, ii) economic status, iii) sociocultural dimensions and iv) unequal power relations between the state and rural communities. Simply put, rural women are oppressed and therefore are unable to access safe abortion services because they live in rural areas where abortions is highly stigmatized as a result of socio-cultural dimensions, they are not financially well off, and because they are on the losing side of the power relationship with the provincial government of B.C. <br /> <br /> == Works Cited ==<br /> &lt;references /&gt;</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523966 2018-08-04T06:13:54Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Norman|first=et al|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=|pages=|via=cIRcle: UBC's dSpace IR}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services. Leora Paradise states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Paradise|first=Leora|date=2017|title=Enabling Choice: Addressing Barriers to Abortion Services in Rural British Columbia|url=|journal=SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Thus, it is obvious that abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services &lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women–especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbour anti-abortion sentiments.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in Leora Paradise's analysis, she writes, “there have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly (if not only) perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that not only require a referral from a general practitioner (GP) but also require various multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation, however, many hospitals will indirectly favour non-abortion related ultrasound appointments consequently delaying abortion related appointments. To make matter worse, in rural areas, just getting an appointment with a GP has long wait time let alone other appointments. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavourable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Bohn,|first=G|date=2007|title=Rural women still face abortion hurdles|url=|journal=The Vancouver Sun|volume=|pages=|via=ProQuest}}&lt;/ref&gt; Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [intersectional dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies. In other words, rural women are oppressed because lack of abortion clinics in rural area poses a logistical [planning] barrier and it is the responsibility of the B.C. government to ensure its entire population has equal access to facilities. It can then be inferred that the oppression of rural women is indirectly due to power relations between B.C. government and rural communities because the B.C. government has [chosen] to neglect the issue of inaccessibility of abortion clinics in rural communities. <br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; Such long travel times means that many of these women will also have to pay for other accommodations such as hotel, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes rural women and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed, have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite news|url=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|title=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|last=FOWLER|first=DAWN|date=Oct 2017|work=The Globe and Male|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt; (a.k.a abortion pill). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where she states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that here, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion and the physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults.&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create confidential, safe spaces for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute another intersecting social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has experienced a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot;&gt;{{Cite news|url=https://nationalpost.com/health/new-family-doctors-dont-feel-competent-to-perform-abortions-due-to-lack-of-training-study|title=New family doctors 'don't feel competent' to perform abortions due to lack of training: study|last=Kirkey|first=Sharon|date=June 2018|work=The National Post|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt;  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency.&lt;ref name=&quot;:3&quot; /&gt;  There are two main factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said, one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.&lt;ref name=&quot;:2&quot; /&gt; These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions. Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services”&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Dressler|first=et al|date=2013|title=The Perspective of Rural Physicians Providing Abortion in Canada: Qualitative Findings of the BC Abortion Providers Survey (BCAPS)|url=|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=8|pages=6|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physician who, “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills&quot;.&lt;ref name=&quot;:4&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals. This again represents an imbalance in the power relations between rural communities (who are being increasing marginalized) and the provincial government of B.C. <br /> <br /> == Conclusion Summary ==<br /> == Works Cited ==<br /> &lt;references /&gt;</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523957 2018-08-04T05:51:04Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Norman|first=et al|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|url=|journal=UBC Faculty Research and Publications|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services. Leora Paradise states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Paradise|first=Leora|date=2017|title=Enabling Choice: Addressing Barriers to Abortion<br /> Services in Rural British Columbia|url=|journal=SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Thus, it is obvious that abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services &lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women–especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbour anti-abortion sentiments.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in Leora Paradise's analysis, she writes, “there have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly (if not only) perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that not only require a referral from a general practitioner (GP) but also require various multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation, however, many hospitals will indirectly favour non-abortion related ultrasound appointments consequently delaying abortion related appointments. To make matter worse, in rural areas, just getting an appointment with a GP has long wait time let alone other appointments. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavourable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes.&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Bohn,|first=G|date=2007|title=Rural women still face abortion hurdles|url=|journal=The Vancouver Sun|volume=|pages=|via=ProQuest}}&lt;/ref&gt; Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [intersectional dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies. In other words, rural women are oppressed because lack of abortion clinics in rural area poses a logistical [planning] barrier and it is the responsibility of the B.C. government to ensure its entire population has equal access to facilities. It can then be inferred that the oppression of rural women is indirectly due to power relations between B.C. government and rural communities because the B.C. government has [chosen] to neglect the issue of inaccessibility of abortion clinics in rural communities. <br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; Such long travel times means that many of these women will also have to pay for other accommodations such as hotel, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes rural women and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed, have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite news|url=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|title=B.C. must remove the barriers to access the abortion pill|last=FOWLER|first=DAWN|date=Oct 2017|work=The Globe and Male|access-date=}}&lt;/ref&gt; (a.k.a abortion pill). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where she states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that here, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523954 2018-08-04T05:30:56Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Norman|first=et al|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|url=|journal=UBC Faculty Research and Publications|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services. Leora Paradise states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot;&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Paradise|first=Leora|date=2017|title=Enabling Choice: Addressing Barriers to Abortion<br /> Services in Rural British Columbia|url=|journal=SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt; Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Thus, it is obvious that abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services &lt;ref name=&quot;:0&quot; /&gt; and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt;<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbour anti-abortion sentiments.&lt;ref name=&quot;:1&quot; /&gt; In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in Leora Paradise's analysis, she writes, “there have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly (if not only) perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that not only require a referral from a general practitioner (GP) but also require various multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation, however, many hospitals will indirectly favour non-abortion related ultrasound appointments consequently delaying abortion related appointments. To make matter worse, in rural areas, just getting an appointment with a GP has long wait time let alone other appointments. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavourable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes.&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Bohn,|first=G|date=2007|title=Rural women still face abortion hurdles|url=|journal=The Vancouver Sun|volume=|pages=|via=ProQuest}}&lt;/ref&gt; Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523946 2018-08-04T05:12:30Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus, resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas&lt;ref&gt;{{Cite journal|last=Wendy|first=Norman|date=June 2013|title=Barriers to Rural Induced Abortion Services in Canada : Findings of the British Columbia Abortion Providers|url=|journal=UBC Faculty Research and Publications|volume=|pages=|via=}}&lt;/ref&gt;.  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|417x417px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523944 2018-08-04T05:05:59Z

<p>RiniRajput: importance</p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|303x303px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|327x327px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523942 2018-08-04T05:00:09Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|298x298px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|327x327px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523941 2018-08-04T04:59:48Z

<p>RiniRajput: para done</p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> [[File:Abortion ?.jpg|frame|254x254px|<br /> Abortion accessibility in B.C. is questionable.<br /> ]]<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from gaining access to one of their most fundamental rights. Furthermore, women in rural communities face even greater obstacles then their urban counterparts. As such, the focus of wiki is to outline how rural women in British Columbia are oppressed relative to urban women due to multiple intersecting dimensions which combine to create barriers that prevent rural women in B.C. from accessing abortion services. <br /> <br /> “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Using this papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that intersect in order to hinder rural women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C, thus resulting in their oppression. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> <br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb|327x327px|Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> <br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523931 2018-08-04T04:33:41Z

<p>RiniRajput: lastest</p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia =<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that hinder women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C. These barriers, in turn, can be classified as extra-legal dimensions that contribute to the oppression of rural women in British Columbia. <br /> <br /> == Geographical Mismatch ==<br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Abortion Clinics in Rural Communities ==<br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> [[File:Travel Patterns.png|thumb]]<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=File:Tittle.png&diff=523930 2018-08-04T04:21:47Z

<p>RiniRajput: User created page with UploadWizard</p> <hr /> <div>=={{int:filedesc}}==<br /> {{Information<br /> |description={{en|1=tittle page}}<br /> |date=2018-08-03<br /> |source={{own}}<br /> |author=[[User:RiniRajput|RR]]<br /> |permission=<br /> |other versions=<br /> }}<br /> <br /> =={{int:license-header}}==<br /> {{self|cc-by-sa-4.0}}</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=File:Travel_Patterns.png&diff=523926 2018-08-04T04:10:44Z

<p>RiniRajput: User created page with UploadWizard</p> <hr /> <div>=={{int:filedesc}}==<br /> {{Information<br /> |description={{en|1=Travel Pattern for abortion services}}<br /> |date=2018-08-03<br /> |source=Source: Sethna, C., &amp; Doull, M. (2013). Spatial Disparities and Travel to Freestanding Abortion<br /> Clinics in Canada. Women's Studies International Forum, 38, 52-62. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.02.001<br /> |author=Sethna, C., &amp; Doull, M. (2013)<br /> |permission=<br /> |other versions=<br /> }}<br /> <br /> =={{int:license-header}}==<br /> {{subst:uwl}}</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523921 2018-08-04T04:03:43Z

<p>RiniRajput: /* Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia. */</p> <hr /> <div>[[:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg#file]]<br /> <br /> &lt;nowiki&gt;[[File:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;[[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]]<br /> <br /> [[:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg#file]]<br /> <br /> = Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia. =<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that hinder women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C. These barriers, in turn, can be classified as extra-legal dimensions that contribute to the oppression of rural women in British Columbia. <br /> <br /> == Geographical mismatch ==<br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of abortion clinics in rural communities. ==<br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523919 2018-08-04T04:00:54Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>&lt;nowiki&gt;[[File:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg]]&lt;/nowiki&gt;[[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]][[File:ExampleImage.jpg|link=|20x20px]]<br /> <br /> [[:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg#file]]<br /> <br /> = Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia. =<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that hinder women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C. These barriers, in turn, can be classified as extra-legal dimensions that contribute to the oppression of rural women in British Columbia. <br /> <br /> == Geographical mismatch ==<br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of abortion clinics in rural communities. ==<br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523912 2018-08-04T03:53:03Z

<p>RiniRajput: /* Stigma and Harassment */</p> <hr /> <div>[[:File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg]]<br /> <br /> = Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia. =<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that hinder women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C. These barriers, in turn, can be classified as extra-legal dimensions that contribute to the oppression of rural women in British Columbia. <br /> <br /> == Geographical mismatch ==<br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> '''Thus''', abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of abortion clinics in rural communities. ==<br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> '''Thus,''' I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities. As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. '''Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.'''<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=File:Figure1TravelPatterns.jpg&diff=523909 2018-08-04T03:49:37Z

<p>RiniRajput: Regional Map of Women&#039;s Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics</p> <hr /> <div>== Summary ==<br /> Regional Map of Women's Travel Patterns to Abortion Clinics <br /> == Copyright status: ==<br /> NOT MINE <br /> == Source: ==<br /> Source: Sethna, C., &amp; Doull, M. (2013). Spatial Disparities and Travel to Freestanding Abortion Clinics in Canada. Women's Studies International Forum, 38, 52-62. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.02.001</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=File:Screen_Shot_2018-07-31_at_2.16.21_PM.png&diff=523908 2018-08-04T03:35:50Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div>== Summary ==<br /> <br /> == Copyright status: ==<br /> NOT MINE. <br /> == Source: ==<br /> Source: Sethna, C., &amp; Doull, M. (2013). Spatial Disparities and Travel to Freestanding Abortion Clinics in Canada. Women's Studies International Forum, 38, 52-62. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.02.001</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=523905 2018-08-04T03:26:18Z

<p>RiniRajput: new wkie</p> <hr /> <div>= Abortion Access in Rural British Columbia. =<br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case R. v Morgentaler went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma et al, was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers that hinder women’s access to safe abortion services within B.C. These barriers, in turn, can be classified as extra-legal dimensions that contribute to the oppression of rural women in British Columbia. <br /> <br /> == Geographical mismatch ==<br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where women of reproductive age live. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions (medical and surgical) reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  This means the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas (in other words, rural women) face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. For example, women livings in rural areas are forced travel great distances to access abortion services.Paradise et al, states that “about a third of the women who visited Vancouver Island’s one abortion  clinic (in Victoria) traveled over 100km to do so. From the journeys depicted [see figure 1], with origins in BC, the average distance traveled was about 250km. The two longest distances traveled were 650km and 750km”. Additionally, indigenous women (i.e. Metis and First Nations) were three times more likely to travel more than 100km than non-indigenous women. (Paradise et al).<br /> <br /> Thus, abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women causing them to become marginalized and discriminated against. In other words, despite living in the same province, and having the same rights and freedoms as urban women, rural women are discriminated and marginalized because of their geographical location.<br /> <br /> == Lack of abortion clinics in rural communities. ==<br /> In many rural communities, hospitals are the primary [and in some cases, the only] point of access for health care as opposed to urban cities where abortion clinics perform the majority of these services. The lack of abortion clinics rural communities poses a barrier for rural women because many rural hospitals do not even offer abortion services (paradise). For example, only 25% of all hospitals located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4th of rural communities do not even offer abortions beyond the first trimester (paradise).<br /> <br /> Additionally, rural hospitals can pose confidentiality issues for women –especially hospitals that are in small communities. It has also been reported that the hospital staff in rural areas may harbor anti-abortion sentiments (paradise). In some places, there have been incidences where hospital staff provided misinformation to pregnant women as a covert way of preventing women from following through with the abortion. For example, in the study done by Paradise et al, he writes, “There have been reports of physicians who misinform women about their eligibility for abortion or the timing of the procedure, in addition to using other stalling tactics, in order to prevent them from going through with an abortion”.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, rural hospitals mainly perform surgical abortions which are riskier, as opposed to medical abortions which pose less risk and can be performed easily in an abortion clinic or within the privacy of one’s home. Medical abortions are riskier because they are invasive procedures that require a referral to from a GP and require multiple appointments before having an abortion. For example, an ultrasound is usually required for surgical abortions to ensure no complications occur during the operation. To make matter worse, in rural areas, even getting an appointment with a GP has long wait times, let alone making an appointment for ultrasounds at the hospital. Consequently, increasing wait times lead to unfavorable situations since the longer a woman waits to terminate the pregnancy, the risker it becomes. Plus, surgical abortions must be performed using general anesthesia which must be performed by an anesthesiologist and require longer recovery times ---something many rural women do not have the luxury of. The lack of abortion clinics in rural areas means that women who want to terminate early pregnancies have no choice but to travel outside their communities to access these services.<br /> <br /> Thus, we can conclude that the lack of abortion clinics in rural areas represents a logistical barrier [dimension] that results in the marginalization of rural women who want to terminate unwanted pregnancies.<br /> <br /> == Cost ==<br /> Due to the accessibility of abortion services, rural women often are forced to travel long distances in other to access abortion services. The costs incurred due to lack of accessibility further marginalizes women in rural communities who cannot afford to spend the time or money to receive safe abortions. Figure 1 provides visual representation of how far women from rural places in B.C. and Alberta have to travel to access urban abortion facilities. The costs associated with this travel are entirely paid by the women. In some cases, women in B.C. have to travel  8 to 10 hours just to reach an abortion clinic. Such long travel times means that many of these women will have to pay for other accomodations suchs as hotels, car, gas, food, daycare or elderly care if they are leaving children or elders alone at home. Having to pay for these associated costs is something that is just not feasible from them because many rural women are financially/economically poorer relative to urban women. This further marginalizes and indirectly forces them to utilize suboptimal procedures to terminate pregnancies (i.e using hospitals vs abortion clinics or worse, turning to self-induced abortions as a last resort). Indigenous women who live on reserves are particularly vulnerable  because they often have the greatest cost associated to travel. Women on reserves are required to go through an application process to obtain formal approval of funds for off-reserve travel (unless they pay themselves) and this process can be very time consuming which no guarantees for approval.<br /> <br /> Additionally, women who are not covered under government or third party  extended health benefits , such as those in minimum wage jobs, part time workers or those who are self-employed,  have to pay at least $350 to buy Mifepristone (purple). Those who cannot afford to buy the abortion pill are forced to choose surgical abortions. Furthermore, even if women are covered by health benefits for the abortion itself, there are still supplementary costs which have to be paid by the patient (i.e. administrative fees). This is exemplified in Paradise’s paper, where he states, “about twenty-five percent of women who attended an abortion clinic in BC reported that they paid more than $300,”  [note: this amount does not include travel or other miscellaneous costs].<br /> <br /> Thus, I contend that, rural women experience oppression based on their economic status. Rural women, due to their lower economics status (i.e. poor) are often unable to enjoy the same privileges as their urban counterparts, in term of accessing abortion services. For example, urban women who have access to health coverage (most likely through an employer) can easily access an abortion pill  while rural women, who generally don’t have extended health coverage, cannot access an abortion pill and must opt for suboptimal options such as waiting to surgical abortions.<br /> <br /> == Stigma and Harassment ==<br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women trying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions still experience a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in small, rural communities.<br /> <br /> As mentioned above, all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operating rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, hospitals must follow certain protocols when providing abortions, i.e. referral from GP, ultrasounds, and presence of anesthesiologists. Unfortunately, due to the controversial nature of abortions, many of these people (i.e. anesthesiologists) in rural hospitals, refrain from or refuse to partake in any abortion procedures. For example, the B.C Abortion Providers Survey outlined hat nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). Here, it is important to note that it is the underlying systemic barriers that facilitate (albeit it unintentionally) the ability for hospital staff/technicians to hinder abortion processes. This stigma of abortion creates a very unsupportive and in some places unsafe environment for women seeking abortion the  physicians that provide it. For example, one of the abortion physician/doctors, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). Urban women on the contrary, are exposed to much less stigma and harassment because there are many support facilities available (i.e. pregnancy crisis centers, abortion clinics, counseling services) that create a confidential, safe space for women to discuss options and/or have safe abortions. Thus, high levels of stigma and harassment together constitute a social dimension through which rural women are oppressed relative to their urban counterparts.<br /> <br /> == Lack of Rural HealthCare Professionals ==<br /> In the recent years, B.C has had a shortage in the number of healthcare professionals who are willing to provide abortion services in rural areas. According to a new study that surveyed family medicine residents in Canada, “the pool of willing providers appears to be shrinking” and that there is a lack of medical residents who are willing to be trained to become rural general practitioners who can provide abortion services, (BLUE).  In fact, 80% of the respondents in the study said that they received less than one hour of formal education on abortion during their residency (blue).  There are two mainl factors which contribute to this worrisome trend.<br /> <br /> First, in some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures --i.e. due to personal beliefs. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]&quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions.<br /> <br /> Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the lack of physicians willing to provide abortions or even provide information or referrals to those services, further adds to the inaccessibility of abortion services. .<br /> <br /> Second, many of the existing rural healthcare professionals (i.e general practitioners) feel that they are lacking professional support in the from of easily accessible continuing professional education events and “camaraderie with other professionals providing abortion services” (green). This lack of support often leads to abortion providers to feel isolated and incompetent in their abilities to guide their patients adequately thorough abortion procedures. As a result, there has been a growing trend in the decline of physicians offering abortion services, such as this one rural physiciation who “discontinued her surgical practice, in part because she felt she was not providing women with an equivalent service to an urban clinic, and was unable to obtain updated training to reinforce her skills,” (green).<br /> <br /> Lastly, since there is already a shortage on the availability of rural physicians, the few that do provide<br /> <br /> The unavailability of rural healthcare  professionals is a systematic failure on the government as there is nothing actively being done to reverse this declining trend. As such, I argue that rural women are being marginalized and oppressed as a result of this passive attitude towards a decline in availability of rural healthcare professionals.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=Thread:Talk:GRSJ224/BC_abortions/Clear_and_Concise/reply&diff=522964 2018-07-27T16:39:49Z

<p>RiniRajput: Reply to Clear and Concise</p> <hr /> <div>Hey OMG thanks for the tip!! I couldn't figure out how to make the citation so I just kept on using brackets to keep track of my own citations while I was making the wiki but with your help, I was able to do it! Thanks a mil! =)</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=Thread:User_talk:RiniRajput/Sex_Education_in_Schools&diff=522963 2018-07-27T16:36:30Z

<p>RiniRajput: New thread: Sex Education in Schools</p> <hr /> <div>Hello, <br /> <br /> This a great overview of {lack of effective} Sex Ed in Canada and US. However, I urge you to provide an intersectional analysis on this topic. I also think you should narrow down your topic and selection only one country and even better idea, would be to choose a particular province/state. For example, if you choose the U.S. you can look at states like Texas and there sex ed curriculum and see if students in Texas are more or less disadvantaged than students in other states in terms of # of teen pregnancies or abortions or something. I would really recommend this because as of right now, your wiki does not provide a critical analysis on the topic, it just provides an overview of the information available about Sex Ed. in schools. <br /> <br /> -Hope this helps!</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=Thread:User_talk:RiniRajput/Self_Induced_Abortion_in_the_United_States&diff=522960 2018-07-27T15:56:19Z

<p>RiniRajput: New thread: Self Induced Abortion in the United States</p> <hr /> <div>Hello, <br /> <br /> This is a great topic, it is fairly detailed in terms of outline the theme of your wiki, however, I would strongly suggest that you provide a critical intersectional analysis on your topic. For example, you can say that poor, racialized women still perform self-induced because they are socially (i.e. stigma), economically (i.e. traveling long distances, paying for accommodations) and politically (lack of safe access to abortion services, mandatory (usually, unnecessary) wait times, or other such irrelevant state enforced rule) oppressed. All these dimensions play a huge rule in the oppression of poor, racialized women. I would recommend watching this youtube video, it will give you a more clear, but grim idea of how bad access to abortion is in the US. <br /> <br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NNpkv3Us1I <br /> <br /> and<br /> <br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRauXXz6t0Y <br /> <br /> <br /> Hope this helps! Great work!</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=User_talk:RiniRajput&diff=522955 2018-07-27T15:39:22Z

<p>RiniRajput: Talk page autocreated when first thread was posted</p> <hr /> <div></div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=Thread:User_talk:RiniRajput/GRSJ224/femalesterilization&diff=522954 2018-07-27T15:39:22Z

<p>RiniRajput: New thread: GRSJ224/femalesterilization</p> <hr /> <div>hello, <br /> <br /> I know this is just a rough draft for your wiki but I would strongly suggest you incorporate an intersectional analysis of female sterilization. In particular, you mentioned the question, why more tubal litigations than vasectomy. If you maybe dig into this a little bit more, maybe the reasons you find for this trend can provide a basis for an intersectional analysis. Also, I would suggest you choose a particular location to focus on. You mentioned a study in Peshawar, India, maybe you can see what the trend is like there for tubal litigation vs vasectomy. I wasn't sure if this trend was prevalent in developed worlds or developing worlds. Maybe that is a more focused topic. <br /> <br /> An alternate idea would be to write about how tubal litigation can lead to women having/feeling privileged {rather than opressed} because of the socio-political dimensions allow women the right to birth control.<br /> <br /> Hope this helps!! <br /> Overall, a great topic! <br /> <br /> -Best,<br /> Rini</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=Thread:Talk:GRSJ224/BC_abortions/A_good_and_focused_topic/reply&diff=522814 2018-07-25T19:25:16Z

<p>RiniRajput: Reply to A good and focused topic </p> <hr /> <div>hey thanks for the tip!! I almost forgot about the images! Thanks for reminding me!! I am still trying to figure out how to make a table of contents and divide my wiki into sections. I am pretty technologically challenged. &gt;_&lt;'</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224&diff=522597 2018-07-23T17:54:54Z

<p>RiniRajput: added link to main course page</p> <hr /> <div>=== INTRODUCTION ===<br /> <br /> This '''Wikispace''' is a peer-produced shared resource that will evolve as students post content relating to GRSJ224. You are responsible for creating dynamic and informative wiki pages. As you add and update information throughout the semester, originality, resourcefulness, and creativity is encouraged. The wiki will be sustained for successive semesters so that the work you contribute will be available to future students.<br /> <br /> === ASSIGNMENT INFORMATION ===<br /> <br /> To download and view full details of the assignment, click [https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/xid-16358571_1 here].<br /> <br /> {| class=&quot;wikitable&quot;<br /> |-<br /> | https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/courses/WS.UBC.FL.GRSJ.224.COURSECONTENT.2014S/Files%20for%20UBC%20Wiki/wiki_preparation.gif || <br /> * Read: [http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7004.pdf 7 Things you should know about Wikis]<br /> * Choose a term from the table of contents<br /> * Confirm your selection of topic with your instructor by the '''SECOND WEEK OF CLASSES'''<br /> * Set up your wiki page.<br /> | https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/courses/WS.UBC.FL.GRSJ.224.COURSECONTENT.2014S/Files%20for%20UBC%20Wiki/wiki_finalizing.png ||<br /> * Continue to work towards improving and finalizing your Wiki.<br /> * Consider the wiki as a whole and the usefulness of adding images and links.<br /> * Check your Talk page to see if your peers provided you with any useful feedback<br /> * Ensure your Wiki is properly cited<br /> * Proofread your Wiki<br /> <br /> <br /> |-<br /> | https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/courses/WS.UBC.FL.GRSJ.224.COURSECONTENT.2014S/Files%20for%20UBC%20Wiki/wiki_research.gif || <br /> * Gather resources in relevance of your discoveries to class materials.<br /> * Familiarize yourself with the wiki-authoring tools of [[GRSJ224/wikibasics|Wiki Basics]]<br /> | https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/courses/WS.UBC.FL.GRSJ.224.COURSECONTENT.2014S/Files%20for%20UBC%20Wiki/wiki_submit.gif ||<br /> * Submit &quot;Wikipedia Report&quot; to your instructor in Connect<br /> <br /> |-<br /> | https://connect.ubc.ca/bbcswebdav/courses/WS.UBC.FL.GRSJ.224.COURSECONTENT.2014S/Files%20for%20UBC%20Wiki/wiki_drafting.gif || <br /> * Read: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles Wikipedia's guide to Writing Better Articles]<br /> * Write content relevant to class material.<br /> * Tailor your page to your audience.<br /> * Check out your peers’ draft Wikis below and provide feedback using the [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Help:Talk_pages Talk pages]<br /> * The intellectual rules of property DO apply: provide [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink links], not [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism plagiarisms].<br /> |}<br /> <br /> '''Helpful Links:'''<br /> * [https://admin.video.ubc.ca/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_d2u58vo0/uiconf_id/11170637/entry_id/0_kmj3r79h Embed an Image]<br /> * [https://admin.video.ubc.ca/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_nguojj8r/uiconf_id/11170637/entry_id/0_d9350hqg Embed a Video]<br /> * [https://admin.video.ubc.ca/index.php/kwidget/wid/0_d478y7sn/uiconf_id/11170637/entry_id/0_sg3scx28 Link to an external website]<br /> <br /> === TABLE OF CONTENTS ===<br /> <br /> {| width=&quot;100%&quot; class=&quot;wikitable&quot; style=&quot;background:aliceblue; border-style:solid; border-width:1px; border-color: #AEDCF6;&quot; border=&quot;1&quot; cellspacing=&quot;5&quot; cellpadding=&quot;2&quot;<br /> |- <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Democracy&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> <br /> * [[Voting Rights in the United States]]<br /> * [[GRSJ224/ElectoralReform|Electoral Reform in Canada]]<br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/tribalism Political Tribalism in the United States]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Neoliberalism&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;====<br /> <br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Neoliberalism_and_the_Gentrification_of_Urban_Spaces# Neoliberalism and the Gentrification of Urban Spaces]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Post-coloniality&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;====<br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Post-colonial_impact_on_indigenous_health Post-colonial impact on indigenous health] <br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Reproduction&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> * [[GRSJ224/femalesterilization]]<br /> * &lt;nowiki/&gt;[[Self Induced Abortion in the United States]]<br /> * [[Sex Education in Schools]]<br /> * [[Surrogacy in India]]<br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Birth_Control_In_Canada Birth Control in Canada] <br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/RepealThe8th Repeal the 8th] <br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/HIVandBlackGayMeninAmerica# HIV and Black Gay Men in America]<br /> * [[The Reproductive Politics of China]]<br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/BC_abortions Abortion in BC]<br /> <br /> |- <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> &lt;nowiki&gt;=&lt;/nowiki&gt;===&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Immigration&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> * [[Behind multiculturalism in British Columbia : The history of Japanese internment camp|Behind multiculturalism in British Columbia : The history of Japanese internment camp]]<br /> * [[GRSJ224/Depiction of Immigrants in Western films|Depiction of Immigrants in Western films]]<br /> * [[Statelessness|Statelessness]]<br /> * [[Immigrant Women Fighting Globalization]]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Feminism&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> <br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Fourth_Wave_Feminism_and_Social_Media Fourth Wave Feminism and Social Media]<br /> <br /> * [[The Emergence of Intersectionality and Third Wave Feminism]]<br /> <br /> * [[Rape Culture in India|Rape Culture]] in India <br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/The_Sexuality_of_Black_Women# The Sexuality of Black Women] <br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/Feminism_in_Disney Feminism In Disney] <br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Discrimination&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> <br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Sexual_Violence_against_Jewish_Women_during_the_Third_Reich#Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Third Reich]<br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/South_Korean_Jeju_Island_Refugee_Crisis Jeju Island Refugees Crisis in South Korea]<br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/GRSJ224/Comfort_Women_during_the_Annexation_of_Korea Comfort Women during the Annexation of Korea]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> |-<br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Masculinity&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> * [http://wiki.ubc.ca/Portrayal_of_Asian_Men_in_Hollywood#Portrayal_of_Asian_Men_in_Hollywood Portrayal of Asian Men in Hollywood]<br /> * [[Masculinity in Films]]<br /> <br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;Medicalization&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> * [[The Medicalization of Deafness]]<br /> * [[Nonconsensual, Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children]]<br /> * [[Neurodiversity and the Medicalization of Twice Exceptional People]]<br /> * [https://wiki.ubc.ca/The_Medicalization_Of_Depression Medicalization of Depression]<br /> * [[Medicalization of Female attractiveness]]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> <br /> ====&lt;h2 style=&quot;margin:0; background:#2B3087; font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; border:1px solid #a3b0bf; text-align:left; color:#000; padding:0.2em 0.4em;&quot;&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;color:white&quot;&gt;LGBT Families&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/h2&gt;<br /> <br /> *[[The Phenomenon of Chosen Family in the LGBT Community]]<br /> <br /> *[[Creating a Family in the LGBT Community]]<br /> <br /> *[[Representation of LGBT Couples in Canadian Web Series]]<br /> <br /> | valign=&quot;top&quot; style=&quot;padding: 0; margin:0;width:25%&quot; |<br /> |}<br /> <br /> ===ARCHIVE===<br /> Here is an archive of the Wiki pages created by previous students: [[GRSJ224/archive|Archive of Wiki pages]]</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=522229 2018-07-20T10:47:27Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div><br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case ''R. v Morgentaler'' went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma''et al'', was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five''/four (still haven't decide''d) distinct, yet- interrelated barriers which are most relevant in hindering women’s access to abortions. <br /> <br /> '''Geographical mismatch between where services are available, and the women who need to access it.''' <br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where reproductive age women live. As such, Abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  Meaning the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. As such, many women living in rural areas are forced travel great distances which can be costly, and require women to take time off work and other possible charges such as daycare costs, in order to access abortion facilities. In addition, only 25% of all hospital located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4&lt;sup&gt;th &lt;/sup&gt;of rural communities do not offer abortions beyond the first trimester. The lack of services available in rural area, causes the other 43% of B.C’s women [of reproductive age], to become further marginalized, compared to urban women, when trying to terminate unwanted pregnancies. <br /> <br /> '''Stigma and Harassment''' <br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women tying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions are still faced with a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in rural communities. <br /> <br /> Almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operation rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). For example, one of the abortion physician/doctor, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). <br /> <br /> In some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...] If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions. Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the  lack of physicians willing to provide abortions further adds to the inaccessibility to seek abortions. <br /> <br /> sub heading: harassment/ isolation of abortion providers in rural B.C. <br /> <br /> - lack of <br /> <br /> '''Logistical Barriers'''<br /> <br /> - surgical abortions not giving priority when booking ORs, ultrasounds, etc. <br /> <br /> -thus, pregnant women are forced to wait longer periods of time before being able to termite pregnancy <br /> <br /> -this is especially bad because the longer you take to terminate pregnancy, the more at risk you are for medical complications (i.e. infertility, excessive bleeding, damage to reproductive area in general).<br /> <br /> '''Lack of continuing professional education and lack of availability/ replacement of abortion providers .'''<br /> <br /> - in rural areas, there is very little support provided by govt. lead profession programs for continuing education and discourse about current abortion practices; as a result, many physicians in rural BC feel incompetent in their abilities to continue providing safe, effective abortion; <br /> <br /> - this in part fuels the lack of availability of abortion providers in rural areas, additionally, fewer and fewer physicians want to train or want to be train in providing abortions due to stigma and isolation, threats of harassment and occasional violence. <br /> <br /> '''Abortion [in]accessibility and oppression of B.C. rural women.''' <br /> <br /> - more research to be done still.</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=522228 2018-07-20T10:32:22Z

<p>RiniRajput: </p> <hr /> <div><br /> Canada is one of the few countries in the world which enshrined women’s right to safe abortions under the Canadian Health Act. This was achieved when the historic case ''R. v Morgentaler'' went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the provisions on abortions were in violation to a women’s right to life, liberty and security of the person that are guaranteed under section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. <br /> <br /> It’s been 30 years since this landmark victory for women’s right to safe abortion, however it is unfortunate that many women in Canada still face many barriers to access safe abortions. Many provinces still have logistical and structural barriers which prevent women from having access to one of their most fundamental rights—especially in rural parts of the provinces such as British Columbia. In B.C., “The BC Abortion Providers Survey”, conducted by Norma''et al'', was conducted in order to outline the barriers women faced when accessing medical and surgical abortions. Along with this, the Contraception Access Research Team (aka- CART-GRAC) released a “Contraception and Abortion in BC” report which further outlines the barriers and suggests solutions to reduce or remove such barriers. Using these papers, along with other articles, I will outline five distinct, yet- interrelated barriers which are most relevant in hindering women’s access to <br /> <br /> '''Geographical mismatch between where services are available, and the women who need to access it.''' <br /> <br /> In B.C. there is a mismatch between where abortion services are available and where reproductive age women live. As such, Abortion services are more easily accessible to urban women than rural women. For example, in B.C. 90% of all abortions reported are offered in large urban areas (i.e. the lower mainland). However, only 57% of all reproductive age women live in these urban areas (Norma et al).  Meaning the other 43% of the women who do not live in urban areas face geographical barriers while accessing abortion services. As such, many women living in rural areas are forced travel great distances which can be costly, and require women to take time off work and other possible charges such as daycare costs, in order to access abortion facilities. In addition, only 25% of all hospital located outside of large urban areas were able to provide abortion services (Norma et al) and 3/4&lt;sup&gt;th &lt;/sup&gt;of rural communities do not offer abortions beyond the first trimester. The lack of services available in rural area, causes the other 43% of B.C’s women [of reproductive age], to become further marginalized, compared to urban women, when trying to terminate unwanted pregnancies. <br /> <br /> '''Stigma and Harassment''' <br /> <br /> Although it has been over 30 years since the decriminalization of abortions, women tying to terminate pregnancies and the physicians who provide abortions are still faced with a lot of stigma and harassment from their communities—especially in rural communities. <br /> <br /> Almost all of the surgical abortions performed by rural providers occur in hospital operation rooms (ORs) (due to the lack of availability of abortion clinics in rural areas). As such, nearly half of the rural communities in BC reported that nurses and anthologists refused to accept/partake in abortion procedures (Norma et al). For example, one of the abortion physician/doctor, has said “I have suffered threats and have both (sic) anesthetists, ultrasound technologists and operating room nurses refuse to cooperate in treatment or have had patients [i.e. the women seeking abortions] suffer insults (Norma et al). <br /> <br /> In some part of B.C. women find themselves unable to seek abortion services because some of the physicians themselves do not want to partake in abortion procedures. &quot;Physicians, like anyone else, have a right to adhere to their own belief systems or philosophy,&quot; [...]<br /> <br /> &quot;If they are anti-abortion or have strong feeling, they can't be compelled”, said Dr. Morris VanAndel (orange). For example, Dr. Micheal Polay, one of the doctors at the Care Point Medical Centre on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, said that one of the doctors who works at this clinic, belongs to a “[ethnic] minority of B.C doctors who chooses not to [provide abortions] due to religious beliefs.  (orange) These physicians are then, obligated to refer abortion seeking patients to doctors who are willing to do abortions. Unfortunately, for women living in rural communities, the  lack of physicians willing to provide abortions further adds to the inaccessibility to seek abortions. <br /> <br /> '''L''' '''ogistical Barriers'''</div>

RiniRajput https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=GRSJ224/BC_abortions&diff=522122 2018-07-19T08:28:38Z

<p>RiniRajput: Created page with &quot;Access to abortions in Rural BC dwindling. Women living in many parts of rural B.C. are faced with barriers such as stigma, harassment, lack of abortion clinics etc.&quot;</p> <hr /> <div>Access to abortions in Rural BC dwindling. Women living in many parts of rural B.C. are faced with barriers such as stigma, harassment, lack of abortion clinics etc.</div>

RiniRajput