Talk:Abortion in Canada/Some of the political ways the pro choice vs. pro life movement were playing out in the 1980's in Canada

message: Just a general comment that i think i put originally on the talk page but erased before i found out the pages could actually go beyond 32kb AND i didn't know how to argue (so i erased mostly what i'd written when it was getting full) it was a big deal. I remember my mom looking very carefully at a two page newspaper ad (broadsheet newspaper not tabloid). On it was a list of doctors who were pro life and paid for the article. As before there would likely be some grey but these doctors were also the type that generally would not even refer you to someone else (another problem that could slow things down). My mom was going through the whole list (it was large and in small type). I asked her why (i was young) and she explained what it was about (i knew what an abortion was by then...but i'm pretty sure i found out by nine because i came across it in a book). She was checking to see if ANY doctor she had was on the list. Not just her gynecologist. She made clear that why she was checking it was that if she had found a doctor she had on the list she would have left that doctor. And she wasn't an abortion activist although she was strongly pro choice and believe in the right of a woman to have an abortion...but she wasn't involved in it generally. I'd be surprised if she did anything more than write our Member of Parliament about it...and i'm not all that sure she would have even gone that far.--Marcie 19:29, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: A general comment on the way that the pro life pro choice movement what was playing out in the early 80's

message: I don't know why the summary is going in double spaced as its not double spaced on the page i took it from...but i don't see why its double spaced here so i can't change it...--Marcie 19:47, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Supreme Court Decision that made clear a mother and a child were one and the same

message: Still don't have time to put everything in but someone made a useful suggestion, that there be a section on how abortion is covered in medicare/problems with the coverage of abortion in medicare. This would take into account what the law on access is and wether that law is being followed. That was what a lot of the material you see on the page about access to abortion is about---the fact that it isn't equal across the country despite the fact that it is supposed to be.
For a short list of what i did pick up today, an abortion is considered a medically necessary procedure. As such it is up to all provinces to provide funding for abortions. While health is officially in the provincial sphere a lot of the money comes from the federal government and the government is allowed to fine any province by quite a bit if they do not follow the rules, although so far today i've only seen mention of a fine of $50,000....i am pretty sure i've seen a larger one.
A number of the provinces have argued that they don't need to provide the procedure or appealed in other ways. The only province that currently isn't covered by the above is PEI. I didn't get a lot of good information as to why. It would be worth trying to find.
What was not initially is not clear is if abortion clinics need to be funded despite the fact that having an abortion at a clinic is safer because of the type of anesthetic used, and can usually be aranged faster (private and public clinics).
A hospital in one maritime province stopped offering abortions which means that there will need to be large amounts of travel to those who live in the region to get abortions.
Depending on the province some will pay your costs if you need to go a distance to obtain your abortion. Quebec will (for example as talked about on the page) pay for third term abortions that are currently being performed in the US. Quebec is looking for a doctor that will provide the service within Quebec but for the moment does pick up the cost of doing the procedure elsewhere.
Its not unusual for provinces to do this. For example in Ontario there is no inpatient program for youth that have addictions (and for a long time there wasn't anything outpatient at least in my city which meant that even more folks needed to be sent to residential programs---maybe why i heard of them). Teenagers with addictions when i was in high school (12 years ago) were sent to clinics in the US. The cost of getting there was covered. The cost of getting to the hosptial from the airport was covered as was the cost of the program and the return home. I doubt that has changed unless a clinic is now in Ontario. I imagine if there was a program in another province they would have covered that first, so its likely there are none.
I know that folks in Saskatchewan that need to go distances to get medical treatment have a lot of the costs covered. If they drive and keep track of the mileage they are reimburesed a certain amount per kilometer and i believe if its necessary to stay in an area (but not in a hospital) that reasonable costs are reimbursed as well. From what i understand it doesn't ever really add up to the real total cost---but it is a significant amount of the cost. This is more likely to be occuring in Sasketwan because they closed a lot of the more rural hospitals down so i suppose there was more pressure on them to then pick up the costs, but other provinces also do this for certain procedures.
The  Yukon territory also picks up the costs if i remember right from what i was reading today (i'll need to go over it more carefully).
You do however need to get the costs approved before hand. There was a case earlier this year where a woman with Cancer wanted to go to a particular spot in the United States that offered an alternative type of care. She had been declared terminal in Canada. She appealed the fact that the province would not pay for the costs. It was determined (if memory serves) that the type of treatment she was seeking was not viewed as being more successful by the province and the province in question successfully argued that it did not have to pick up the costs of someone deciding that they wanted a particular treatment that was not viewed as effective and not available in the province. It was on CBC.CA but it would likely be a big search.
So the answer to the question that both of you seemed to be talking about is that the provinces are at least responsible for providing abortions in hospitals to all residents. The reason we put in so much information on the page as it stands now is because we were all aware that it was not equally available, but that legally in Canada it should be. If it isn't there should be a large fine on the province. How often that happens is another matter. The fine basically works this way. The federal government reduces the amount they help pay for medicare in  the province towards  by the fine assessed.
So the answer to the question that both of you seemed to be talking about is that the provinces are at least responsible for providing abortions in hospitals to all residents. The reason we put in so much information on the page as it stands now is because we were all aware that it was not equally available, but that legally in Canada it should be. If it isn't there should be a large fine on the province. How often that happens is another matter. The fine basically works this way. The federal government reduces the amount they help pay for medicare in  the province towards  by the fine assessed.
A better example of when this happened was in BC. For a while Alberta was giving bus tickets to people on welfare to go to BC (Klein government). The benefits were also better in BC, although with cost of living it wasn't the same as the actual amount in dollars. As a result a lot of people went to BC and then applied for welfare. BC decided that it would put a requirement of living in the province for a certain period of time before you could recieve welfare (i believe it was six months). The federal government under the CAP program reduced the amount of money that it was transfering to BC by the amount it was denying to people living there. A requirement of the funding was that there be no residency period requirement...although the government was not fond of what Alberta was doing either and i believed Alberta stopped because of publicity and pressure. BC changed the policy a few months after this occured. I think this may have happened before block grants were brought in in 1995 (i'm pretty sure its that budget...another thing to look up).The block funding program  has made it harder to enforce standards because when they brought in the block grants instead of the CAP program they reduced the funds a lot---reduced payments to the provinces means reduced influence. I've actually commented on this on the talk page of Politics of Canada. Its the most recent entry and more detailed if its of interest...and explains why getting standards is now harder. Its on the talk page for two reasons 1. i'm not sure if there really is room to fit it in and 2. i was hoping for comment on POV because while i know a lot of the facts i also have my own POVs of course. I didn't hide my POV on the talk page but asked for comments on how to approach the issue, how to fit in into the page and discussion on how to put the information in in a NPOV way (i could put some in that way but i would want comments/other people opinions on how to word and hopefully a good POV/NPOV discussion before moving more of it onto the actual page.--Marcie 02:54, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: How to deal with the medical access/payment issue