Reproductive Justice
CANADA
2024 ATLANTIC ABORTION SUMMIT: The second annual Atlantic Abortion Summit was held on April 27th, 2024 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We welcomed 61 attendees, four of whom attended virtually, to a discussion of abortion care which facilitated networking among providers and advocates for reproductive justice.
A Cross-Sectional Survey of Sexual and Reproductive Health Outcomes Among People in Provincial Prisons for Women in Atlantic Canada. 2024 Final Report prepared fro Women and Gender Equality Canada.
Accessing Abortion in Canada: Abortion in Canada is completely decriminalized, it is healthcare. It is publicly funded. Access depends on where you live and who is trained to provide care in your area. Abortion is normal. common and safe. This resource provides contact information for providers across the country.
Beyond Complacency: Challenges (and Opportunities) for Reproductive Justice in Canada: This report draws on academic and grey literature research, key informant interviews, and individual reflections to outline reproductive justice issues in Canada today.
Birth alerts (and related policies) by province. Updated November 2022:
Birthing While Black: a resource list created by Kayonne Christy & Cheyenne Scarlett.
Bonding Through Bars: New guidelines for mother-child prison units put interests of child first - Dr. Ruth Martin at the Peter Wall Institute, UBC: “Dr. Ruth Martin says babies have the right to stay in prison and the Supreme Court of British Columbia agrees with her. While the thought of babies behind bars is shocking to many, research shows it’s a far better alternative to separation and foster care.”
Breastfeeding and Criminalized Women: A factsheet created by Wellness Within
Criminalized Women Advocacy Guide zine: Created by Students in the Women’s Studies Senior Seminar, Mount Saint Vincent University, March 2018. “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together” — Lilla Watson
Decolonizing Indigenous birth work and reproductive health | CGSHE Spotlight Series. For Indigenous women, childbirth has been a site of ongoing colonization. Miranda Kelly, Director of Indigenous Women & Family Health for Vancouver Coastal Health – Aboriginal Health shares her reflections and lessons learned from her experiences as a mother and doula.
Estimating the Number of Children with a Biological Parent in Canadian Custody. This document presents two estimates of the number of children with biological parents in Canadian federal custody, provincial/territorial custody, youth detention custody, or immigration detention custody in 2019/20. These estimates are based on disaggregated fertility rates, actual-in counts in custody, and total admissions to custody in the 2019/20 year.
Impact of Maternal Incarceration on Family Relationships. The authors interviewed and conducted focus groups with former and currently incarcerated mothers. Three key themes emerged: maintaining connection, broken bonds, the damage.
Information for Federal Prisoners in British Columbia: This booklet tells you how to apply to have your baby or child with you while in federal custody and other ways that you can bond with your child.
Legal Protections for Incarcerated Women: Key legal information on the rights of women in prison in Canada.
Peer doula support training for Black and Indigenous groups in Nova Scotia, Canada: A community-based qualitative study. Exploring participant experiences of doula training programs offered by a prisoner health advocacy organization and Indigenous and Black community groups.
Province of Nova Scotia Standing Committee on Health Annual Report 2022: Access to Birth Control and Sexual Health Services participation.
“Reproductive (In)Justice in Canadian Federal Prisons for Women" a report that describes how federal incarceration impedes reproductive justice by restricting access to health services and by destroying family connections.
(Graphic) UNICEF’s Conventions on the Rights of the Child: “Every child in Canada and around the world from birth to 18 has rights. Rights are what you should have or be able to do to survive, thrive and meet your full potential. All rights are equally important and are connected to each other. You are born with these rights, and no one can take them away.”
Wellness Within appearance at the NS Legislature Standing Committee on Health regarding Access to Birth Control and Sexual Health Services on 12 April 2022. Read the transcript here.
USA
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children: Organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights, and to reunify families and communities. We build public awareness of structural racism in policing, the courts, and the prison system, and we advance racial and gender justice in all our work.
Let's Normalize Birth - My Unmedicated Vaginal Twin Delivery. This birth taught me a very important lesson: A Birth Plan is not really a plan – it is a preference list. Babies are going to arrive however they wish – they are the ones in charge.
Listening to Women: Recommendations from Women ofColor to Improve Experiences in Pregnancy and Birth Care. This study aims to describe and thematically analyze the recommendations to improve pregnancy and birth care made by women of colour with lived experience of perinatal health care.
Safe2choose connects women everywhere to accurate and tailored information on safe abortion options, so that they can have a safe abortion where, when, and with whom they feel most comfortable.
Worldwide
Considering the Best Interests of the Child in Sentencing and Other Decisions Concerning Parents Facing Criminal Sanctions: An Overview for Practitioners. The motivation for this work is the general lack of attention directed towards the best interests of dependent children whose parents are before the criminal courts, despite a wide range of international and regional norms and standards which suggest that domestic criminal courts are obliged to take the rights and best interests of dependent children into account as a primary consideration when making bail and sentencing decisions.
The Birth Charter for women with involvement from children’s social care: The Birth Charter for women with involvement from children's social care sets out how services and systems in England should support all women involved with children’s social care from conception to their child’s second birthday - the period known as the '1001 critical days'.
“This is Me”: A Child Impact Assessment toolkit: In July 2018, within our Transforming Lives programme, which was supported by the National Lottery Community Fund, we published a briefing entitled What about me? The impact on children when mothers are involved in the criminal justice system. The report recommended the use of Child Impact Assessments to ensure children’s needs are identified and addressed when a mother is in contact with the criminal justice system. This toolkit lays out how that recommendation might be implemented.