Reproductive Justice in Lethbridge: Why Decriminalized Abortion Isn’t Enough on World Day of Social Justice

Abortion is decriminalized in Canada. That fact is often presented as though it concludes the conversation, as though legality alone guarantees fairness, access, and dignity. It is frequently cited as evidence that reproductive rights are secure and that justice has already been achieved.

Yet legality, while essential, does not fully describe how healthcare systems function in people’s lives. The presence of a right does not automatically determine the ease, safety, or feasibility of exercising it.

Equality and Justice Are Not the Same Thing

Equality describes a framework in which rights technically apply to everyone. Justice describes a framework in which those rights can be meaningfully exercised. The distinction may appear subtle, but its implications are significant.

In reproductive healthcare, equality tells us that abortion is available across Canada. Justice asks how geography, income, stigma, disability, age, and social circumstance shape the experience of accessing that care. A right may be universal in law while remaining uneven in practice.

For this reason, statements such as “abortion is legal in Canada” are accurate yet incomplete. Legality defines what is permitted within a system. Justice evaluates what is realistically possible within it. Permission alone does not eliminate barriers, delays, or inequities.

These tensions are visible not only in patient experiences but in provider realities. Research examining trained abortion clinicians has identified persistent structural and institutional constraints, including restrictive policies, lack of supportive practice environments, and challenges in securing pharmacy partnerships for mifepristone dispensing. Legal recognition and clinical training establish the conditions for equality. Justice depends on whether systems allow providers to deliver care sustainably, safely, and without disproportionate professional risk.

Reproductive justice expands the conversation beyond legality. It situates reproductive healthcare within broader social conditions, acknowledging that autonomy is shaped not only by rights but by resources, infrastructure, safety, and support.

This framework recognizes that the ability to decide whether, when, and how to parent is inseparable from economic stability, bodily autonomy, provider availability, accurate information, and timely access to care.

Rights on Paper vs Rights in Practice

In reproductive healthcare, equality frequently operates at the level of policy, while justice operates at the level of lived experience. Many Canadians share the same legal protections, yet their ability to use those protections varies considerably.

Evidence from Alberta illustrates this gap clearly. A 2025 mystery caller study examining the availability of mifepristone in community pharmacies found that same-day dispensing was available at only 12.9 percent of pharmacies, while most others offered to order the medication with delivery estimates ranging from next day to ten days. The study concluded that “inability to access mifepristone in a patient’s preferred pharmacy is a serious barrier to timely care.”

This finding reveals the limits of equality-based assumptions. A medication may be approved and widely recognized, yet its practical availability may remain inconsistent.

The same study also identified widespread confusion regarding coverage. Researchers found that universal coverage for mifepristone was frequently misunderstood, with 71.1 percent of respondents incorrectly stating that uninsured patients must pay out of pocket. Only 28.9 percent correctly identified that mifepristone is covered for all Alberta residents regardless of their drug plan coverage.

Justice requires that patients encounter accurate information and timely access when they attempt to use those policies.

Financial, Geographical, and Structural Barriers

Publicly funded healthcare reduces many direct medical costs, but it does not eliminate the economic realities associated with accessing care. Travel expenses, accommodation, lost wages, childcare, and prescription costs can accumulate quickly.

These financial pressures intersect with what researchers describe as “time poverty,” a condition in which individuals have insufficient time to meet both personal and job-related obligations. Time poverty disproportionately affects women and caregivers, transforming delays, additional appointments, and extended travel into meaningful barriers.

When pharmacy delivery times stretch from days to over a week, the impact is not merely logistical. It becomes economic, professional, and emotional. Equality may cover a procedure, but justice requires consideration of the broader conditions required to obtain reproductive care.

Healthcare infrastructure is not evenly distributed, and reproductive services are particularly sensitive to provider availability and regional capacity. Distance becomes more than an inconvenience. It becomes a structural factor influencing access, timing, and privacy.

The Alberta pharmacy study reported that high proportions of Albertans drive more than sixty minutes from their homes to obtain mifepristone. This reality reflects a broader pattern observed across healthcare systems. Research examining non-urban access to specialist OBGYN care in Canada has documented persistent workforce shortages outside major metropolitan areas and national consultation wait times reaching upwards of 141 days.

Increased driving distance to delivery hospitals has been consistently linked to worse maternal and neonatal outcomes, challenging the assumption that rural patients can reliably absorb long travel burdens. Equality affirms that services exist. Justice evaluates how proximity and availability shape patient safety and wellbeing.

Stigma and Social Realities

Legal recognition does not automatically produce social acceptance. Fear of judgment, cultural pressures, workplace risks, and community attitudes can profoundly shape how safe individuals feel seeking care.

Justice demands that responsibility for addressing barriers does not fall disproportionately on patients. As researchers have noted, placing the onus on individuals to report problematic interactions to regulatory bodies adds “an arduous, unnecessary step to a group that is already faced with self-advocacy in the face of stigma.

Healthcare systems do not interact with all individuals in identical ways. Youth navigating confidentiality, disabled individuals facing accessibility challenges, low-income patients managing financial strain, newcomers encountering unfamiliar systems, and gender-diverse individuals seeking inclusive care may each encounter distinct barriers.

Access to information represents another critical dimension of justice. A 2025 study examining perceptions of contraceptive decision-making found that while most respondents felt adequately informed, a meaningful proportion did not or were unsure. Researchers emphasized that “access to information is especially important in the context of personal, politicized, and stigmatized issues, such as contraception.”

A person-centered approach prioritizes the values, preferences, and experiences of individuals. Equality assumes that information is uniformly distributed. Justice recognizes that marginalized groups often have lower access to accurate, comprehensive counselling.

Why This Matters in Southern Alberta

In Southern Alberta, patients continue to navigate a healthcare landscape shaped by travel requirements, provider limitations, delays, and privacy considerations. These challenges are not abstract policy concerns but lived realities that influence how rights function in practice.

A fully integrated reproductive healthcare clinic in Lethbridge would not alter the status of abortion. It would alter the conditions under which that right is exercised. It would reduce travel burdens, improve continuity of care, enhance privacy, and mitigate financial strain. Equality already exists. Greater justice remains the goal.

Social Justice Happens at the Community Level

World Day of Social Justice invites reflection on how systems distribute opportunity, reduce harm, and address structural realities. Social justice is not solely concerned with whether rights are formally recognized. It is concerned with whether those rights are meaningfully accessible.

Pro-Choice YQL’s work is grounded in the understanding that accessible healthcare is a social justice issue. Building a full-service reproductive healthcare clinic in Lethbridge is not about expanding legality but about narrowing inequity. It is about aligning rights with infrastructure and autonomy with access.

Supporting this initiative represents a tangible investment in accessibility, dignity, and patient-centered care in Southern Alberta.

Support the Future of Reproductive Healthcare

By supporting Pro-Choice YQL’s full-service clinic initiative, you are helping remove barriers that keep people traveling long distances, navigating stigma, and fighting for care that should be theirs by right.

Your contribution directly funds accessible services, privacy-protecting spaces, and a local healthcare infrastructure where rights meet reality.

Join us in making reproductive justice real.