The Liberal government on Tuesday introduced legislation to require charities that offer pregnancy counselling to disclose whether they also offer abortion and birth control or referral to these services.
If passed, organizations that don’t clearly disclose their services would be at risk of losing their charitable status, according to the legislation announced by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and other cabinet ministers.
“Far too often, women across Canada seeking birth control and abortion care face judgment, they face misinformation and fear tactics, when all they really need are clear answers and compassionate support,” said Women and Gender Equality Minister Marci Ien, who tabled the legislation.
“No matter how someone gets into that room, whatever life events led them there, they deserve evidence-based information — and frankly, they deserve respect.”
Pregnancy counselling services often advertise themselves as places where women facing an unplanned pregnancy can get guidance on the options available to them.
They are sometimes referred to in Canada and the U.S. as “crisis pregnancy centres.”
But Ien said those women are often met with “organizations imposing their anti-choice convictions on them,” and seek to convince clients to keep their pregnancies.
The organizations in question often state they are guided by Christian principles and tend to only mention abortion in a negative light. Some of them offer resources for adoption and foster care.
Many are registered charities with the Canada Revenue Agency, which afford the organizations tax benefits that Freeland said was “wrong” for them to benefit from while denying women complete information or sharing medically incorrect information.
The proposed legislation outlines “specific terms” under which charities would have to disclose if they do not provide abortion care or birth control services, or information about providers for women to seek out.
At a minimum, the charities would have to say whether or not it offers contact information for abortion or birth control services providers to those who request it.
Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights said in a statement the legislation is a “positive step toward safeguarding reproductive rights,” but called for comprehensive sexual education and further government support for community-based sexual and reproductive health care.
Action Canada offers a list of pro-choice counselling services across the country that provide a full range of options to those seeking sexual health and reproductive care, including abortion, as well as a 24/7 access line for people to call and hear about those options.
Meghan Doherty, Action Canada’s co-director of policy and advocacy, told Global News there are hundreds of pregnancy counselling services across Canada, ranging from small rooms to large organizations.
In many communities, she said, those services are the only ones pregnant women may encounter due to gaps in abortion care access and a lack of physical abortion providers.
“They can look like medical clinics, but a lot of them, they’re set up for the purpose of dissuading people from accessing abortion services,” Doherty said.
“We know that from (people who call) our access line … that some people have gone to these places not knowing that they were not going to get all the information, or they were not going to get accurate information, or they were going to be judged or shamed for the choices that they wanted to make.”
The legislation comes at a time when both the Liberal government and the NDP have been putting more attention on abortion access to try and wedge the Conservatives, who have several anti-abortion members of Parliament in their caucus.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has repeatedly said he would not support or introduce any legislation that restricts abortion access.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh intends to introduce a motion on his party’s next opposition day in the House of Commons asking other parties to back a pledge to expand access to abortion in Canada.
Singh said Conservative MPs have moved several “anti-choice” motions, while the Liberals have not done enough to improve abortion access.
Doherty said the Liberal legislation serves as a reminder that “abortion care is still a stigmatized health care service in Canada” that needs to be confronted.
“It sends an important message for young people who understand that they have a right to access the full range of sexual and reproductive health services to which they’re entitled, and also that access to abortion and abortion care is a very normal health care procedure that over-one third of Canadian women will get,” she said.
The political messaging push also comes ahead of the U.S. presidential election, where the issue of abortion has been a dominant one highlighted by Democrats.
Similar organizations in the United States are known as crisis pregnancy centres and have faced backlash and protests from pro-choice activists.
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion two years ago, states that have instituted bans and restrictions on abortion have increased funding for crisis pregnancy centres, which outnumber abortion clinics nationwide.
Some states have diverted federal funding for reproductive and family health care from organizations like Planned Parenthood toward crisis pregnancy centres.
—with files from the Canadian Press