INFORMATION IS EMPOWERING

Canada’s abortion caravan captures headlines as 17 women drive a van from Vancouver to Ottawa, rallying for support for reproductive justice, stopping in Winnipeg along the way. In the van a black coffin is filled with coat hangers; each one representing someone who died from an unsafe abortion. On Parliament Hill, 40 women shut down the House of Commons, chaining themselves in the galley in a demand to recognize women’s right to control their own bodies.

In Winnipeg, medical students and volunteer physicians organize to help local youth and people passing through the city with medical, transportation, and substance-use issues. They offer services through a drop-in centre called Committee Representing Youth Problems Today (CRYPT).

DEFUNDED BUT DETERMINED

The Klinic program is defunded but receives interim funding. From their new location at 567 Broadway, staff negotiates to establish permanent funding. In the fall of 1972, Executive Directors of the newly established Klinic Health Centre at Winnipeg General Outpatient Department were approached by community members laying out the groundwork for a proposed service to make birth control information more available to the public.

BRANCHING OUT

Through a series of grant funding, PIS expands its services into other areas of health education, advocacy and referral. Four years later, PIS becomes incorporated, gains charitable status and elects its first board of directors.

MOVING TO MEET DEMAND

The need and demand for Women’s Health Clinic services is immediate and strong, prompting a move to a larger space at 414 Graham Ave, and is fully funded by Manitoba Health.

teen drop-in gets its start

WHC establishes Teen Drop-In Clinic for young people aged 13-19 to access birth control information and supplies, and general medical services. 

WHC establishes the Birth Control & Unplanned Pregnancy Volunteer Counsellor training program to train volunteers to provide peer-based support and reproductive and sexual health information.

Police raid Dr. Morgentaler’s Winnipeg clinic twice, charging him with seven offenses.

CANADA DECRIMINALIZES ABORTION

In this historic decision, the Supreme Court of Canada determines that abortion care is health care; the medical procedure to terminate pregnancy gains the same legal status as other surgical procedures.  In practice, access to safe abortion care continues to vary across Canadian communities.

GOES TO THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA

In response to an government-mandated order for treatment of a pregnant Indigenous woman who struggled with substance use. WHC joins a coalition that gets intervenor status in the “G-Case” and appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada to argue against forced detention and treatment for pregnant women.

The same year, Women’s Health Clinic receives the Commonwealth Secretariat Award for Excellence in Women’s Health Practice. 

JANE’S CLINIC ADVANCES ABORTION CARE

Morgentaler’s private clinic in Winnipeg closes and women in the community organize to purchase the clinic. Renamed Jane’s Clinic, the facility now operates as a community owned, not-for-profit clinic to provide aspiration abortion services.

When the Province of Manitoba agrees to cover community-based abortion services, in addition to hospital-based services, the abortion services of Jane’s Clinic amalgamates with the spectrum of medical services at Women’s Health Clinic.

After decades of community advocacy, WHC opens the first birth centre in Manitoba in partnership with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, offering midwifery-led alternatives to hospital and home birth.

CELEBRATING CHOICE

WHC hosts Celebrate Choice, an evening of community advocates and speakers, acknowledging 25 years of reproductive choice in Canada.

SHIFTING SEXUAL HEALTH PERSPECTIVES

WHC begins offering Sexual Health Information Facilitator Training (SHiFT), professional development for service providers across Manitoba, focusing on gender- and culturally-diverse audiences.

EXPANDING SERVICES

WHC begins to offer medication abortion services as part of its spectrum of reproductive care.

WHC develops Pregnancy and Infant Loss: A Guide to Coping with Loss, resources for individuals/families and service providers.

Klinic partners with University of Manitoba to provide sexual assault services on campus.

WHC co-organizes panel discussion Rights from the Start: Sexual and Reproductive Health in a National Pharmacare Strategy.

PIVOTING WITH THE PANDEMIC

Controlling our own reproductive health is a basic human right (World Health Organization). The global Covid-19 pandemic prompts responsive collaboration among Manitoba’s health care providers to ensure timely access to sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion care.

WHC expands access to medication abortion outside of Winnipeg, working with the Northern Regional Health Authority and individual nursing stations to train providers and make medication abortion available in more Manitoba communities.