Clear obstacles to accessing the abortion pill

You wouldn’t know that the abortion pill, RU-486, was approved for use by Health Canada way back in July 2015. That’s because of a host of obstacles that have made it almost impossible to access what is marketed as Mi fe gy miso in Canada.

Some of the roadblocks, including initial manufacturing problems, couldn’t be helped. But others must be cleared away quickly so that the 100,000 women who choose to have abortions in Canada each year can do so by taking a simple, safe medication rather than having to travel to a hospital or clinic for a surgical procedure.

On International Women’s Day in Canada in 2017 – 29 long years after the drug first became available in France – it’s long past due.

The first step is for Health Canada to change the approved prescribing process so that pharmacists can dispense the pill. Under current rules only physicians are allowed to dispense it, which means doctors must stock and sell the medicine themselves. Most find that so complicated that they don’t bother with it at all.

It’s so problematic, in fact, that doctors in Ontario and British Columbia have done a workaround by prescribing it in a so-called “off-label” manner – not how it is intended to be used – so that pharmacists can dispense it. That requires a lot of jumping through hoops, something that isn’t required for any other legal prescription drug.

Another roadblock: physicians must complete a sixhour online course before they can prescribe it.

As a result, experts say doctors who take the course and stock the pill tend to be those employed at abortion clinics. And that means women who live in rural areas must still travel long distances to access the pill.

Worse, while surgical abortions are covered under provincial health care plans, the $325 cost of the abortion pill is not. That means many poor women can’t afford it.

An advisory body called the Canadian Drug Expert Committee is currently deciding whether to recommend that provinces cover the cost of the abortion pill. They should.

This is a drug, after all, which is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. And it will save provincial health plans money if women take a pill rather than undergo a more costly abortion.

This is a drug that millions of women in more than 60 countries have safely taken. It’s effective in 95 per cent of all cases. And it can save the one-in-three women in Canada who will have an abortion in their lifetime from having to travel to a hospital or clinic for a surgical procedure.

But for some unknown reason, most Canadian women still can’t get access to it.

It’s high time that changed.