Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Aug:124:110079.
doi: 10.1016/j.contraception.2023.110079. Epub 2023 May 26.

Distance between institutions of incarceration and procedural abortion facilities in Canada

Martha Paynter  1 , Clare Heggie  2
Affiliations

Distance between institutions of incarceration and procedural abortion facilities in Canada

Martha Paynter et al. Contraception. 2023 Aug.

Abstract

Objectives: People incarcerated in facilities for women and girls face barriers to accessing abortion, including unclear legislation, operational procedures, and distance. While medication abortion could mitigate distance barriers, prison is not a hospitable environment for medication abortion. Considering this limitation, this paper aimed to identify the distance from institutions of incarceration designated for women and girls to procedural abortion facilities in Canada.

Study design: This study builds on an inventory of the 67 institutions of incarceration designated for women and girls across 13 provinces and territories in Canada, previously created by the authors. Procedural abortion facilities were identified using publicly available directories. Distances were calculated using Google Maps. The closest procedural abortion facility was identified for each institution, as well as the gestational age limit of each facility.

Results: Of the 67 institutions, 23 (34%) were located 0 to 10km from a procedural abortion facility. Fourteen (21%) were located 10.1 to 20km away. Ten (15%) were located 20.1 to 100km away. Eleven were located 100.1 to 300km away (16%). The remaining 9 (13%) were located between 300.1 and 738km away. Distances ranged from 0.1 to 738km. The greatest distances were among institutions in northern Canada.

Conclusions: This paper identified a large range of distances between institutions of incarceration and procedural abortion facilities in Canada. Physical distance is only one measure of accessibility of abortion services. For incarcerated people, contextual factors including carceral policies and procedures present barriers to care, with significant impact on health equity.

Implications: Distance between carceral institutions and procedural abortion facilities reduces equitable access to reproductive health services for incarcerated populations. Pregnant people should be protected from imprisonment to ensure reproductive autonomy.

Keywords: Abortion; Health equity; Prisons; Reproductive health; Spatial analysis.

PubMed Disclaimer

LinkOut - more resources