A New Brunswick group's striking success in making access to abortion a key provincial issue.

Series:

Talking Radical Radio

  » # Episodes: 423
  » Most Recent: 26 Jul, 2022
  » Website: http://talkingradical.ca/radio/

Length: 0:28:16
Uploaded: 1 Oct, 2014

Recording Date: 20 Sep, 2014
Recording Location: Skype-to-phone between Sudbury, ON, and Fredericton, NB.
Logsheet: none
Language: English
Topical for: 1 Year
Status: Complete, Ready to Air
Copyright:
Talking Radical Radio by Scott Neigh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Program Title: Meet the group that put abortion access back on the New Brunswick agenda
Description: On this week's episode of Talking Radical Radio, Kathleen Pye talks about the rapid formation and growth of the group Reproductive Justice New Brunswick, and their success in putting access to abortion on the agenda in the province's recent provincial election in a way that has not happened in many years, if ever.

New Brunswick has been, for a long time, among the most restrictive jurisdictions in the country in terms of access to abortion -- restrictive because of provincial regulations that placed greater burdens on people needing the procedure than in most other places, because of a very limited number of locations to get the procedure done, and because of a broader culture that has been less supportive of women's right to choose than some other parts of the country. Early in 2014, the only site to access the procedure in Fredericton (and one of the few in the province as a whole) closed, spurring feminists and allies to action.

Along with intensive strategizing about how to open a new clinic -- with a new and more sustainable model of operating -- the group has been very focused on winning a repeal to the highly restrictive regulations that have been in place in New Brunswick since the 1990s. A major element in their strategy for doing so was doing everything they could to put access to abortion front and centre in public discussions in the recent provincial election -- something they were remarkably successful in doing. This interview was recorded a few days before the September 22nd victory of the pro-choice (albeit somewhat vague) Liberals over the incumbent Conservatives. In the interview, Pye talks about the kinds of restrictions that exist in New Brunswick, about the intense scramble of activity by feminists since the closure of the clinic, and about the significant steps they have already made in advancing reproductive health and reproductive justice in New Brunswick.

To learn more about Reproductive Justice New Brunswick, click here: http://rjnb.org.

Host(s): Scott Neigh
Featured Speakers/Guests: Kathleen Pye

Credits: Hosted and produced by Scott Neigh.

Comments: