The war waged by political reactionaries and pro-life advocates against Planned Parenthood in the United States is widely known. I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, and the undercover videos attempting to show the organization in a bad light are only the latest in a longstanding campaign. Planned Parenthood, which provides health care to millions of American women, has been under threat for years. It has always fought back.
What is less well known is that Canadian sexual health clinics, which offer many of the same vital services as their U.S. counterpart (but not abortions), are under similar threat. Earlier this month a group of Canadian sexual health clinics got together to talk about the increasingly difficult obstacles they face, from cuts in funding to harassment by anti-choice opponents to donors who are suddenly spooked by the Planned Parenthood controversy south of the border.
Many of the clinics in Canada have long since dropped Planned Parenthood from their names, and even the ones that proudly maintain the title aren’t officially tied to the outfit in the U.S. But still the stigma remains, and many are struggling. Some have cut services; some have closed, or fear they will have to.