While we are looking back at International Women’s Day last Saturday, it felt like a good moment to look back ten years as well.
In 2015, the theme for International Women’s Day was “Celebrating Women – Advocacy, Activism, and Agitation”. Some of the events highlighted during this IWD included the Gulabi Gang film screening, about women’s activism in India, and a public event. The Chairperson’s editorial “Advocacy, Action, and Agitation Still Required” was also published in the Guardian on March 7th.
The Council’s Chairperson at the time was Diane Kays, and it turned out to be her last International Women’s Day. She died unexpectedly three weeks later after a short illness, leaving the Council bereft.
A highlight of International Women’s Day activities in 2015 was a Women’s Wisdom Circle on March 10th led by Becka Viau, exploring access to reproductive health on PEI.
By 2015, abortion care was inaccessible within PEI. The last in-province abortion care was provided in 1982. To access care in 2015, and to receive that care paid for the Province, a pregnant Islander required a referral from a PEI doctor to the QEII hospital in Halifax, but not all PEI doctors were willing to provide referrals. Pregnant people who could, chose to go to private clinics, which could cost upwards of $800 — but, by 2015, the closest clinic, in Fredericton, NB, had been closed for almost a year. Care in either a hospital or a clinic also cost time away from work, travel costs, and other expenses and required that the patient be accompanied, not to mention mental distress.
Beginning in July 2015, three months after International Women’s Day, a deal was struck with the Moncton Hospital in New Brunswick to provide abortion access in hospital, without a doctor’s referral, for Islanders. That was a first step. It wasn’t until 2017 that abortion care was fully repatriated to PEI and became available at the Prince County Hospital in Summerside. This outcome was the result of 35 years of advocacy, activism, and agitation, in the fight for abortion access for all islanders.
Last week also came the victory for women and gender diverse people’s reproductive health, in news that PEI’s is now the 3rd province to join the federal government’ s new pharmacare program covering contraceptives, alongside diabetes medications. This was almost unimaginable ten years ago.
Link for more info: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-pharmacare-agreement-federal-provincial-30-million-1.7477759
It is interesting to reflect on past celebrations of IWD, not only to see who was speaking, dancing, or performing, but to reflect on how each event was shaped by the political climate at the time.
