The 2024 Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues Honouree: The Women’s Health Clinic
With reproductive rights being a central issue in the upcoming US election, the work of the Women’s Health Clinic (WHC) in Manitoba highlights the fragility of the hard-fought gains in women’s reproductive rights and freedoms. Right here at home, women and gender-diverse individuals still have a long way to go to fully realize these rights and freedoms. Thankfully, the WHC has a strong track record of advocating for and making progress on these human rights. It is our hope that by shining a light on the Women’s Health Clinic and those who work there, CCPA can help support and accelerate the achievement of these goals.
The Women’s Health Clinic (WHC) is an intersectional feminist community health centre with a long history of activism in Manitoba. Each year, the WHC serves around 50,000 women, girls, transgender individuals, Two-Spirit people, and non-binary individuals in our community and has done this work for over 40 years. The WHC originated as a volunteer-led program called the “Pregnancy Information Service” in 1973 based at Klinic Community Health Centre. It emerged as the Women’s Health Clinic in 1981 with a vision of a unique health clinic to provide pro-choice, women-centred medical care, health education, counselling, and advocacy. The WHC continues to offer this range of services and more. Many clients face barriers to care and require additional assistance.
As an intersectional feminist health clinic, the WHC operates with a holistic, women-centred philosophy. It challenges the male-centric Western medical model and recognizes that “patients” are experts in their own lives, deserving recognition and celebration.
Like many young people in Manitoba, my experience with the Women’s Health Clinic began as a client in the teen drop-in clinic. I remember how welcoming and non-judgmental the service was. Later, I applied to become a volunteer unplanned pregnancy and birth control counsellor. Extensive training is provided to young women and gender-diverse individuals in peer counselling and services, delivered in a peer-to-peer model. Important and accurate information on birth control and unplanned pregnancies is shared alongside consciousness-raising efforts with thousands of clients and volunteers involved in this program each year.
The Women’s Health Clinic has been at the forefront of progressive initiatives for years. For example, its feminist intersectional lens helped to develop the Provincial Midwifery program here in Manitoba, resulting in the proclamation of the Midwifery Act in 2000. Most recently, the WHC played a critical role in establishing a Bachelor of Midwifery program at the University of Manitoba, enabling future midwives can train in the province and meet the huge demand for these essential services.
Midwifery services are a driving force at the birthing centre. After decades of community advocacy, the WHC opened Manitoba’s first birth centre in partnership with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, providing midwifery-led alternatives to hospital births. In 2021, WHC worked with an Indigenous Elder and was gifted a name for the birthing centre, Ode’imin (ooh-day-min), the Ojibwa word for strawberry, “where new life comes from.” Ode’imin hosted 6,933 client visits with midwives in the 2023/2024 year. This centre is one example of how the WHC is working to Indigenize its services, guided by Elders and a Kokum’s Circle.
The WHC offers a full range of reproductive services crucial for women and
gender-diverse individuals to achieve reproductive rights and rectify reproductive inequities. It is the largest abortion provider in the province and the only community clinic in Manitoba to provide both medication and surgical abortions; women from across Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Nunavut come to the WHC to access abortion care. The WHC has also provided access to abortion services for women coming from the US long before Roe versus Wade fell. Access to abortions care is not equal, having to travel to access an abortion creates huge barriers for women seeking care —women travelling to Winnipeg must pay for their own travel, accommodations, and other expenses.
The WHC was among the organizations advocating for access to free birth control and applauded the Province of Manitoba’s decision to provide it. The WHC continues to push for equitable access to birth control, advocating, for instance, for free condoms and the morning-after pill. By adopting a harm-reduction approach, the WHC has highlighted in the media that individuals experiencing homelessness may not have a doctor or the means to obtain prescriptions and thus struggle to access the recently announced free birth control.
The work of the WHC is inherently political, as feminist activists strive to ensure women have access to a full range of reproductive and medical health care. The WHC also operates one of only two publicly funded eating disorder programs in the province, runs the sole infant loss program, and provides support for postpartum depression, filling important service gaps in our region.
Taking a harm approach has always been central to WHC’s model of care. The WHC advocates for reproductive care and overall wellness for our clients and community, whether that is giving out free birth control, free condoms or clean needles, or supporting a safe consumption site in downtown Winnipeg. In the meantime, WHC serves as a safe space for people in the downtown area to seek services and support. The WHC further advocates for individuals without a Manitoba Health Card, who cannot access Universal Health Services, particularly vulnerable refugee, newcomer and migrant women.
Recently, however, the WHC had to turn to crowdfunding for a number of capital upgrades, including ultrasound machines, equipment to provide abortion and birthing care. The WHC’s need for capital improvements and a full building redevelopment is a commitment of the Manitoba government; however, the WHC is still waiting for this funding to materialize. The WHC cannot wait any longer – their services are important and needed.
The services offered by the WHC are essential for promoting reproductive rights and health equity in Manitoba. By honouring the work of WHC, more progressives can learn about and advocate for reproductive rights and mental health services for all who need them.
Molly McCracken is the Manitoba Director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
