Critics of the Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre (SPOC) demand that abortion be promoted at the expense of actually helping women.

Saskatoon, SK – The University of Saskatchewan college of medicine is facing pressure to cease allowing non-medical placements at the centre despite the good work they do. The non-medical placements at issue are part of the community and workplace centred learning experience module. Helping pregnant women in the community fits with that goal. The Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre offers free support and resources to pregnant mothers. After 10 years of non-medical placements, the reason against the centre is merely because they hope that women will choose to protect the life of their child.

The centre does nothing, nor could do anything, to prevent women from having abortions, but provides practical support for those seeking to choose other options. “The backlash against these non-medical placements at the Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre is coming from an insistence that abortion as a choice must always and unconditionally be promoted. This is not about helping women, this is about promoting abortion,” explained Tabitha Ewert legal counsel for the national pro-life campaign We Need a Law. “Women are free to choose to parent or to give their child up for adoption. What is wrong with an organization that wants to come alongside women making those choices? The good work they do should not be hindered simply because they don’t promote abortion.”

Some critics have pointed to the fact that this pregnancy resource centre also offers post-abortion counselling as a problem. “The reality is some women don’t regret their abortion and others do. Some struggle to process their experience and seek help from places like the Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre.  We should not ignore or erase the experience of these women. We should allow for a diverse response to the sensitive experience of abortion.” Ewert explained.

The Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre does good work. “Women freely walk into the Saskatoon Pregnancy Options Centre and are able to have free pregnancy tests, gain information, and receive support. The fact that some people want only to promote abortion should not detract from the real good that this centre does in their community.”