The Obstetric Justice Project is a patient advocacy platform bringing attention to obstetric violence across Canada.
MISSION To provide a platform for stories to be widely shared, centring the voices of those who have first-hand experiences in the healthcare system.
To share resources for taking action against obstetric violence in our communities.
To educate the public - including patients and healthcare providers - about obstetric violence in Canada and the need for a massive shift in policy, culture, and accountability in perinatal and reproductive healthcare.
To highlight community stories, research, and news related to the global movement for obstetric justice.
PURPOSE Obstetric Violence is a worldwide problem, and a daily reality in Canada. The myth runs deep that these systemic injustices exist far from home. We see troubling statistics and stories from similar high-resource Western countries, but there is less research and content grounded in the Canadian context.
This initiative exists, in part, to fill this gap - to build a public body of evidence of obstetric and reproductive violence in Canada.
It's clear the lack of respectful, inclusive, rights-based reproductive healthcare affects patients across sociodemographic lines. Obstetric violence is a risk to all pregnant and birthing people.
However, research has shown that those who face bias, stigma, and discrimination in society experience obstetric violence at higher rates. For example: Indigenous, Black, and racialized people, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, young pregnant people, incarcerated and criminalized folks, those living on low incomes, people with disabilities or neurodivergence, those whose first language is not that of their care providers, people with diverse gender expression or presentation or less conventional family structures, fat folks, sex workers, people with mental health or trauma histories, those with limited choices and access in rural, remote, and Northern communities - and many others.
Extensive research has shown, time and again, that racialized people lack access to culturally safe care; facing the ongoing weathering effects of systemic racism, implicit bias and overt discrimination from healthcare providers and health systems, and experiencing higher rates of complications and infant/maternal mortality as a result.
The effect of settler-colonial violence on the reproductive health and rights of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis communities in Canada are omnipresent. From the intergenerational impacts of genocide, residential schools and segregated Indian hospitals, to ongoing involuntary sterilizations, lack of access to safe housing and clean drinking water, forced medical evacuation for childbirth, to birth alerts and high rates of Indigenous children in state care across the country.
Barriers persist for 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals and families seeking out and accessing quality care. From government policies limiting how fertility care is funded, to the most basic search for providers and care settings that are inclusive and affirming. Safe reproductive and birth-related spaces are still scarce in most communities.
The Obstetric Justice Project is one small piece of a wider multidisciplinary movement for reproductive justice; to bring attention to the policies and culture within our medical systems, and society at large, that perpetuate inequity, injustice, and trauma for pregnant and birthing folks at every stage of our reproductive lives.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Obstetric Justice Project is based in Tkaronto (Toronto), Treaty 13 Territory, in so-called Canada. This land is the territory of the Wendat, Anishinaabek, and Haudenosaunee.
The Project began in 2017 as “The Reproductive Justice Story Project”.
Obstetric violence is a term coined by Venezuelan activists in the early/mid-2000s. Reproductive justice is a term coined by a group of Black American activists in the 1990s.
NOTE TO SCHOLARS Academics, students, and other researchers: please note this website is not your data set!
The individuals who have bravely and generously shared their stories on the Community Story Blog have described grave violations of their autonomy and consent. Appropriating the stories of obstetric violence survivors without their consent is irresponsible and unacceptable, regardless of what your Research Ethics Board may say about publicly available materials. Please give folks the agency to choose whether or not to be part of your external research.
