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Faculty of Health

Grant for culturally safe abortion support hotline

4 indigenous women wrapped in blankets

Renée Monchalin envisions a day when Indigenous women, Two-Spirit and LGBTQIA+ people in Canada can pick up a phone and call an auntie for abortion support and wraparound care.

Monchalin, a Métis scholar and assistant professor in UVic’s School of Public Health and Social Policy (PHSP), is one step closer to making that goal a reality with a $1.9 million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).   

The grant will enable Monchalin to team with community-led organizations, including Call Auntie/Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto and the ekw'í7tl doula collective, to develop a culturally safe abortion support hotline. 

The research team, which includes UVic scholars Monique Auger, an assistant professor in PHSP, and Astrid Vanessa Pérez Piñán, an associate professor in the School of Public Administration, to assess the hotline’s effectiveness and develop a cultural safety credential module for abortion providers.

The CIHR grant builds on research findings from the Fireweed Project, a three-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded study that found Indigenous people face multiple barriers to abortion access including logistical challenges, reproductive coercion and systemic racism.

“Our research confirmed that abortion is common in Indigenous communities,” Monchalin says. “However, stigma is rampant. A lot of people think they’re isolated in this experience.”

Monchalin says the abortion support hotline will help turn the Fireweed Project’s research findings into action, helping deliver more equitable reproductive access support and wraparound care to Indigenous people.

“Indigenous abortion seekers and providers working with Indigenous communities have communicated to us the critical and urgent need for abortion access support and services that are culturally safe, stigma-free, and accessible.”

Monchalin says the hotline will take some time to establish, but hopes people will be able to call it within a couple of years.

From left: A photo depicts four members of the Fireweed Project, Madison Wells, Willow Paul, Astrid Vanessa Pérez Piñán and Renée Monchalin, wrapped in pink and white blankets depicting fireweed. The blankets were designed and manufactured by Indigenous artists.