Why don't we call more abortion clinics 'abortion clinics'? Language matters, advocates say

Women's Clinic. Choice in Health Clinic. Woman's Health Options.

What do these clinics have in common? They all offer abortion services, although it may not be obvious from the names, and advocates say the names themselves may exclude some of those who need help. 

But now, there's a movement within abortion care to be more mindful of the language they use — whether that's to be more inclusive, or drop the euphemisms and be more forthright. 

"I think it's very important to be very clear about what we're doing," said Martha Paynter, an assistant professor in the faculty of nursing at the University of New Brunswick and author of Abortion to Abolition: Reproductive Health and Justice in Canada.

"We have allowed the anti-choice movement to dominate a lot of our language and our conversations about what abortion is. And it's really necessary and timely for those of us who work in this care to be doing education about the facts, and support the public to come along in their understanding."

The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada lists 76 clinics in Canada (both in communities and within hospitals) that perform abortions, although it doesn't include every single hospital that offers them. Of those clinics, only four — three in Ontario and one in Quebec — had "abortion" or "pregnancy termination" in the name.

There were many variations on "women's health," and some that mentioned "wellness," and "choices," but very few names actually make clear the medical procedure being offered.

In a 2021 online guide, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called for more "abortion-forward language," or in other words, calling abortion "abortion," as opposed to using euphemisms like "women's health care" or "reproductive choice."

"Using euphemisms for the word abortion gives opposition control over the narrative," the ACLU noted.

This call is also reflected in the #SayAbortion hashtag, which was a 2019 campaign by Planned Parenthood and still used by advocates today.

So why don't we just say "abortion clinic?" Part of it is abortion's fraught history. Many of Canada's abortion clinics were established just after 1988, when the Supreme Court decided in R. vs. Morgentaler that a law that criminalized abortion was unconstitutional, Paynter explained.

There were three non-fatal attacks on abortion providers in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Hamilton in the 1990s. In 1992, Dr. Henry Morgentaler's Toronto clinic was firebombed. In the U.S., abortion clinics became targets for violent extremists, and some doctors who provided abortions were attacked and killed in their homes.

"There was still a lot of stigma as well as safety concerns about offering abortion care," said Jill Doctoroff, the executive director of National Abortion Federation Canada.

Doctoroff says there's also an issue of confidentiality. She used to work in a clinic that didn't have abortion in its name, and that clinic would sometimes need to provide medical notes as a requirement for a patient's work or school. Not having "abortion" in the clinic name would protect their privacy, she said, noting the same was true for referrals.