NDP tries to make abortion B.C. election issue, Conservatives push back

Ahead of next month’s provincial election, the BC NDP is claiming the BC Conservatives – if elected – will reduce access to abortion and support for other reproductive health services if elected.

Women’s reproductive health has been a major focus of the NDP government from funding birth control and abortion pills, to promising one round of IVF treatment per family starting next year.

Premier David Eby was quick to highlight his government’s approach during a pre-campaign event in Victoria on Tuesday.

“We were the first province to make birth control free,” Eby said. “We’ve had hundreds of thousands of British Columbians take advantage of that, saving about $10,000 over a lifetime. [People are] able to access prescription birth control now through a pharmacist if they don’t have a family doctor.”

And after Eby rattled off his government’s progress on the reproductive health file, he went on the offense against BC Conservative Leader John Rustad, outlining his assessment of what could happen if the NDP loses power after October’s vote.

“It’s fairly safe to say that if he is at best ambivalent about reproductive freedom and at worst hostile to it, that women’s access to abortion, women’s access to free birth control, is on the ballot this election, just like it is in the United States, just like it has been in other provinces in Canada,” Eby said at the event.

Rustad responded to Eby’s attack with a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Under a BC Conservative government, access to abortion, contraception and other items will remain exactly as it is now,” Rustad wrote. “There will be no changes. David Eby insists on using the oldest, dirtiest campaign tricks in the book, let me be absolutely clear,” he wrote.

“David Eby’s lying will not distract from his governments disastrous policies.”

Conservative party spokesperson Anthony Koch weighed in on X as well, writing, “[t]he people who never shut up about the importation of ‘American style politics’ do nothing other than import American political issues.

“This is a fake issue that the Canadian left brings up every election cycle at every level without fail.”

CTV requested an interview with Rustad, with the aim of clarifying whether funding for abortion and reproductive health services would remain stable under a conservative government.

A party staff member said the BC Conservatives had no further comment, simply directing a reporter to Rustad’s social media post.

The NDP has highlighted various social media posts from Conservative candidates in the pre-campaign period. On the issue of abortion on Tuesday, Eby referenced a 2022 post from Damien Scrase, a candidate who Rustad ultimately dropped, without naming him directly, in which Scrase wrote, “The most feverishly defended ‘right’ in this country is the right to kill babies. You will never see a Canadian get more animated by any other issue. It’s a bizarre sclerotic death worshiping society.”