Abortion access project lights fire in health grad student

Willow Paul had planned to work in Indigenous child welfare when she finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of Victoria.

A queer Gitxsan woman who grew up in Kelowna on unceded Syilx territory, Paul had never given graduate school much thought. 

“Research was not on my radar,” Paul says.

But serendipity—and a supportive mentor—changed her career path.

During her third year of a Bachelor of Social Work at UVic, Paul applied for a research assistant position with Renée Monchalin, an assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Social Policy.

Eventually, Paul started working with Monchalin on an infographic about abortion services for Indigenous peoples in Canada. The topic lit a fire in Paul.

“That was my first introduction into anything about abortion access,” Paul says. “I told her I was really passionate about reproductive justice.”

Working to remove barriers

The infographic sowed the seeds for what has evolved into the Fireweed Project, a community-led initiative that aims to improve supports and remove barriers to abortion services for Indigenous Women, Two-Spirit, and LGBTQIA+ People in Canada. 

The UVic-based research project, led by Monchalin, who is Métis, and Astrid Pérez Piñán, an assistant professor in the School of Public Administration, initially received a UVic Collaborative Health Grant for a small pilot study with 15 Indigenous community members.

The research team received responses from dozens of people who wanted to talk about their experiences accessing abortions, which led the researchers to apply for and secure a $448,000 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant to expand the project.

“It was really evident people were hungry for this work,” Paul says. “It was filling a gap in the literature about abortion access for Indigenous people. It was also starting a conversation that’s typically silenced.”

The exploratory study showed that although abortion is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the federal Canada Health Act, access to abortion is not equitable, with services and supports varying widely between provinces and territories, as well as rural, remote and urban areas.  

The Fireweed Project

The Fireweed Project created an opportunity for Paul to continue with her studies. Monchalin encouraged Paul to apply to graduate school so she could continue with the research, an idea that Paul initially wasn’t interested in.

“I never thought I was smart enough to do grad school,” she says. “I had no idea what I was doing in terms of the academic ivory tower. But it fell together in a serendipitous way so I couldn’t pass the opportunity up.”

Now Paul wears two hats: as a research manager, coordinating day-to-day duties associated with the Fireweed Project; and as a master’s student in the interdisciplinary Social Dimensions of Health program. 

Her thesis, which focuses on post-abortion support, is nested within the Fireweed Project. Paul has taken a subset of the project’s data—40 interviews with Indigenous folks who have accessed abortions —to develop recommendations on how to improve supports for Indigenous people in a wholistic way. 

Her findings will help inform abortion support kits that will be sent to Indigenous people through partner organizations in the project.

In the winter, about 250 kits will be sent out, with items such as bleeding supplies, a hot water bottle, tea from an Indigenous tea company, and soap made with fireweed, a traditional medicine once used to aid abortions. 

“It feels like such an important time in someone’s life for them to feel loved and cared for by their communities,” Paul says. “The support kits are our tangible way of meeting some of these needs for community members in addition to the work that we’re doing for policy and all those bigger structural changes we lobby for.” 

Recently, Paul joined other Fireweed Project team members to gift 70 blankets, designed by W̱SÁNEĆ artist Sarah Jim and manufactured by the Seattle-based Indigenous company Eighth Generation, to study participants and partner organizations. The blankets are a thank you to participants for sharing their rich stories, which will support the researchers’ goals of creating better reproductive health services for Indigenous people.

“For a lot of folks, it was the first time they shared their story,” Paul says. “It’s encouraging to hear how much [this research] matters.”

Paul will complete her thesis and master’s studies at the end of the year, and she hopes to continue researching sexual and reproductive health for Indigenous communities. She says if it wasn’t for Monchalin’s encouragement and support, she wouldn’t have gone to grad school.

She encourages Indigenous students to connect with Indigenous professors if they’re interested in graduate school.

“It means everything having somebody help you out and show you the way,” Paul says.

For 50+ years, UVic has been leading the way in unique health and wellness programs including health informatics, psychology, social work, exercise science, nursing, medicine and more. UVic’s new Faculty of Health is positioned to respond to pressing local and global health challenges in new ways through our research, teaching and training strengths, as well as integrate Indigenous ways of knowing and scholarship into health and wellness. From practice to practitioner, we combine hands-on practicums, community-engaged learning, cutting-edge primary care and human health programs. UVic.ca/health