CanWaCH delegation at ICFP 2025: Five questions with Colleen Dockerty

Hosted in Bogotá, Colombia, the 2025 International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP) saw the global community gather from November 3 to 6 to share knowledge, strengthen partnerships, and drive global progress to sexual and reproductive health and rights and gender equality. CanWaCH was pleased to join the conference and support the attendance of youth and delegates from organizations across our membership. The following Q&A is part of a series of interviews with members of the CanWaCH delegation. Read all of the delegation’s insights on Write to Thrive.

Why did you want to attend ICFP 2025?  What drew you to being part of the CanWaCH delegation?

I wanted to attend ICFP 2025 to be surrounded by the collective energy, passion, and expertise of people advancing access to contraception and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) around the world. This conference brings together thousands of activists, advocates, programme implementers, researchers, policy makers, NGOs and governments from more than 100 countries. I wanted to learn from the most recent trends, research, innovations, and best practices, and connect with others who feel the same commitment to sexual and reproductive health and rights. 

Being part of the CanWaCH delegation was especially important. Canada’s SRHR community is small, but powerful. I wanted to build deeper connections, learn from peers, strengthen collaboration, and contribute to a more coordinated, collective voice of Canadians promoting SRHR for all.

What was a moment at ICFP 2025 that made you stop and think differently about an issue? Did you hear a perspective that challenged your assumptions or changed your mind?

The repeated focus on self-managed abortion helped me think differently. Self-managed abortion is when people who want an abortion take medicine to safely terminate a pregnancy at home, or another comfortable space, with the right information and support – without being in a health facility or directly observed by a health care provider. This places the control directly in the hands of the person seeking care. 

Health systems need to acknowledge what makes access to safe abortion challenging: fear of stigma, lack of privacy, bureaucratic hurdles, and, in some cases, legal restrictions. While health systems may resist and gatekeep, they need to relinquish control. People are already taking control of their health. Feminist activists around the world, particularly acompañantes in Latin America, are fighting for and creating access to self-managed abortion, whether or not the legal and health systems support them. This challenged my assumptions about who drives change. 

Programmes showcased how they are working to promote access to safe self-managed abortion. Digital health platforms and hotlines are being set up, and networks of community members are being trained to support their friends to access abortion medicine safely from pharmacies, with information from reliable sources on how to use it. 

It made clear that health systems must follow the lead of feminist movements, not the other way around.

If you had to describe ICFP 2025 in three words, what would they be?

Inspiring. Expansive. Global.

If you had one quote from a panel or session you could stick on the back of your computer or phone, what would it be?

“Abortion is safer than Viagra and Tylenol, and should be more — not less — accessible than these medications.” Dr. Rebecca Gomparts, Founder of Women on Web

What surprised you most during your time at the conference?

A surprising finding came from a study on abortion practices amongst refugees in Uganda. The study highlighted that women often resort to unsafe abortion and called for improving access to safe abortion in humanitarian settings. The study revealed that many women used traditional herbs to end pregnancies — and these methods are often successful in ending their pregnancies (however, with potential complications). This challenges assumptions that traditional herbs are ineffective. 

While there is limited research on the effectiveness and safety of traditional herbs, this study highlighted the long history of people taking fertility control into their own hands. 

It pointed to the potential effectiveness of traditional herbs, but the need for further research on which herbs are used, how they work, and whether they are safe and effective methods of abortion. 

It also raised an important opportunity – to work with traditional herbalists and traditional healers who are already trusted sources of support for people seeking out abortion. They could provide reliable information and connect people with safe abortion medication. This could strengthen community-based access to safe abortion in humanitarian settings.

Connect with Colleen on LinkedIn!