30/10/2025
Today, I was honoured to be named among the top 100 Canada’s Most Powerful Women. This is a very humbling recognition, and when I reflect on the work that has brought me here, I know the spotlight does not belong to me alone. It also belongs to the incredible Women on Web team, who every year support thousands of people in accessing safe, self-managed abortions and in doing so, support change countless lives.
We talk a lot about power at Women on Web – about how we want to transfer power from institutional medical systems to abortion seekers and how every person deserves power over their own body and that autonomy and decision-making must always remain in their hands.
At the same time, we have also been reflecting on how power operates within Women on Web – how we use it to influence, challenge and how we choose to share it. We have questioned the hierarchies it produces and how these hierarchies privilege certain voices over others.
These reflections have led us to pursue changes internally too, re-articulating our role as abortion providers to trust, support, and create pathways where systems and hierarchies have built barriers for abortion seekers.
We have also re-defined our work with our medical team, removing the role of medical director from our structure and allowing a more horizontal and collaborative relationship with our medical team that today represents more diverse voices and perspectives than before.
Finally, and as important ongoing work, we are committed to finding ways to empower our help desk to operate more autonomously through democratizing the information people need when self-managing their own abortions or supporting someone else through one. We see this as an essential part of our commitment to share power and demedicalize abortion care.
But sharing power is not simple or easy, especially when many of us have been taught to operate within and accept hierarchical systems that elevate powerful individuals and heroes over collectives and networks. Having power also doesn’t make a person or an organization a leader – and, in fact some of the most transformative voices in our movement are often not the loudest ones or receiving awards.
Today’s world also does not encourage us to share power and resources. But power is not meant to be held; it’s meant to be shared. Global funding cuts and the volatility of our societies are urging us to hold tightly to what we have and protect it. We must resist that instinct, because now, more than ever, we need to share resources and build solidarity across movements.
I accept this recognition with deep gratitude and with renewed motivation to use this new platform to challenge power and keep the focus on collective power, to amplify quieter voices, and to support build a future of reproductive justice where everyone’s power is recognized and honoured.
In solidarity,
Venny Ala-Siurua
Executive Director of Women on Web
