Women in two provinces losing access to abortion

[bluelady]

The Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, NB is closing at the end of July due to lack of funding. The clinic currently serves women in the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Currently, women in New Brunswick have access to free abortions in hospital providing they can find two doctors willing to sign off that the abortion is medically necessary, and they can travel to the one hospital in the one city in which they are performed. This could be up to a 6 hour drive for some. Women in Prince Edward Island have no access to abortion in their home province. The Morgentaler clinic provides services for women who could not, or did not, meet the criteria above (although they do have to pay out of pocket).

New Brunswick is my home province (although I don't live there anymore) and I'm rather ashamed for a number of reasons.

1 - that such backwards thinking exists in a place that I like to call home, and

2 - that I lived there for the first 25 years of my life and never bothered to look outside my own existence to see how some women around me were being treated. It didn't affect me, so I didn't see it.

Here's a link to a petition on change.org (started by a number of students from my alma mater)

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-new ... e_petition

And an article written by a university law professor at a university in Fredericton that outlines not only the history of the Morgentaler clinic, but some of the reproductive issues that women in NB have faced in the last decade (really? A doctor refused birth control to a woman because she was unmarried? That still happens?)

http://ifls.osgoode.yorku.ca/2014/04/nbabortion/

[crazyforkate]

God, this is terrible. For all we crow about Canada's liberal abortion laws, there are HUGE problems with access in this country. And it's only going to get worse, I think.

[acheronbeach]

I'm surprised there's been no Charter challenge to this. After all, it's not just the intent of the law that can be discriminatory, it can also be the effect and implementation.

[Stephanie66]

When did Canada start becoming like the United States?

[acheronbeach]

From what I gather, the decision to close was partly because the demand for abortions has been dropping since Morgentaler. Despite what some of the more coloured stories have portrayed, it's pretty easy to get birth control in New Brunswick, including Plan B over the counter.