Last week, my province made national headlines when it was announced that the Morgentaler clinic, our one and only private abortion provider, will be closing its doors in July due to lack of funding.
I live in New Brunswick, a small province on Canada’s East Coast. We have a population of about 750,000, and a Conservative government. Historically though, it hasn’t mattered whether the Liberals or the Conservatives were in power; all of our premiers have failed to follow one particular law.
Just to go back in time for an extremely brief history lesson, 26 years ago a Supreme Court of Canada ruling decriminalized abortion in this country. The ruling states that legal restrictions on abortion are in violation of a woman’s charter rights. According to section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: “Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and the security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.” But 26 years later, New Brunswickers still face all kinds of restrictions when it comes to obtaining this basic medical procedure.
Up to now, there have been two ways for New Brunswick women to obtain an abortion. The first option is to find two doctors willing to deem the procedure “medically necessary.” This is a really weird, really stupid, really subjective phrase, and it’s never even been properly defined. The term comes from Regulation 84-20, Schedule 2 (a.1) of New Brunswick’s Medical Services Payment act, and it makes it impossible for a woman to access an abortion covered by provincial healthcare unless she can find two doctors who will say it’s OK.
So, step one: find two, pro-choice doctors. Of course, more than 60,000 people in New Brunswick don’t even have a single family doctor due to an extreme shortage of physicians in the province. If you are lucky enough to have one, you’d better hope he or she is pro-choice, because otherwise you’re starting from square one. Keep in mind, this is a province where certain family doctors are so conservative that they refuse to prescribe birth control.
But let’s say you find two doctors willing to put in writing that an abortion is “medically necessary.” The next step is to go on a waiting list to have the procedure done in one of only two New Brunswick cities. While abortions are a simple, routine procedure that can be performed by a family physician in other provinces, here, they can only be performed by a specialist in a hospital setting.
The other option (for now) had been to go to the Morgentaler clinic in the capital city of Fredericton. This private clinic opened in 1994, and provides abortions at a cost of $700-850, a cost that is not covered by Medicare, and which must be paid out of pocket. Women who don’t live in the city must also, of course, find a way to get to Fredericton. The clinic ALSO serves women living on Prince Edward Island, where abortions are not performed at all.
Read more The State of Abortion Access in New Brunswick at The Toast.
