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.
Just last week, along with the announcement that the Morgentaler clinic will be closing, it was revealed that the clinic refused to turn any client away, even if she was unable to afford the $700-plus fee. This means that, over the years, the clinic spent more than $100,000 to pay for pro-bono abortions. Dr. Henry Morgentaler himself, the man responsible for changing federal abortion laws in Canada, spent an additional $100,000 repairing the clinic due to flood damage in 2008. But since Dr. Morgentaler died last year, the clinic can no longer afford to continue operating. Of course, this facility doesn’t receive any government funding as it is in violation of total and complete bullshit Regulation 84-20.
To recap, although Canada is a country where abortion is legal, New Brunswick women must spend massive amounts of time, energy and money in order to get the procedure. And the people who are really affected by this total fucking nightmare are the people who are the most disadvantaged in the first place, people who don’t have the funds or the time or the education or the resources to navigate this impossible system. Those are the people who suffer, and they’re the ones who will be most affected by the closure of the Morgentaler clinic. To further put things in perspective, around 100,000 New Brunswickers are living on or below the poverty line, and the province’s unemployment rate is hovering around 10 per cent. There are a whole lot of people who don’t have the means to travel to a different city, never mind out of the province, and who don’t have access to one doctor, never mind two.
It’s hard to say exactly what will happen next. The current provincial government is refusing to even address the issue – here is the extremely helpful official statement the government released following the announcement the clinic will be closing:
Women will continue to have access to medically-necessary abortions in the province with the approval of two physicians.
There are plenty of anti-choicers in New Brunswick who have been cheering on the closure of the Morgentaler clinic. These misguided people seem to believe that once the clinic closes and it’s even more difficult to get an abortion in this province, the number of abortions will decrease. Of course, this is completely and totally incorrect. The closure of the clinic will lead to a decrease in SAFE abortions, that’s true. But through the history of civilization, women who don’t want a baby have found ways to, in fact, not have one. Whether abortion is legal or not, they’ll find a way to terminate their pregnancies. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island women are going to be injured and they’re going to die, but the actual abortion rate will not be reduced.
The good news is that a lot of New Brunswickers are really angry and many are being vocal about it. The hashtag #NBProchoice was trending on Twitter last week, over 1,500 people are planning to attend a rally at New Brunswick’s legislative building later this week and a petition asking the government to repeal Regulation 84-20 and fund the Morgentaler clinic reached its goal of 10,000 supporters in only a few days.
The other potential positive is that this is an election year, and if enough people make enough noise, there’s hope this will become an election issue. The thing is that regardless of which party is in power and what the personal beliefs of politicians are, I just want them to uphold the ACTUAL FUCKING LAW. To reiterate, ACCORDING TO THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA, LEGAL RESTRICTIONS ON ABORTION ARE IN VIOLATION OF A WOMAN’S CHARTER RIGHTS. Forcing women to jump through hoops in order to obtain a SAFE, LEGAL ABORTION is a violation of our charter rights.
Right now, I’m just doing as much as I can to talk about what’s happening, and to join the voices of the many people who are vocally standing up and asking the New Brunswick government to pull through and support reproductive rights in this province. This is quite literally a fight for the lives of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island women, and I have to believe that every little bit counts.
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Images via NB Pro Choice
Tags: abortion, activism, alexandra davis, canada, Henry Morgentaler, politics, reproductive choice, reproductive rights, something something canada
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Ah, my favourite website covering my province! … ah, shit.
Thanks for this. The New Brunswick Government is an embarrassment. “The other potential positive is that this is an election year, and if enough people make enough noise, there’s hope this will become an election issue. ” I really hope you’re right about this.
As I saw on Twitter, I want for women in New Brunswick to have the same kinds of rights and protections afforded to the official languages act.
I used to volunteer as a clinic escort for the Morgentaler clinic in Freddy when I lived there for years. And we regularly got women from ALL OVER the province and PEI. Regularly. It’s a four-to six-hour drive from PEI, can be even longer from parts of NB. Eight hours. Ten.
And family doctors? Don’t make me laugh. The waiting list is years long.
Wait a minute. Isn’t 84-20 2(a.1) a flagrant violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Isn’t the two-doctor requirement exactly the law that Morgentaler helped to repeal in 1988? How on earth is the NB government getting away with violating something that has already been established by the Supreme Court more than 25 years ago?
Yep, it’s a COMPLETE violation of the charter, and Morgentaler was embroiled in a court battle with the province demanding they cover abortions for 12 years. It was still ongoing up until the time of his death, and the manager of the clinic just announced earlier today that the lawsuit has officially being discontinued because they (of course) don’t have the money to pay the legal fees.
The charter says you can’t outlaw abortion, not that it has to be funded my Medicare. Abortion is a voluntary procedure and therefore doesn’t have to be funded. The law is for determining when an abortion is medically necessary and is covered by Medicare. I’m not against abortion, I think it should be available at NB hospitals, but I do not think it should be covered by Medicare if its not medically necessary. $800 isn’t much, as long as a reasonable payment plan is made available.
How do you define “voluntary” or “medically necessary”? My future fibroid removal will be an elective procedure, but it will be covered by Medicare. I’m looking through NB’s coverage, and they cover tubal ligations and vasectomies (although not their reversal).
You make a good point, I hadn’t looked through nb’s coverage. I assumed it was life threatening or physically debilitating health problems that were covered. If they are covering other things it is on a case by case system and rather arbitrary. In that case I would say it is in society’s best interest that they cover abortions, no need for women who don’t want children and can’t afford it to be forced to have children. My point about it not violating the charter still stands, they don’t HAVE to cover it, but yes ideally it would be covered.
I think a good start would be campaigning to have it acessable in NB hospitals with payment. That wouldn’t require as much change in legislation and would get less push back, and not require a change in budget. 800 is affodable if it is spread out over say a year.
I’m curious whether you’re Canadian, and if so which province you live in.
‘m Canadian and I grew up in NB, but I will admit I am not that familiar with the subject. I was just giving a cursory opinion, clearly I was wrong on some things. I don’t think I was wrong about my interpretation about the policy not violating the charter, there are many things that ideally should be covered, but aren’t.
So, not to get into a whole thing, but the Supreme Court ruling of 1988 states that legal restrictions against abortion are in violation of a woman’s charter rights. 84-20 is a legal restriction.
Only in the sense of having it funded by medicare which is not a legal restriction, but a financial one. 84-20 does not outlaw abortion, women are still legally free to have them. But since, legally as a medical procedure, it still has to be done by a physician, I will say, not having access in province at all may be a violation.
Actually, upon further reflection, yes i will agree the regulation is definitely a violation in regards to equality, no other medically necessary procedure has that requirement. My focus was too heavy on it not outlawing abortion. Remove 84-20 and the requirement that abortion be deemed medically necessary to be covered under medicare still remains.
On the legal front: I am no lawyer, but as a layperson I think a convincing argument could be made that the lack of Medicare funding combined with the fact that I’m not sure it would be possible to get a non-funded abortion performed anywhere in the province anymore, it is a de facto legal restriction on abortion. I don’t know if that would affect the legal ruling, though. Any lawyers want to comment on this? Seems to me that if you say “It’s only legal to do abortions in liscensed locations.” plus “We’ve arranged things such that liscenced locations will only do insured abortions” plus “We’ll only insure abortions if these conditions are met,” that means effectively “You can only get a legal abortion if these conditions are met,” even if the law doesn’t explicitly say that anywhere.
I don’t think that would work, the province cannot be legally compelled to provide a service simply because no one else wants to provide it. I am not a lawyer either, But I think “legal restriction” in this case simply means, “you cannot enact legislation that would prevent a medically licences person from performing abortions”; not funding it is not the same as making it illegal. The province is not required to fund ANY elective procedures. For example, if there were no orthodontists in NB, the province would not be legally compelled to open a clinic or proved the service in a hospital.
A pregnancy and hospital birth would cost Medicare far more than a run-of-the-mill abortion. Same with a botched home abortion. Call it “preventative medicine” if you want, but there is no good economic reason to not cover abortions.
Good point, see my new comments. it still doesn’t violate the charter, but yes it is fiscally and socially responsible to make abortion easily accessible.
……
Every abortion is medically necessary.
That’s a dogmatic and unfounded statement. Pregnancy is a natural biological function and only needs to be aborted medically when it is a direct unnatural threat to the mothers health. Otherwise it is a perfectly voluntary procedure, but one whose access cannot be legally restricted, and from the arguments made here one that from a financial and social perspective SHOULD be funded.
It just astonishes me that anti-abortion activists manage to completely plug their ears and cover their eyes as to the enormous amount of evidence saying that criminalizing abortions just pushes the procedure underground and results in the deaths and dismemberment of women. Like do they just CHOOSE to pretend that fact doesn’t exist?
I don’t even understand what world these people live in, where they think the law is an aspirational ideal that everyone follows all the time (except for Bad People). The law is to protect people, not to suggest ideal behaviours.
This might be incredibly cynical, but I suspect that for those activists who dismiss the consequences of unsafe abortions, the health and safety of the women in question just doesn’t matter. After reading about experiences like the clinic escort’s published here last month, it seems clear that those who are most vocally anti-choice have no concern or empathy for women making choices they don’t agree with.
I was astonished last year when I found out there are no abortion providers in PEI.
I’m astonished all over again that this is happening in NB.
I like to think that as a country we’re better than this!
For anyone interested, there is also a protest in support of accessible abortion in NB in Toronto on the 17th at 5:30 pm, Yonge and Dundas.
Thank you for covering this, The Toast! Awesome to see it on my favourite website. <3
I agree they should be available but not covered by government aka tax dollars. I paid well over $800 to get ready for my kids and much more raising them.$800 isn't much to abort. If it's free nobody will use birth control condoms etc why pay $30 for a box of condoms when men hate them & you can have infinite free abortions. There are plenty of women who had multiple abortions at the clinic. Thousands of people were able to pay for it. Close clinic and offer abortions at every hospital for $800 each.
Because women are going to undergo a painful surgical procedure dripping with social stigma because it’s free? No, what happens when abortions cost $800 is that women can’t scrape the money together, and by the time they do, it’s too late to have a normal abortion, and then we get to call them monsters when they’re five months along, and desperate.
Unsafe abortions only endangers the mothers life. It can really leave a long lasting scar and trauma for the woman. It must be highly protested and needs to be taken care of urgently. It’s great it has been published here as more and more people needs to be aware of the real facts!
No amount of law can prevent women from termination pregnancies. I mean, even in countries with strict laws report abortion cases. Perhaps the only difference the law brings is poor maternal conditions translating to high mortality rates among women seeking termination.