NB Abortion Activists Threaten Lawsuit Over Lack of Provincial Abortion Funding
By LifeCanada staff

The battle over New Brunswick’s refusal to pay for elective abortions in private clinics took a new turn in 2007 when abortion activists threatened a lawsuit for “unconstitutional and discriminatory” restrictions.
           
The federal government withdrew pressure from the Province in December 2006 when Health Minister Tony Clement announced that the government did not intend to pursue efforts initiated under the Liberal government to force the Province to increase funding for abortions.    
           
Clement said the issue would be addressed if the newly-elected Liberal government of New Brunswick decided to open debate, something Liberal minister of health Mike Murphy said he had no interest in doing.
           
Abortion rights activists in the Province decided to seek a champion for their cause in another quarter, using the provincial court system to attack guidelines that restrict abortions within the province's hospitals. Moncton lawyer Michelle Caron announced in January she would file suit in the spring if NB Health Minister Michael Murphy failed to reverse current policy.
           
"This lawsuit is a guise for abortion on demand,” said Peter Ryan, executive director for New Brunswick Right to Life, in a statement to the press. “These activists are pro-abortion advocates, not legitimate health care advocates. What they really want is publicly funded but unregulated abortion on demand, both at private clinics like Morgentaler's and in public hospitals. What they propose is based on a jaded coldheartedess toward unborn children and blindness to the adverse health impact of abortion on women's health."
           
In fact, said Ryan, the New Brunswick hospital guidelines show a reasonable attempt to establish some medically necessary grounds for an abortion before permitting the procedure.   
           
“The wealth of new medical data from peer-reviewed journals [shows] the safety problems abortion poses for women. To mention just two, abortion greatly increases the risk of depression and subsequent miscarriage. That's why leading British doctors have called for tighter guidelines for women seeking abortions."
           
Under the province’s Medical Services Payment Act, the cost of abortions is covered by the province only if the woman is in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, the abortion is certified as medically necessary by two physicians and the procedure takes place in a hospital.           
           
Forcing the province to pay for elective abortions would not only violate the rights of the Province of New Brunswick, but would also go against the wishes of over 65% of Canadians, Ryan said, who want to see some restrictions placed on abortion access, according to Environics poll results over the past several years.
           
“In fact, what they seek would contravene the Canada Health Act, which provides only for medically necessary abortions, not abortion on demand. The province's regulations are a reflection of its intent to pay only for medically necessary procedures, in accordance with the legislation.”
           
“Every educated Canadian knows that what grows in a mother’s womb is a baby, not some tumor or blob of cells,” Ryan said. “Yet strangely these people barrel ahead, seemingly indifferent if hundreds more New Brunswick children die from abortion. The last thing our under-populated province needs is fewer babies.”