FREDERICTON, New Brunswick, May 6, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Canadian abortionist Henry Morgentaler has asked the New Brunswick provincial government to take over his abortuary, the only privately run facility in the province, because the province refuses to pay for the abortions committed there.
Morgentaler and the province have been locked in a legal dispute over the issue of public funds being used to pay for the private clinic’s abortions. The federal government recently entered the fray, trying to strong-arm the province into paying for the private facility’s abortions.
“I’m quite willing to negotiate with the government to offer the government this clinic as a hospital or a clinic which is approved by the government, so that women in the province of New Brunswick will not be victimized as they are now by the government by not letting them have access to a procedure which is available to women in all other provinces,” Morgentaler stated, as reported by The Daily Gleaner.
LifeSiteNews.com revealed in January that Health Canada is investigating all Canadian provinces for supposed breaches of the Canada Health Act by allowing patients to pay for services at private medical clinics.
Last month the provincial Department of Health and Wellness received a letter from the federal government initiating an official dispute avoidance resolution process to attempt to settle the issue. However, if things don’t go the way the Liberal government insists, there will be “consequences.”
Peter Ryan, Executive Director of the New Brunswick Right to Life Association, stated “The federal position on private clinics defies logic. They have three contradictory positions. Clinics for MRIs and other procedures in Alberta or BC? Dead against them. Clinics all over the place in Quebec (more than any province)? Silence. A private clinic for abortion on demand? All in favour! The minister’s bias in favour of abortion rights is showing.”
Ryan continued that “The Canada Health Act is silent on abortion. It does stipulate access and public coverage of all medically necessary services.”“But nowhere”, he notes “does it give Ottawa the power to define abortion – or anything else – as such a service.”
“Canadians wait for months for treatment in health clinics for serious medical problems and the Health Minister [Ujjal Dosanjh] has not been pressuring the provinces with regard to this problem,” Campaign Life Coalition National Organizer Mary Ellen Douglas said in January, after Dosanjh threatened the province. “Abortion is a life-style choice not a medical problem. Healthy babies are being killed.”
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Fund Abortion at Private Clinics or Face “Consequences” Feds Warn New Brunswick
Non-Profit Status for Morgentaler Winnipeg Clinic a Ploy for Public Funds
Secret Documents Show Health Canada Investigating Provinces on Abortion Provision
Liberal Government Pressuring New Brunswick to Fund Abortion
Abortion Funding for Privately Run Clinics? New Brunswick Says No Way
tv