By John Jalsevac
MONCTON, N.B., June 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This past Tuesday New Brunswick Right to Life announced their belief that Dr. Georges Dumont Hospital in Moncton is one of the two hospitals in the province that is scheduled to begin performing abortions by the end of June.
On June 21 approximately 75 pro-lifers, including Richard Doucette, State Deputy of the Knights of Columbus, held a protest at Dumont Hospital. Participants in the demonstration held Acadian flags and signs including “Let Our Acadian Babies Live” and “Hospitals Are for Saving Life Not Destroying It.” The Acadian hymn “Ave Marie Stella” was also sung.
A number of the pro-lifers, including Catholic archbishop André Richard, were also inside the hospital praying or attending the annual meeting of the hospital’s Board of Trustees.
At the Board of Trustees meeting the chairman, Adélard Cormier, stated there is no change in the hospital’s abortion policy. He read aloud the policy which allows for abortions when there is risk to a woman’s life or health, or when the unborn baby is disabled.Â
NB Right to Life executive director, Peter Ryan, however, expressed his concern that the policy would allow an individual physician to interpret “health” broadly, such as happened at the Chalmers Hospital under a similar policy. He then asked if an expanded abortion practice was anticipated for the hospital in the near future, but did not receive a response.
Attendees at the meeting say that several comments were made by the audience, all of them pro-life in nature. One woman spoke of how her past abortion had negatively affected her.
Currently the province’s only hospital to perform abortions, Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital —performing 400 of last year’s total 404 hospital abortions—is scheduled to cease offering the procedure by June 30. New Brunswick law states that only abortions performed in hospitals may receive provincial funding.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
All Coat-Hangers Aimed at New Brunswick
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/jun/06061610.html
Last Abortion-Performing Hospital in New Brunswick to Quit Abortion At the End of June
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/may/06051706.html
Abortion Funding for Privately Run Clinics? New Brunswick Says No Way
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05012702.html