FREDERICTON, New Brunswick (LifeSiteNews) – Canada’s leading pro-life organization shared today the “great news” that New Brunswick’s only private abortion facility, Clinic 554, will close its doors for good.
“This is great news for preborn babies and their moms in New Brunswick,” Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) president Jeff Gunnarson said in comments sent to LifeSiteNews.
“This baby-killing business venture will no longer be able to prey on vulnerable mothers and offer to kill their precious children to make money.”
Clinic 554 was the original site of the former Morgentaler Clinic that opened in 1994. According to CLC, its closing comes on the heels of its successful 40 Days for Life campaign event last fall that saw many pro-life volunteers pray and fast in front of the clinic that it would shut down.
The now-shuttered Clinic 554 has been in operation since 2015 without the financial backing of the province. Citing financial issues, the abortion center was sold a few years ago but remained in operation. In 2019, medical director Dr. Adrian Edgar had said it would eventually be forced to close.
At a news conference today, Edgar blamed the closure of Clinic 554 on the provincial government of New Brunswick’s refusal to provide funding and also for rent increases. Clinic 554 had been providing abortions for free but recently had been open only one day a week.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs for years was not influenced by repeated attempts from the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to force him to fund Clinic 554.
Under New Brunswick law, government funding for abortion in the province is only provided to those performed at hospitals.
According to CLC, when the clinic’s original shuttering was announced, “local pro-abortion activists noted how pro-life forces ‘have actively worked to restrict access’ to abortion.”
“Indeed, in 2019, Campaign Life Coalition launched a campaign that successfully encouraged the New Brunswick government to stand firm against pressures to fund private abortion facilities,” CLC noted.
Last year, CLC launched a campaign that encouraged Higgs to “refuse to fund Clinic 554 in the face of a lawsuit from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association that sought to force the province to fund the centre.”
Despite the lack of provincial backing for Clinic 554, abortion remains available and taxpayer-funded in New Brunswick at two hospitals in Moncton and one in Bathurst. The province also continues to fund the dangerous abortion drug Mifegymiso to women for free.
The New Brunswick Right to Life’s Mother and Child House runs the Women’s Care Centre, which offers free ultrasounds, counseling, and pregnancy tests. They are located next to Clinic 554, having had to rebuild on the site after a fire in 2016.
Unlike in the United States, abortion in Canada exists in a legal vacuum since being decriminalized more than 30 years ago. This means that, in effect, there is and never has been a “legal right” to abortion in Canada.
The 1988 Morgentaler decision saw the Supreme Court of Canada throw out the last remaining abortion law on the basis that it was unconstitutional. Since then, there exists no federal law regulating abortion, and thus the practice is permitted through all nine months of pregnancy. However, the ability to introduce a law is possible.
According to CLC, abortion has killed over four million preborn babies in Canada since its legalization in 1969, which is roughly equivalent to the total population of the province of Alberta.