By Patrick B. Craine
MONTREAL, Quebec, August 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Montreal's Alternative abortuary has announced that it will cease doing abortions on September 30th due to a new Quebec government bill that has required minimal safety standards for abortion centres.
Effective September 30th, Bill 34 requires abortuaries to receive a permit, which would require that they perform abortions in a sterile surgery room. The director of Alternative, Micheline Dupuis, told Le Devoir that the safety requirements are “excessive” and “absolutely unnecessary.” Alternative conducts approximately 1,000 abortions per year, and so both the Quebec media and abortion agencies are warning of long wait times.
Private abortion mills in Quebec are said to conduct 5,000 of the 27,000 abortions per year in Quebec. Other abortion mills have not yet stated that they will ceasea abortions, but they are complaining about the new requirements, and according to Le Devoir, none of the facilities they contacted had the necessary basic operating room equipment.
Claude Potvin of Femina told them that the law “does not correspond to anything in either the public, or in the private [setting].” According to the Morgentaler abortuary's Dr. Francine Léger, “even in the hospitals, it's not like that, it's a double standard.”
While they do not meet the new standards, Le Devoir reports that all of the facilities conform to the established requirements of the Quebec College of Physicians and the National Abortion Federation, which apparently do not require the abortion surgeries to be performed in a sterile environment with basic surgical equipment.
It is reported that the Quebec College of Physicians will be meeting with the Quebec Ministry of Health to discuss the matter.