New Brunswick Abortion Rights

Fortunately, I haven't had to make the decision about whether abortion would be the right option for me. I have thought about abortion enough to know that every person should have the right to choose whether to carry a child inside their body or not. I believe this is a private, personal, medical issue. I don't believe the embryo is a life. It has the potential for life, but please don't make me talk about how sex is not always for procreation (What happens to the potential for life in the case of a blowjob?)

In Canada, necessary medical procedures are paid for by medicare. So my taxes pay for medical procedures of all types for all people and I don't get to decide if those people are worthy of those procedures, or what procedures should be covered. What makes people think abortion is the exception to this? Get your face out of others private, personal, medical decisions!

Here's how abortion is handled in New Brunswick. The following is excerpted from CBC [bolds mine]:

A law professor at the University of New Brunswick says it's almost impossible for women in the province to receive a medicare-funded abortion under current legislation, and that could be easily changed.

Jula Hughes, who participated in the Silent No More: Speak Out For Choice panel discussion at UNB Fredericton Wednesday evening, said the process New Brunswick women must go through to get an abortion takes too long.
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Right now, the New Brunswick government doesn't pay for abortions past the 12th week of pregnancy. Hughes said meeting the criteria to qualify, and then getting an appointment, usually takes several weeks.
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Abortion is the only medical procedure in New Brunswick that requires a second opinion before it can be performed, she said.
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Because there are only two doctors in the province who perform abortions, women who get the two approvals wait another four to six weeks for the actual operation, said Hughes, who noted a lot of women don't discover their unwanted pregnancies until around the sixth week.

Hughes said changes could easily be made to a provincial regulation to reduce wait times for women.

"Specifically, we need to get rid of the schedule that makes abortions non-funded except in those very limited circumstances," she said, referring to Schedule 2(a.1) of Regulation 84-20 of the Medical Services Payment Act.

The two-doctor certification and the limitation on where government-funded abortions can be performed are stipulated in the schedule.

Hughes said the changes to the act could be made through caucus, without going through the legislature.

"It could be done by next Thursday, if the politicians were so inclined."

So, this medical procedure is only available for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, most people don't know they're pregnant until the 6th week, then they have to get 2 doctor's approvals (can you say waiting times? It can take 4 weeks to get in and see the doctor, if you even have one. If you don't have a doctor, and you don't have an emergency, you're screwed) and then wait for 1 of the 2 doctor's who can perform the procedure to have time to fit you in. I don't see how it's possible to get it done before 12 weeks! Talk about setting up the system for failure.

There is another option - "Women can also go to a private abortion clinic in Fredericton and pay up to $750 for the procedure." There's a good chance most people don't have this kind of money sitting around under the mattress. Of course, this also brings up the two-tier health-care system, where rich people pay for health-care and poor people die waiting, but that's not the topic of this post. The point is that the people who need this procedure are most likely unable to access it, and unable to change the system. Who is looking out for the teenagers, the abused, the homeless, the students who are the future generation? It is up to the middle-class people with the fairly cushy jobs to ensure that the system works for everyone. I don't want my rights to be slowly eroded, starting with the people who aren't heard. I want my society to look after our children, our disabled and our sick.

When I read this, I thought "here's a way I can make a difference. I'm going to call someone." Next I thought "Who do I call?" This brings to light that I really don't know much about how our provincial government works. Caucus and legislature? Huh??? So, you can start looking forward to elementary school level overviews of our government system.


Note: I used the words people and person throughout this post instead of women and woman on purpose. It was a little weird at first but guess what! Women are people!