[LINK] "N.B. women seek abortions in U.S. after clinic closure: staff"

[rfmcdonald]

MacLean's hosts Alison Auld's Canadian Press article describing how, after the closure of New Brunswick's only private abortion clinic, women in that province looking for an abortion are going far outside the province.

Pregnant women from New Brunswick are travelling to Maine and Montreal to obtain abortions after the province’s only private abortion clinic shut down last summer, angering pro-choice advocates who say the government is moving too slowly in removing barriers to the service.

Staff at abortion clinics in Augusta and Bangor in Maine said they have seen a spike in the number of telephone inquiries and visits from women from New Brunswick since the summer when the Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton closed, citing a lack of government funding.

Ruth Lockhart of the Mabel Wadsworth Women’s Health Centre in Bangor said the independent clinic used to see one or two women from the province over six months. There are now women from New Brunswick at every weekly clinic, sometimes with five or six at a time, she said.

“My concern is with the women who can’t do that — who can’t get time off from work, who can’t find childcare, who can’t afford the fees or don’t have a passport,” she said in an interview.

“To have to leave your country? I don’t know, that doesn’t seem right to me. None of that is fair to women.”