On March 22, NDP Health Minister Elizabeth Cull ordered 33 pubic hospitals in her province to provide “abortion services.” This includes such hospitals as the Vernon Jubilee Hospital, where the board of directors had ended the practice.
From now on Boards of Directors, despite being elected by the people of the local community, will no longer have a say. Thus in the name of “freedom of choice,” communities across British Columbia will have their right to choose taken away from them.
Similarly, in the name of “freedom of choice,” BC taxpayers will have to fund the two independent abortuaries (at a cost of $1 million a year).
But this is not all.
Health Minister Cull also plans an extensive promotion campaign for “education” on contraception and abortion. A task force will investigate access to those services. The province already spends tens of millions of dollars on contraception and abortion, but apparently it is not enough.
Footsteps
With these measures, BC’s New Democrats follow in the footsteps of Premier Bob Rae’s counterparts in Ontario.
Shortly after being elected in September 1990, the Premier of Ontario declared that “access to abortion” is critical to our government.” By the end of the year his ministers, (feminists all) had announced a comprehensive program for new abortion facilities, the funding of freestanding abortuaries, the promotion of contraceptives and condoms, and the appointment of active homosexual to critical public offices.
In British Columbia, Betty Green, president of Vancouver Right to Life, said of the government’s announcement, “Apparently their No. 1 priority is killing babies and nothing will stand in their way.”
Joy Thompson, spokeswoman for the BC Coalition for Abortion Clinics, was jubilant. “It’s a fantastic day, really, for the women’s movement,” she told the Globe (March 21, 1992).
