Doctors committing abortions at Henry Morgentaler’s Winnipeg abortuary will not receive any provincial funds, Manitoba’s Health Minister Donald Orchard announced at a June 3 press conference.
Earlier this year, however, the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons decided to approve the abortuary itself “as an appropriate place to perform abortions.” Application for approval had been submitted following the Supreme Court’s judgment that struck down the federal abortion law.
Permission to begin committing abortions in early July did not prevent Health Minister Orchard from attacking the biased counseling and medical hazards of the Morgentaler abortuary.
“We seriously question whether the operators of such a clinic have any desire to provide women with counseling on the range of alternatives available,” said Mr. Orchard about a business whose sole objective is to abort children. The provincial Tories, he promised will ask doctors to counsel women to seek alternatives to abortion. Such counseling will be done in hospitals where it can be monitored, warned the Health Minister.
Patricia Soenen, executive director of Manitoba’s League for Life was pleases with the announcement. “If these abortions aren’t going to be paid for,” she said, “women are going to think twice.” But Sharon Carstairs, Liberal Opposition Leader in the minority government, declared that the cost of expensive hospital abortions could be reduced if performed in community-based clinics. Carstairs supports abortion.
