New Brunswick is the latest province to experience the assault of a Henry Morgentaler legal challenge and area pro-lifers are feeling the familiar frustration.
“If we beat them now it might make a difference in the rest of Canada,” said a beleaguered New Brunswick Right to Life president George Gilmore.
Gilmore was referring to Morgentaler’s challenge of the 1985 New Brunswick abortion law, which does not permit abortions outside of hospitals.
On June 29, Morgentaler performed six abortions in his new free-standing clinic in Moncton. As a result of his performing abortions outside a hospital, the New Brunswick College of Physicians and Surgeons was obliged to suspend his licence, effectively shutting down the clinic. Morgentaler has since unsuccessfully appealed the suspension.
An August 22 date has been set for Morgentaler’s court challenge against the province. In mid-July New Brunswick Right to Life asked the courts for the right to intervene in the case. If the courts had granted intervenor status the pro-life movement would have had the opportunity to present evidence on the real conditions which exist inside clinics.
“We wanted to show what the clinic is all about. How their counseling is biased, how women are pressured into aborting, how little follow up they do, what a poor environment they operate in and how their prime motive is to make a profit,” said Gilmore.
The courts decided not to grant RTL intervenor status, siding with Morgentaler lawyer Richard Scott’s argument that, “Genuine concern was insufficient grounds on which to base an application for intervention.”
A defiant Morgentaler fully expects to win the case. He had used the same strategy in breaking every province’s Medical Service Act and each time it has proved successful. “They cannot shut us down,” claims the abortionist.
Gilmore has other ideas. Though he would not go on record, he claims there are other avenues which the groups hope to explore. “Morgentaler has been successful in the past but he is not unstoppable,” he maintains.
