A desire for anonymity is sending P.E.I. women to a private abortion clinic in Fredericton and that needs to change, says a local women’s group.
There are no abortions performed on the Island, but the procedure is publicly-funded and performed in Halifax for P.E.I. women. It costs the provincial government $250 and requires a referral by two doctors.
But one Island doctor who refers women to Halifax told CBC News some are uncomfortable with the public route because their names are on government documentation, and typically more women go to the private Morgentaler clinic in Fredericton, and pay the $600 to $800 cost out of their own pocket.
The Women’s Network says that policy needs to change.
“If fear of being identified, whether that’s by a medial professional or if it’s by a record keeper or if that information is just stored on a server somewhere on a computer, if that fear of being found out, so to speak, is there for women, some of them will refuse to access publicly funded abortion,” said network executive director Michele MacCallum.
If you really don’t care about the impact of abortion on women’s health, then by all means, let women file in and out undetected. However, if you want women to have an accurate health record for a health care provider to access they’re going to have to put their names down.
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But there is no shame in having an abortion, right?
Honestly, if women are that ashamed to be having an abortion that they are unwilling to have their confidential health record list that they have had one, and they are willing to fork over big dollars, they probably aren’t good psychological candidates for abortion to begin with.
How reliable is the information from the doctor and the Women’s Network? And why would any medical professional encourage editing or censoring someone’s medical history? This all strikes me as a political stunt by the Women’s Network but I haven’t figured out to what end. Maybe Morgentaler’s clinics don’t make as much money as they used to and this is a way to bring more PEI womne to them?