…go back to talking about local access. This seems to be the new motto for pro-choice enthusiasts after failing to make the kind of impact they would’ve liked on the Maternal Health Initiative.
Kimberley’s mind was made up. The mother of a toddler, she was pregnant again and wanted an abortion. But as a resident of Prince Edward Island, which doesn’t have a single abortion provider, she had to drive over four hours with her boyfriend to New Brunswick, dodge anti-abortion protesters, then pay $600 out of her own pocket for the procedure.
As a child growing up in Alaska, my small city was over three hours from absolutely everywhere. It’s the price we paid for cheaper housing, less crime, less pollution, and we looked forward to our regular road trips for shopping and sometimes for less eagerly awaited hospital visits. Here in Nova Scotia, people living rurally often travel long distances to Halifax for doctor’s appointments and specialist procedures.
Growing up rurally myself, I find it incredible that anyone would actually want an abortion clinic to move into their town. Especially in a small community, such as those in PEI (total population approx. 140,000), that relies heavily on tourism. The community would hardly want clinics dotting the landscape they’ve worked so hard to preserve.
It’s ridiculous that I have to leave my own province. It’s my own body, I need to have control over it,” said the soft-spoken woman in her mid-20s, who asked to use a pseudonym because her family and friends didn’t know she was having an abortion.
Her friends and family would have been more likely to know, had she had the procedure in a local small town hospital.
by 
Yes, ending someone else’s life sometimes involves a bit of admin. Gosh, that must be tough.
It’s always “the boyfriend”, not the husband. Abortion is such a huge problem because people have forsaken marriage. Instead of committing to another person for life, couples now “play” at being married and, when it gets difficult, they bail out.
Children, both born and in the womb, are the casualties of this lack of commitment.
You beat me to it Brigitte.
My sister had a bad knee, and had to wait two months for an MRI. My mum (who lives in rural Saskatchewan) has to travel three hours every time she needs to see her arthritis specialist.
If it’s really important to you to have immediate access to abortion, then, for heaven’s sake, move to a city where there is easy access. But don’t come crying when it’s hard to come by–terminating pregnancies is not high on the priority list of most doctors, and if you live in a place where doctors are unwilling to perform abortions, well, TOUGH LUCK.
I like how someone is always described as “soft-spoken” when the author wants us to really feeeeeeel for them. Kind of manipulative.
Soft-spoken as opposed to pro-life advocates who are shrieking, raving, lunatics. We all know that!
hmm, I just realised that I’ve been waiting for this article. The abortion clinic has a blog that I sometimes follow. They were mentioning that a reporter came. Another website from the pro-life side mentioned it also.
Here is the website of the poor-choice blog
http://antichoiceantiawesome.blogspot.com/
here is the pro-life blog
http://forlifeandfamily.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-about-killing-free-zone.html
It has been interesting to read both points of view from the same event.
Figures they would focus on the pro-choice view.
I don’t think those clinics don’t exclusively provide abortion – they are actually general-purpose reproductive health clinics, with abortion being just one service. There’s no advantage in being so highly specialised as to provide abortion and nothing else.
When it is available, it is just the one that gets the attention. No-one really cares overly about STI screening or contraceptive advice consultancy. Just not political issues. Abortion, though… that’s an attention-grabber.
“Here is the website of the poor-choice blog”
A new term of insult. Hmm… it’s not lying about the position, it’s making a clear point, it’s stateing the speakers view unambiguously… I approve of this insult. It’s a good insult. Fair, and clean.
That works both ways, too. If there’s a long, long journey to get an MRI, then the usual healthcare reform campaigners will make a bit of a fuss, but it’s not going to be huge. If there’s a long, long journey for an abortion then the pro-choice lobby, which is a very vocal group, will see it as some conspiricy by pro-lifers (Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t) and kick up a lot more fuss.
Kimberley had full control when she chose to engage in the act which had the potential to make her pregnant – what could she possibly have against nature running its course?