Article content continued

“Unless we have doctors saying ‘I’m willing to provide,’ then the women of P.E.I. would be believing that the reason they’re not having access to this service is because there’s no willing providers and that’s simply not the case,” Dr. MacQuarrie said.

At local clinics, women wouldn’t need a doctor’s referral, which is required in order to use the government-funded service in Halifax. Many women without family doctors, or whose physicians won’t grant them a referral, are shut out, Ms. Fowler said.

Premier Robert Ghiz has said the current system is a compromise between conflicting sentiments on the issue. He said P.E.I. Medicare pays for about 70 out-of-province abortions a year.

“Islanders have access to the service and the associated travel time is no different than the distance residents in various communities in other provinces would travel to receive services,” Mr. Ghiz said in a statement.

‘We think it’s very disrespectful of the premier to say that he’s happy with the status quo’

Ms. Fowler said the system creates barriers for women with unwanted pregnancies.

“We think it’s very disrespectful of the premier to say that he’s happy with the status quo,” Ms. Fowler said. “It might be convenient for him. It’s inconvenient [for women wanting abortions].”

Ms. Fowler said over 150 P.E.I. women have abortions annually, and that number is growing. That includes 50 women who pay for the procedure themselves at the Morgentaler clinic in New Brunswick, which is set to close in July.

On Sunday, about 450 people attended the annual P.E.I. March for Life to oppose potential local clinics. Holly Pierlot, president of P.E.I. Right to Life, which helped organize the event, said groups like the NAF are trying to “bring abortion on demand to P.E.I.”

“The science is pretty straightforward. Women are being harmed by abortions,” said Ms. Pierlot. “It is the best-kept secret in North America. Women suffer in silence following an abortion from a number of different consequences, whether it’s a short-term risk of infection or a punctured womb from the surgery itself to the later implications physiologically.”

National Post