The following commentary appeared in the May 1, 2014, edition of the Telegraph-Journal, under the headline, “A political shift on abortion.”
Toronto Star columnist Heather Mallick angered some people when she referred to New Brunswick as a “backwater” in her commentary about the announced closure of the Morgentaler abortion clinic in Fredericton.
Her comments didn’t bother me, though. She likes to provoke readers with extreme statements, and I didn’t take the bait. I also thought she was right on some level, but if I can carry the “backwater” analogy a little further, only with regards to the intellectually stagnant pool occupied by the province’s political class.
Former premier Frank McKenna was against private abortion clinics from the beginning. His government passed a law banning them from setting up in the province, a policy eventually overturned by the courts. His government also adopted the policy stipulating that the province would only pay for abortions deemed “medically necessary” by two doctors and performed in hospitals.
‘The province has a strong conservative base that can make even progressive politicians play it safe on contentious issues like abortion.’
Subsequent premiers – Progressive Conservatives and Liberals alike – followed his lead, preserving the policy that prevented women from getting publicly funded abortions in Morgentaler’s clinic and fighting legal attempts to have it overturned. One can forgive outsiders like Mallick for thinking there was no diversity of opinion here, based on the uniform stance taken by our premiers for the past 25 years.
Writing for a Central Canadian audience, Mallick praised the progressive virtues of Ontario policies on women’s reproductive rights that pay for both abortion services in private clinics and one in-vitro fertilization treatment for women who have difficulty getting pregnant.“Every child a wanted child,” she wrote, quoting a Planned Parenthood slogan. She ended her piece with the line.“Ontario and New Brunswick, compare and contrast.”
The contrast only really exists at the level of government policy; at the level of the people, Ontarians and New Brunswickers have comparable points of view on abortion policy. It’s true Atlantic Canadians are generally more conservative. In a 2013 Angus Reid poll, 43 per cent of Ontario respondents said abortion should be legal under any circumstances, compared with only 37 per cent of Atlantic Canadians. But there was only a slight difference on a key policy question. In Ontario, 38 per cent of poll respondents said the government should fund abortions in all cases; in Atlantic Canada, 37 per cent said the same thing.
That 37 per cent had a voice in recent petitions and public protests. They also found a voice in opposition politicians. The provincial Liberals roiled the still waters of partisan political debate on abortion for the first time since McKenna began his campaign against Morgentaler and the pro-choice movement. Former NDP leaders Elizabeth Weir and Alison Brewer were both pro-choice, but they were lone voices in opposition. This time, Liberal leader Brian Gallant joined current NDP leader Dominic Cardy.
Gallant said he was pro-choice during the last provincial Liberal leadership campaign. But his view took on more significance when the Morgentaler clinic announced it would close in July because it had lost more than $100,000 over a 10-year-period funding abortions for women who couldn’t afford them.
For pro-choice supporters, this was understandably a “bad news” story, at home and across the country. But it will ultimately be a positive development if it produces a change in government policy, which stands a better chance now because of the stand Gallant has taken.
When the news first broke, Gallant re-stated his pro-choice views and called for a formal review of provincial policy restricting access to abortion. Cardy criticized him for not calling for an immediate repeal. Gallant stuck to his request for a review, but told reporters he wanted to see it happen before the clinic closed. He also said he expected the review would eventually lead to an overhaul of the policy that limited women’s access to abortion services. The provincial Liberals also passed a motion in support of a policy change on abortion access at their convention last weekend.
New Brunswick has at times frustrated the aspirations of people with progressive views, even though they constitute a significant percentage of the population. The province has a strong conservative base that can make even progressive politicians play it safe on contentious issues like abortion.
That’s not true for the NDP, but the party’s never had much electoral success here. Even if the NDP doesn’t make an electoral breakthrough in the provincial election this fall, the Liberal shift suggests that New Brunswick’s opposition politicians may be willing to change abortion policy for the first time in 25 years.
On this issue, at least, the province is a backwater no more.
