How PEI Became One Of The Most Accessible Places For Women’s Health Care In Canada

How PEI Became One Of The Most Accessible Places For Women’s Health Care In Canada
Within 10 months, PEI went from having no abortion services on the island to offering self-referral. What can the province teach the rest of the country?

by Emily Baron Cadloff
Updated Nov 20, 2019

When Courtney Cudmore learned she was pregnant in 2015, she knew immediately what she would do. At 31 years old, the Charlottetown restaurant worker was already a mother of two, and her then-fiancée had taken a job out of province. She was overwhelmed and scared, and she wanted desperately not to be pregnant. Cudmore saw a doctor at a walk-in clinic, who she says told her he had a religious objection to abortion. After she pleaded with him, he reluctantly gave her a prescription for a medical abortion. She tried several pharmacies before finding one that would fill it.

“There was no way I could bring another child into the equation. What was I going to do? How was I going to feed it? Clothe it? Find room for it?” she wrote at the time on Facebook.

Continued: https://www.chatelaine.com/health/pei-abortion-access/


New book shines a light on abortion access

New book shines a light on abortion access

“Crossing Trouble Waters: Abortion in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Prince Edward Island” launches November 19

Thursday, November 8, 2018

“Crossing Troubled Waters” is published by Island Studies Press

A new book from Island Studies Press will examine and compare the stories of abortion access in Prince Edward Island and Ireland. Crossing Troubled Waters: Abortion in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Prince Edward Island is co-edited by UPEI’s Dr. Colleen MacQuarrie. The book launches Monday, November 19 at 4:00 pm in Schurman Market Square of UPEI’s Don and Marion McDougall Hall.

Continued: http://www.upei.ca/communications/news/2018/11/new-book-shines-light-abortion-access


Canada: Abortion services is The Guardian’s top news story of the year

Ann Wheatley, co-chairwoman of Abortion Access Now P.E.I., describes as “very significant’’ the government’s move to provide medical and surgical abortions

Jim Day jday@theguardian.pe.ca
Published on December 31, 2016

CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. - There has been so much suffering for such a long time. Now, finally, 2016 has brought much-anticipated change that was sought for decades through rallies and protests to end one harrowing experience after another for Island women.

But nothing short of the threat of legal action, and the associated hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, moved our political leaders. Still, the decision was made, and nobody will be able to take that right away from Island women. (Wayne Thibodeau, regional managing editor with The Guardian).

[continued at link]
Source: Charlottetown Guardian


Canada: Time to move on: Abortion debate is long over

Editorial: The Charlottetown Guardian (Prince Edward Island, Canada)
Published on July 20, 2016
And one Island man set out to put a stop to it with an application for a judicial review heard in court Monday.Kevin Arsenault’s time in court paled to that of the historic legal battles over abortion carried out by the late Dr. Henry Morgentaler.

On Monday, the determined, passionate pro-life advocate argued for roughly 90 minutes, ultimately unsuccessfully, for standing to seek a judicial review of P.E.I.’s abortion policy and laws.

Arsenault felt he brought forward compelling arguments that “the best interest of the child is an increasingly important consideration in all policy and all legislation.’’

He wanted to be a voice for the unborn. He wants all pregnant women to bring a child into the world.

Supreme Court Justice Nancy Key, in no uncertain terms, told Arsenault he had no legal standing to seek a judicial review of what the province will – or won’t – allow a pregnant P.E.I. woman to do.

It’s too bad that Key’s and the P.E.I. Supreme Court’s time wasted even 90 minutes listening to the argument.

“There are people who are directly affected by that (abortion legislation),’’ Josie Baker, a member of Abortions Access Now P.E.I., told The Guardian.

“Those are people with uteruses and unfortunately Mr. Arsenault is not somebody who is able to speak on behalf of that experience.’’

Morgentaler pushed that sentiment for years, stating that any woman should have the right to end her pregnancy without risking death.

He was not deterred when police raided his Montreal clinic in 1970. Nor was his resolve softened in the least when he was charged with performing illegal abortions.

He kept pushing for pregnant women to be able to choose whether or not to continue or end their pregnancy.

In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed with Morgentaler, striking down Canada’s abortion law, ruling that it conflicted with rights guaranteed in the Charter.

The justices found that the law violated Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it infringed upon a woman’s right to life, liberty and security of the person.

Many Island women have suffered a great deal over the last 35 years since P.E.I. diminished access to abortion services. Women have endured the health risks, financial strains and even attempted to self-abort.

Now it is time for Arsenault, other pro-lifers, and the P.E.I. government to leave pregnant Island women alone to make their own often excruciatingly difficult choice of whether or not they will bring a child into the world.

Source: Charlottetown Guardian