Review of Medical Reform Group Spring General Meeting - April 1983

Abortion & Abortion Clinics: Update by Miriam Garfinkle

i) Her action has been for “CHOICE”, rather than Pro or Anti. She suggested we have an “Anti-Choice” attitude in Canada, as evident in respect to a Minority Group.

ii) Ontario abortions are difficult now because of opting-out and cutbacks in financing. They are more difficult again outside Toronto. MG has facts and figures on this.

iii) MG noted that there was a group of women supporting Dr. Morgentaler called the “Committee to Establish Abortion Clinics” (CEAC). The group with which MG is associated, and which has separated from CEAC, is the “Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics” (OCAC). This group supports legal, free-standing abortion clinics. She indicated that this is in accordance with the May, 1981 MRG Resolution, although MRG did not underscore the “legal” aspect of clinics.

iv) CEAC is apparently not interested in government funded clinics.

v) MG advised that OCAC strategy is to ask for government-approved free standing abortion clinics, and letters have been sent to Hon. Roy McMurtry and Hon. Larry Grossman, in this respect. Mr. McMurtry has been asked not to prosecute as the first clinic is established.

Toronto is looking for an area that could be zoned as a hospital. Insofar as qualify of care is concerned, MG says there is a group of nurses trained and available, and she was of the opinion that the Toronto clinic would be technically good. (This observation to allay the concerns raised at the last MRG general meeting.) She hoped that when the clinic starts, and since it needs physicians’ support, more MRG doctors will support and get involved in the movement.

Delegates at the MRG Spring general meeting went on record as supporting Miriam Garfinkle in her efforts in this area.

[Minutes of Medical Reform Group of Ontario Spring General Meeting, April 23-22, 1983, by Howard Cash, from MRG Newsletter Volume 3, Number 2, June 1983]