In 1869, the Canadian Parliament criminalized abortion and birth control. Finally, over 150 years later, abortion is legal and on its way to becoming more accessible for the New Brunswick community. NB Liberal Party leader and Premier, Susan Holt, has peeled off the final piece of a hard-fought battle for reproductive freedom in New Brunswick, announcing that abortions will now be Medicare-funded outside of hospitals.

The battle for reproductive freedom in New Brunswick began in 1985 with Doctor Henekh (Henry) Morgentaler. After birth control was decriminalized and abortion was partially decriminalized in Canada in 1969, Dr. Morgentaler became a driving force behind the reproductive freedom of women, devoting his clinic in Montreal to the cause.
In the 1970s, Dr. Morgentaler was involved in a lengthy legal battle with the Quebec government. Abortion was legal, but only if continuing with a pregnancy posed a significant risk to the woman’s health, assessed and decided on by a hospital’s newly installed Therapeutic Abortion Committee, and took place in an approved hospital. Morgentaler refused to comply with these laws and provided abortions at his clinic.
In 1973, a Montreal jury acquitted Morgentaler of the criminal charges he had since garnered after he switched his practice from general to reproductive. In 1974, the Quebec Court of Appeal overturned the verdict, unprecedentedly. He was found guilty and when he appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, they voted in favor of the Quebec Court’s conviction, and in 1975 Morgentaler was sentenced to prison.
In 1976, Canada’s Minister of Justice reopened the case, and Morgentaler was acquitted upon a retrial. Later that year, the Quebec government dropped all outstanding charges against Morgentaler; the doctor went on to establish illegal abortion clinics across the country in hopes of inciting important change.
Approximately a decade of continuous debate and advocation later, in 1985, Morgentaler reached out to the New Brunswick Minister of Health and proposed the opening of a Medicare-funded clinic in the province. Former premier Richard Hatfield responded approximately two months later by criminalizing abortions if not performed in a provincially-approved hospital.
In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the federal law imposed in 1969, leaving the status of abortion in the hands of each respective province. Former premier Frank Mckenna responded by criminalizing abortions unless medically required, and assessed as so by two physicians. Mckenna also reimplemented the requirement which stated that abortions were required to be performed in an approved hospital. Thus began Morgentaler’s battle with New Brunswick.
After performing abortions in his Montreal clinic for three women from New Brunswick, Morgentaler sought reimbursement for the procedures from the New Brunswick government. The NB government opposed reimbursement, but the NB Court of Appeal voted in favor of Morgentaler. The NB government responded by further restricting abortion laws, reclassifying the procedure under Regulation 84–20, which revoked Medicare funding.
In 1994, Morgentaler opened a clinic in Fredericton. The New Brunswick government brought up previous premier Richard Hatfield’s legislation that criminalized providing abortions outside of hospitals and dangled the loss of said provider’s medical license as a punishment. They took him back to court, but the case was ultimately dismissed by both the NB Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Justice.
In 1997, Hatfield’s legislation was officially revoked, and in 2003, Morgentaler set out to remove Mckenna’s. It was another lengthy case, but this one went unfinished. Morgentaler passed away in 2013. The following year, the clinic announced its closure and the discontinuance of Morgentaler’s case. In 2015, the clinic was replaced with Clinic 554, but faced the same financial difficulties and shut down in February of 2024.
Also dated to 2014/2015, former premier Brian Gallant promised in his campaign to improve abortion accessibility. Only the “two physician” requirement was removed. NB remained the sole province in Canada that refused to fund private clinics.
In her announcement, Premier Holt acknowledged that “this does not change the fact that abortion will not become accessible tomorrow in New Brunswick. There is work to be done with the medical professionals and with people in this room to make sure that we take this step and move to get that access into the community.”