Newly elected Canadian Liberal premier vows to expand abortion access in her province as soon she is sworn into office

By lauraharris // 2024-11-04

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Susan Holt, the newly elected premier of New Brunswick, Canada, has vowed to expand abortion access as soon as she enters office. The eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick, which shares a border with the State of Maine, recently held provincial elections to select the 49 members of its Legislative Assembly. The province's main left-wing party, the New Brunswick Liberal Association, won the election against the Progressive Conservative Party of New Brunswick, which had been ruling the province since 2018. Now, just days after winning 31 of the 49 seats in the provincial legislature, Premier-designate Holt, who will be sworn in on Sunday, Nov. 2, has vowed to expand access to abortion. Under the administration of outgoing Premier Blaine Higgs, government funding for abortion services was restricted to procedures conducted in just three hospitals – two in the province's largest city of Moncton, and another in the small city of Bathurst, around 100 miles to the north. Throughout his tenure, Higgs consistently rejected repeated efforts from the federal government pressuring him to provide funding for Clinic 554 in the provincial capital of Fredericton, the only private abortion clinic in New Brunswick. Clinic 554, initially established as the Morgentaler Clinic in 1994, permanently shut down in January 2024 due to worsening financial constraints. Holt promised to amend provincial General Regulation 84-20, which states that the province's healthcare system can only cover abortions performed at the three aforementioned hospitals in Moncton and Bathurst. Holt argued that "abortion is healthcare," and that the provincial government has a responsibility to improve access to these services in the province. "There are places that are ready to deliver those services and people who are ready to deliver those services. If this amendment to 84-20 is made that allows them to be paid under the current Medicare system," she said. (Related: Canada passes controversial bill providing FREE contraception and abortion pills to all.)

Holt and her left-leaning stance face criticism from pro-life advocates

This proposal has faced criticism from pro-life advocates. Pete Baklinski, the Communications Director for Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) immediately denounced Holt's statements and accused her of promoting "the murder of the unborn" in a post on X. "So, Susan Holt gets elected in New Brunswick and immediately promises to ramp up the killing of the province's preborn children. She is literally promising to destroy the province's future by killing its future citizens. How is this progress? It's purely evil. Abortion is murder. God help the people of NB, especially babies in the womb," Baklinski posted. The proposal has proven correct the warning of the CLC back in September that if the pro-abortion and pro-LGBT Holt won, she would overturn most of the pro-family directives in the province, including LGBT-related restrictions introduced by the previous Progressive Conservative government. Learn more about abortion policies around the world at Abortions.news. Watch this clip from MSNBC reporting on the criminalization of so-called "emergency abortions" in Idaho.

This video is from the NewsClips channel on Brighteon.com.

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Holt and her left-leaning stance face criticism from pro-life advocates

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