Having an abortion in Quinte area hospitals isn't just difficult, it's impossible. "There's nowhere," said Bill Sherlock, manager of the sexual health department at the local health unit.People often characterise abortion as a matter of "personal choice" but forget that physicians should be able to choose as well.
No doctor here will perform an abortion, said one physician, and a Quinte Health Care official said none of its four hospitals perform the procedure.
Spokespeople for Quinte Health Care and Kingston General Hospital are close-mouthed about policies on abortions. "We have had no abortions performed at QHC in the 10 years that QHC has been in existence ... as far as I know," said hospital spokeswoman Susan Rowe.
When it comes to ethics, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons, the regulating body of doctors in this province, leaves it up to the individual doctor to decide if he or she will do the procedure, with the proper training.Well, cry me a river.
"That's a matter of personal choice," said Trenton's Dr. John Bonn, a former registrar at the college in Toronto.
He said the reason why a woman could not get an abortion in this area is because doctors here simply don't want to do it.
"We don't have a physician in the community who is willing to perform therapeutic abortions," Bonn said.
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UPDATE: Canadian Cecilia calls me "misogynistic"
Wow... talk about a big... fat... softball.*
