It’s better for patients to have access to a clinic, where people who are there want to be providing the service. People in hospitals are forced to be there; they have to perform the abortion, even if they’re anti-choice, and that can be acted out in punitive ways upon the patient. New Brunswick is also a small province — if you work in the hospital, where are you supposed to go if you don’t want everyone in the world to know you’re having an abortion?

Clinic 554 is not a place just to go when you’re desperate; it’s a place to go for a full range of reproductive health care, not just abortion, which is what the Morgentaler Clinic was providing. It came out of the desires of the community — to have a clinic centered on reproductive justice.

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