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Canada
Province Quebec Begins Abortion Reimbursement Payments
Montreal, Canada
The government of the
Canadian province of Quebec has begun paying for the abortions of more than
45,000 women with taxpayer funds after a judge forced the province in August to
reimburse women who had abortions at private abortion facilities.
Previously,
Quebec paid for abortions done at public hospitals but only a portion of the
cost for private abortions.
The ruling
makes Quebec spend $13 million on the abortions done at private abortion
facilities there since 1999. The province could pay as much as $300 per abortion
for the thousands of women affected by its policy.
Quebec
Superior Court Justice Nicole Benard ruled in his decision last year that the
women should not have been forced to pay for the abortions even though they got
them at private abortion businesses rather than public facilities. That's
because the Quebec Health Insurance Act entitles women getting abortions to
public funding of them.
The Quebec
government ran advertisements in newspapers over the weekend telling women who
may be eligible for the abortion funding reimbursements how to apply.
Women can
submit requests for reimbursements by September 7 and government checks will be
sent out to eligible recipients beginning February 8, 2008, according to the
CanWest News service.
The
pro-abortion Association for Access to Abortion, which provides funding for
women to get abortions, filed the class action lawsuit against the provincial
government covering all abortions done on women in the first 13 weeks of
pregnancy.
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