뉴브런즈윅주, 자체 의뢰 낙태 전화 상담 서비스 실시하는 두 번째 주로 부상
N.B. becomes 2nd province to launch self-referral abortion phone lineJanuary 1, 1970
CBC News
Victoria Walton · CBC News · Posted: Apr 08, 2026 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: April 8
EN
2026-04-09 13:06
Translated
(설명 없음)
Three rings. Then, “Hello, bonjour, N.B. abortion line.”
That’s what it sounds like when you call New Brunswick’s new toll-free self-referral line for abortion services.
The woman on the other end, based out of the Moncton Hospital, explained how the line and access options work and answered questions.
“If you want to have an abortion, just you can just self-refer with some information … you need to have a Medicare card valid. If not, you will need to pay. And then depending where you live, we’ll find the closest place,” she said when asked how the process works.
Often when CBC News is calling for a story, the journalist will identify themselves and advise whether they're recording the conversation. In this case, CBC News withheld that information in order to try the new service under conditions any member of the public may experience.
The line is staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. between Monday and Friday. But callers can dial 1-844-806-9205 and leave a voicemail any time and get a call back within 48 hours.
New Brunswick launches abortion access self-referral phone line
CBC News called the line twice, receiving the message machine the first time before connecting with the attendant on the second try. We started the call by saying, "I'm just calling with some questions I’m wondering if it would be OK to ask.”
The woman on the phone touched on potential risks, which she said staff would go over in more detail at a consultation appointment. She said a patient could change their mind at any point in the process. She explained both medical and procedural abortion options were available through the access line. And she said appointments were available at different locations within just a few days.
“Depending what you decide, usually within two weeks you can have the appointment,” she said. “I have something for tomorrow at the [Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre]. You go there, you do your blood work, your ultrasound, and then sometimes they might book you the same day.”
The province said the phone line is meant to make getting an abortion simpler, so that patients only have to make one call, rather than several.
“We felt that it was very important to establish a quick link to the services that are available in our province,” said Health Minister John Dornan, who called the line “extremely progressive.”
“This allows people that find themselves in need of an abortion able to get that within a reasonable period of time.”
Accessing an abortion in New Brunswick hasn’t always been this easy.
“There's been so much change, especially in the past 11 years,” said Martha Paynter, a registered nurse and spokesperson for the New Brunswick Abortion Care Network, a network of about 50 abortion care providers across the province.
Up until 2015, women in New Brunswick still needed two referrals from medical doctors who said the abortion was necessary for their health.
That regulation, brought in by Premier Frank McKenna in 1988, was fought for decades by abortion activist and physician Henry Morgentaler, who sought to open up his own private clinic in New Brunswick — and eventually did in Fredericton in 1994.
“There will be a clinic in New Brunswick, a free standing clinic offering high quality services to women so they do not have to go outside the province,” Morgentaler told the CBC in Montreal in 1988.
“If the premier of New Brunswick does not want to take care of the health needs of women, needing abortions there, I will.”
Only abortions done at provincial hospitals were eligible for Medicare coverage, not those done at clinics like Morgentaler’s or its successor, Clinic 554 in Fredericton, which closed in 2023.
But since then-premier Brian Gallant repealed the two-referral regulation in 2015, women have been able to self-refer for either medical abortions or procedural, sometimes known as surgical, abortions.
And the new phone line means that people in need of an abortion only have to call one line, Paynter said, rather than calling around to find the earliest or best appointment.
“We want them to have one number to call, and not one number for Bathurst, one number for this side of Moncton, one number for that side of Moncton,” said Paynter. “That's too much. That's asking too much of patients.”
While the province has come a long way in the past 11 years, both Dornan and Paynter say there is still work to be done.
Medication abortions, done using the medication Mifegymiso, are able to be prescribed by doctors and nurse practitioners across the province. They can be done up to 10 weeks gestational age, which is calculated based on the start date of the patient’s last period.
Procedural abortions can be done up to 14 weeks gestational age, or up to 18 weeks in some cases, according to the province.
There are three hospitals in New Brunswick that provide procedural abortions: the Moncton Hospital, the Georges-L-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, and the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
“We are working on that. We are communicating with primary care providers to see who can provide more geographically available places to women in New Brunswick, and so we continue to chat with our practitioners to improve that, improve the access,” said Dornan. “And so yes, there's more work to do.”
Paynter said that alongside abortion access, her organization is also advocating for access to contraceptives. Premier Susan Holt promised to “make contraception free” in her November 2024 throne speech shortly after being elected.
“So it's really unfortunate that we're at a situation where every procedural abortion, every medication abortion for someone with a Medicare card, that's covered, and that can be thousands of dollars, but a $30 pack of birth control pills isn't,” Paynter said.
Dornan said funding for that promised free contraception is still in negotiations with the federal government, but it’s coming.
“We promised it. We will deliver,” he said.
The Department of Health said Medicare financially covered 1,223 medical abortions in the 2024-25 fiscal year, and there were 535 procedural abortions in the province, for a total of 1,758. In the 2025-26 fiscal year, there were 1,349 Mifegymiso claims and 433 procedural abortions, for a total of 1,782.
But Paynter said knowledge is the real barrier for most women.
“What really remains the most challenging aspect of abortion care for New Brunswickers is knowing how to get one,” she said.
Paynter hopes the phone line, which is modelled after the one Nova Scotia launched in 2018, will make patients feel more supported.
“The people who are working these phone lines, they do this day in and day out. This is what they do. And they're not going to be surprised by anything that you might say,” she said.
“That should, I hope, take away some of the anxiety that patients might feel making these phone calls.”
The province committed $188,000 for the line's operation.
CBC News advised the Department of Health and Horizon Health Network it had called the line and recorded the experience in order to share it with the public.
The department said it will receive quarterly reports in order to evaluate the phone line's impact.
Video-Journalist
Victoria Walton is a reporter at CBC New Brunswick, and previously worked with CBC P.E.I. She is originally from Nova Scotia, and has a bachelor of journalism from the University of King's College. You can reach her at victoria.walton@cbc.ca.
That’s what it sounds like when you call New Brunswick’s new toll-free self-referral line for abortion services.
The woman on the other end, based out of the Moncton Hospital, explained how the line and access options work and answered questions.
“If you want to have an abortion, just you can just self-refer with some information … you need to have a Medicare card valid. If not, you will need to pay. And then depending where you live, we’ll find the closest place,” she said when asked how the process works.
Often when CBC News is calling for a story, the journalist will identify themselves and advise whether they're recording the conversation. In this case, CBC News withheld that information in order to try the new service under conditions any member of the public may experience.
The line is staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. between Monday and Friday. But callers can dial 1-844-806-9205 and leave a voicemail any time and get a call back within 48 hours.
New Brunswick launches abortion access self-referral phone line
CBC News called the line twice, receiving the message machine the first time before connecting with the attendant on the second try. We started the call by saying, "I'm just calling with some questions I’m wondering if it would be OK to ask.”
The woman on the phone touched on potential risks, which she said staff would go over in more detail at a consultation appointment. She said a patient could change their mind at any point in the process. She explained both medical and procedural abortion options were available through the access line. And she said appointments were available at different locations within just a few days.
“Depending what you decide, usually within two weeks you can have the appointment,” she said. “I have something for tomorrow at the [Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre]. You go there, you do your blood work, your ultrasound, and then sometimes they might book you the same day.”
The province said the phone line is meant to make getting an abortion simpler, so that patients only have to make one call, rather than several.
“We felt that it was very important to establish a quick link to the services that are available in our province,” said Health Minister John Dornan, who called the line “extremely progressive.”
“This allows people that find themselves in need of an abortion able to get that within a reasonable period of time.”
Accessing an abortion in New Brunswick hasn’t always been this easy.
“There's been so much change, especially in the past 11 years,” said Martha Paynter, a registered nurse and spokesperson for the New Brunswick Abortion Care Network, a network of about 50 abortion care providers across the province.
Up until 2015, women in New Brunswick still needed two referrals from medical doctors who said the abortion was necessary for their health.
That regulation, brought in by Premier Frank McKenna in 1988, was fought for decades by abortion activist and physician Henry Morgentaler, who sought to open up his own private clinic in New Brunswick — and eventually did in Fredericton in 1994.
“There will be a clinic in New Brunswick, a free standing clinic offering high quality services to women so they do not have to go outside the province,” Morgentaler told the CBC in Montreal in 1988.
“If the premier of New Brunswick does not want to take care of the health needs of women, needing abortions there, I will.”
Only abortions done at provincial hospitals were eligible for Medicare coverage, not those done at clinics like Morgentaler’s or its successor, Clinic 554 in Fredericton, which closed in 2023.
But since then-premier Brian Gallant repealed the two-referral regulation in 2015, women have been able to self-refer for either medical abortions or procedural, sometimes known as surgical, abortions.
And the new phone line means that people in need of an abortion only have to call one line, Paynter said, rather than calling around to find the earliest or best appointment.
“We want them to have one number to call, and not one number for Bathurst, one number for this side of Moncton, one number for that side of Moncton,” said Paynter. “That's too much. That's asking too much of patients.”
While the province has come a long way in the past 11 years, both Dornan and Paynter say there is still work to be done.
Medication abortions, done using the medication Mifegymiso, are able to be prescribed by doctors and nurse practitioners across the province. They can be done up to 10 weeks gestational age, which is calculated based on the start date of the patient’s last period.
Procedural abortions can be done up to 14 weeks gestational age, or up to 18 weeks in some cases, according to the province.
There are three hospitals in New Brunswick that provide procedural abortions: the Moncton Hospital, the Georges-L-Dumont University Hospital Centre in Moncton, and the Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
“We are working on that. We are communicating with primary care providers to see who can provide more geographically available places to women in New Brunswick, and so we continue to chat with our practitioners to improve that, improve the access,” said Dornan. “And so yes, there's more work to do.”
Paynter said that alongside abortion access, her organization is also advocating for access to contraceptives. Premier Susan Holt promised to “make contraception free” in her November 2024 throne speech shortly after being elected.
“So it's really unfortunate that we're at a situation where every procedural abortion, every medication abortion for someone with a Medicare card, that's covered, and that can be thousands of dollars, but a $30 pack of birth control pills isn't,” Paynter said.
Dornan said funding for that promised free contraception is still in negotiations with the federal government, but it’s coming.
“We promised it. We will deliver,” he said.
The Department of Health said Medicare financially covered 1,223 medical abortions in the 2024-25 fiscal year, and there were 535 procedural abortions in the province, for a total of 1,758. In the 2025-26 fiscal year, there were 1,349 Mifegymiso claims and 433 procedural abortions, for a total of 1,782.
But Paynter said knowledge is the real barrier for most women.
“What really remains the most challenging aspect of abortion care for New Brunswickers is knowing how to get one,” she said.
Paynter hopes the phone line, which is modelled after the one Nova Scotia launched in 2018, will make patients feel more supported.
“The people who are working these phone lines, they do this day in and day out. This is what they do. And they're not going to be surprised by anything that you might say,” she said.
“That should, I hope, take away some of the anxiety that patients might feel making these phone calls.”
The province committed $188,000 for the line's operation.
CBC News advised the Department of Health and Horizon Health Network it had called the line and recorded the experience in order to share it with the public.
The department said it will receive quarterly reports in order to evaluate the phone line's impact.
Video-Journalist
Victoria Walton is a reporter at CBC New Brunswick, and previously worked with CBC P.E.I. She is originally from Nova Scotia, and has a bachelor of journalism from the University of King's College. You can reach her at victoria.walton@cbc.ca.