Henry Morgentaler, the guy who will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Western Ontario in June, is about to take over the abortion business for all of northern Alberta .

Earlier this week the Edmonton Journal columnist and abortion advocate Paula Simons lamented the fact that the city's Royal Alexandra Hospital would cease performing abortions in mid-May. The approximately 5,000 abortions done in the Capital Health Region each year will now be done at Morgentaler's clinic.

She followed that column up with a visit to the Morgentaler Clinic itself.

She was impressed. “Inside, the sunny, peaceful waiting room is filled with women, most very young. There are many young men, too, some waiting alone, others sitting close to their partners, holding hands. Next door is a private healing room,” she writes. “There's a dream catcher on the wall, a pile of votive candles waiting to be lit, and a prayer book, filled with meditations and verses from a variety of religious traditions: Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, aboriginal.”

You get the picture. The abortuary is such a happy, sensitive and caring place. It even does religion. It serves “women of all ages ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds, women who, for a range of personal and medical reasons, choose to terminate a pregnancy.”

Like most pro-abortion journalists, and most are, she ignores some of the more obvious questions that spring to my mind. How many of the “very young” women have “partners” who are much older? Does staff at the clinic ask? If some are being exploited or molested by older men, do clinic staff report it to police?

How many of the girls, especially those under 16, were there with the knowledge and consent of parents? Parental consent is not required for abortion although it is required for your school to dispense an Aspirin or Tylenol.

Does the private, for-profit business tell women, young or not, all the possible risks and side effects associated with abortion? Increased risk of subsequent premature and/or low birth weight babies? Possible increased risk of breast cancer? Higher risk of psychological problems including depression and suicide? And there are many more. What are the chances that a private, for profit abortion clinic risks losing business by warning clients about these risks? I'd say chances are about the same as tobacco companies telling smokers about the health risks of smoking.)

The Morgentaler Clinic was already doing two-thirds of the abortions in northern Alberta . Now, the health authority is handing it another big chunk of business that will allow it to operate five days a week with our tax dollars.

I'm most concerned about young girls, the teens who will be driven to the clinic by their older boyfriends, school counsellors or public health nurses with soothing words about the girl's best interest.

In Alberta in 2002, according to Alberta Health statistics, 45 girls under 15 had abortions, including one who had her second abortion. 737 teens between 15 and 17 had abortions that year too, and 71 of them had their second abortion. More disturbing, 7 girls under 17 year old had their third abortion.

Many of the teen abortions, 131, were second trimester abortions and three of them were over 20 weeks. I don't know how many of these were done at the Morgentaler Clinic but we do know that the province's two private clinics perform over half of all the abortions and almost two-thirds of the second trimester abortions. How safe is that? Later abortions are riskier than early ones and does a private clinic have the capacity to deal with complications that might arise with later abortions?

However, a part of me thinks it is good that abortions will not be done at the Royal Alex. Hospitals should be promoting health and life affirming treatments. They should not be in the business of ending human lives and exposing women to the risks associated with abortion.

Abortion is not about health. In 2003, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute in the U.S. reported on a survey of women who were having abortions. Only 3% cited health reasons for choosing abortion. Another 3% cited possible fetal health problems. Only 1% said the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, a favourite reason cited by many, including the Journal's Simons. The vast majority, 89%, cited personal reasons—financial, bad relationship, single, kids already grown up—we've all heard them.

Moving all the abortions to the private, for-profit clinic removes the pretense that these are done for health reasons. The worry is that women, especially young and vulnerable ones, already under great pressure to abort, will never have a chance to reconsider or even be aware they have positive alternatives to abortion. They won't run into a doctor at the Morgentaler Clinic who will encourage them to continue with the pregnancy, who will offer support and counselling and who will honestly outline the risks, complications and side effects of this invasive procedure.

Save us from Paula Simons and other abortion cheerleaders who would abandon women and girls to the abortionists and the men who exploit them. Women deserve better.