Under pressure from the Quebec College of Physicians and from women’s groups, Health Minister Yves Bolduc has decided that abortion clinics are good enough, in terms of patient safety, that no tighter regulation is needed. So such facilities will be exempted from Bill 34, the pending Quebec legislation intended to regulate private medical clinics, which have been becoming more numerous ever since the Supreme Court of Canada opened the door for them.

At least 5,000 abortions are performed annually in private clinics in Montreal alone ; the rate of medical problems in the process is so low that it has not reached the public consciousness. Accordingly, it clearly makes sense to leave these clinics alone.

But what about other private clinics, performing other routine procedures ? Do the Bill 34 rules - requiring a full sterile operating room with special ventilation - make more sense for all of those other medical acts ? It’s easy to suspect that public-medicine zealots in government, in the unions, and elsewhere, are eager to entangle private medicine in as much red tape as possible.

The Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists has complained that "this excessive legislation" will "add to an already lengthy list of needless bureaucratic measures, undermine physicians’ co-operation, attack their rights and professional independence, give discretionary power to the minister of health, and reduce patient access to our medical care."

The specialists noted that, for example, certain "benign and malignant tumors could no longer be treated in an office setting under the new rules." This will surely increase hospital wait times. In all, Bill 34 covers over 50 procedures.

Easy access to abortion has potent political support, and so the illogical tightening of requirements for abortion clinics was quickly scrapped. But the requirements under Bill 34 might well be too heavy-handed for other specialty-clinic medical acts, too. Bolduc needs to re-think this bill.