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Abortion
limits are tight enough, writer argues, March 7 Writer
Celia Posyniak argued that "abortion limits are
tight enough." Yet, there is no legal limit to
abortion in Canada. None. Abortions can be performed
without legal penalty up to the moment of birth.
As
the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta guidelines
say:
"Under Canadian law, the unborn fetus does not
have status or rights as a person." That means
the unborn child can be aborted at any stage before
birth.
Abortion
is only limited in the way other medical procedures
are -- distance from a hospital or clinic, or a shortage
of doctors available to perform the procedure. It is
easier to access than many medical procedures in that
there is a very short waiting list, there are private
clinics fully funded by taxpayers that perform them
and, most importantly, it is one of the few, if not
only, funded procedures that is performed almost always
at the request of the patient.
Most
others require a diagnosis of a medical problem. Abortion
does not.
If you are pregnant and don't want to have a baby, you
can get one.
Imagine a system which allowed patients to walk into
a clinic and say, "I don't want my appendix anymore.
Please take it out and charge it to the government health
system." That's what happens with abortion.
Posyniak
asserts that late-term abortions are "rare, difficult
to access and practised only when serious maternal and
fetal health problems are present." If they are
rare, why would she worry about the proposal to restrict
them? Why didn't she cite statistics to show us how
rare they are?
According
to the most recent Statistics Canada numbers, there
were
105,002 abortions in 2002. Approximately three per cent
of the total, 4,500 abortions, were performed after
16 weeks. We have no idea how many of those were late-term
or third trimester abortions.
If
one extrapolates from numbers from the United States,
where abortion statistics are proportionately quite
similar to ours, there would be between 400 and 500
late-term abortions in Canada each year. It is a matter
of public record that we send some women to the States
each year because Americans are more skilled at aborting
very late-term babies.
Hard
to access? How so? Nowhere in the college guidelines
is there any suggestion that an abortion must not or
cannot be performed at any time.f tobacco manufacturers
on the benefits of smoking?
How
about the claim that late-term abortions happen only
for "serious health problems." Again, where
are the statistics?
Posyniak
is on the Reproductive Health Report Advisory Committee
for Alberta Health. It decides what statistics will
be collected and released on "pregnancy termination."
You won't find any mention of late-term abortions in
the report, just the catch-all category of "over
20 weeks." Yet, Margaret Somerville in this newspaper
cited two recent examples of women over 32 weeks' pregnant
seeking abortions for non-medical reasons. We also know
from a high profile case in 1999 that the Foothills
Hospital has performed at least one late (35-week) abortion.
Furthermore,
the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute in the U.S. surveyed
women about their reasons for having abortions. Only
three per cent cited health reasons or reasons of fetal
health. And, as Somerville pointed out, often "fetal
health" means cleft palate and other conditions
that are not fatal and are sometimes correctable. Posyniak
wonders why we would trust doctors "in every area
of medicine except abortion care."
Abortion
is not medicine. It terminates a living human being
and violates the "do no harm" principle.
The
classic Hippocratic Oath includes the promise not to
procure abortion. In abandoning that oath, they have
forfeited our trust.
Joanne
Byfield is research and education co-ordinator for
Alberta Pro-Life.
C
The Calgary Herald 2006
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C 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks
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