The truth is whatever you say it is

This is truly frightening. Ruth Farquhar in the Sudbury Star on the closing of the Morgentaler clinic in New Brunswick:

"The New Brunswick government is clearly, from a legal standpoint, in violation of the Canada Health Act. According to a letter addressed to federal Minister of Health Rona Ambrose from NDP Health Critic Libby Davis and NDP Critic of the Status of Women Niki Ashton, "under the Canada Health Act, the provincial and territorial health insurance plans are required to provide coverage for their residents for all medically necessary hospital and physician services. Abortion services have been determined to be medically necessary by all provincial and territorial health insurance plans." And of course, they ask the minister to intervene."

A legal standpoint? What is she talking about? There is no violation of the Canada Health Act (CHA) here.

Why am I reminded of that saying, if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth, and you will even come to believe it yourself? (frequently attributed to Dr. Josef Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda or to Adolf Hitler himself)

Ms. Farquahr quotes these MPs who think that the CHA requires that abortions must be publicly funded because they have been "deemed to be medically necessary by all provincial and territorial health insurance plans."

Does Ms. Farquahr think these MPs are some kind of expert on the topic? Because they are not. In fact, Ms. Ashton and Ms. Davies are wrong. And Ms. Farqhar is perpetuating this falsehood by repeating it in her article.

You see, the CHA leaves it up to the provinces to decide what is and what is not "medically necessary." And New Brunswick, through Regulation 84-20 of the Medical Services Payment Act, has "deemed" abortion not to be a "medically required" service "unless the abortion is performed by a specialist in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology in a hospital facility approved by the jurisdiction in which the hospital facility is located and two medical practitioners certify in writing that the abortion was medically required."

To say that all provinces have deemed abortion to be "medically necessary" is clearly not true.

I have no problem with an open and honest debate about the public funding of abortion. In fact, I along with many others would love to have a debate on how our health care dollars should be spent and whether abortion should take priority over say, the drug kalydeco for cystic fibrosis, avastin for people with brain tumours, the PSA tests for men, certain eye exams necessary to prevent blindness, and psychologist services--to name only a few unfunded medical treatments in Ontario.

What makes abortion so noble, that it should be paid for with scarce tax dollars when people who need life saving drugs are not paid for?

Yes by all means let's debate what our tax dollars should cover, and what they shouldn't cover. But it must be an honest debate. No one--no matter what their views on abortion are--should resort to deception to make their case.