Saturday, January 30, 2016

FOI Charter Challenge helps pro-abortions too

I can't write about abortion statistics. Neither can NDP MP Kennedy Stewart:
“That’s [Therapeutic Abortion Survey] been collected since 1970. And then they cancel it. They cancelled the publication, the tables, and the survey,” he said. “We should look into it more. Again, we’ve had a lot of news reports about how abortions are hard to obtain in different provinces. Once you get rid of this tracking, it makes it very, very difficult to do things like enforce the Canada Health Act.
Nobody else in this country can write or comment about abortion statistics either, because you can't write or comment on something (especially on something as political as abortion) if you don't have the facts to back you up.

The abortion statistics we do have from CIHI, are woefully inaccurate. And we know too well that Ontario has chosen to exclude and hide all Ontario abortion statistics from any and all Freedom of Information requests. BC isn't doing any better.

So our Charter Challenge will benefit even the NDP. You're welcome Kennedy Stewart.

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Let's improve actual medically necessary healthcare

Why is it that certain special interest groups seek rights and privileges that the rest of us don't dare to dream of? After the so-called “Abortion Access Now” group announced they were taking the government of Prince Edward Island to court in order to force it to provide immediate access to publicly funded abortion on the Island, Supriya Dwivedi wrote in the Ottawa Sun that “women in Canada face horrendously unequal treatment, wholly dependent on geography.” Apparently a 2-hour drive to Moncton for an elective procedure is “horrendously” intolerable.
The legal action by Abortion Access Now, and the frenzied support of Ms. Dwivedi, shows that some Canadians are completely out of touch with the majority who understand and accept that, even with a top-notch health care system, not every single medical procedure will be available in every single area of the country.
Here is why I was quite properly annoyed by this outlandish demand. Three days into our annual winter vacation, my husband and I were sitting in an emergency room of a remote hospital in northern British Columbia waiting for a nurse to call a doctor out of bed to come look at our son. He was lying on a gurney, writhing in pain, while we waited anxiously for medical help.
After a series of tests, it was determined that he had a ruptured appendix and the infectious contents had abscessed in his lower abdomen. The doctor informed us that he required immediate surgery and, because there was no surgical team nearby, they had to fly him 684 kilometers to BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.
aaron wnal
As we waited to be flown to Vancouver for life-saving treatment, the air ambulance was delayed because a patient with a head injury from Kamloops also required emergency evacuation, as they didn’t have a neurosurgeon available in that city. In two small British Columbia cities, holidays were cut short by medical emergencies requiring significant travel for necessary treatment. We waited our turn.
When I eventually arrived home from the hospital and found out that this group of PEI activists felt they were entitled to expanded access to abortion I was rightfully upset. In fact, I am tired of abortion advocates demanding all Canadians support their fabricated right to an abortion. The Morgentaler decision, which Ms. Dwivedi refers to throughout her diatribe, did not give women a right to abortion. The reality is that the Supreme Court judges recommended that Parliament take steps to protect the rights of pre-born children at some stage of pregnancy. That was twenty-eight years ago. It’s about time we did something about it.  
There is no consensus among physicians’ groups that abortion is medically necessary. Yet, every Canadian province funds it, including PEI (the service is just not available on the island itself). In the face of truly necessary medical services, feminists have nothing to complain about. To quote Sarah MacDonald, provincial pro-life coordinator in PEI, “There is a great need in our province for medically necessary services, such as trauma care, cancer treatment, surgical care and more. Why aren’t these activists suing the government to increase access to these services?”
Our family’s vacation was cut short by a medical emergency requiring an unscheduled flight in an air ambulance to a distant hospital for immediate medical attention. We are not bitter, and we certainly aren’t demanding that surgical teams be established throughout northern B.C. for our convenience. Universal health care is a pillar of Canadian society and we are thankful to live in a country that takes the health of its citizens seriously.
The majority of Canadians understand and accept that, for our top-notch health system to work for everyone, not every single medical procedure can be available in every single area of the country.
By Jennifer Schouten, a proud mom and Canadian who doesn’t need the government to provide everything for her.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Educating Sandeep Prasad of Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights

Sandeep Prasad (Executive Director, Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights) should know better. He thinks that RU-486 will:
"increase access to abortion in more remote and rural areas"
and that
"Limiting the ability to prescribe Mifegymiso to physicians especially restricts access to the service in communities where it is most needed, in rural and remote areas where physicians are lacking and abortion services are far and few between."
You'd think that the executive director of a major "pro-choice" organization would know of the dangers of RU-486 being used where "physicians are lacking and abortion services are far and few between".

Here you go Sandeep: Educate yourself on this dangerous drug. You don't want women in rural areas to take this drug. Not unless you don't care what happens to them if they have serious complications like:
"pelvic infections (endometritis, salpingitis [inflammation of the fallopian tubes]) and vaginal haemorrhages. Rare cases of fatalities were reported, therefore access to emergency care which can provide gynaecological surgical procedures, antibiotic intravenous therapy and blood transfusion in the rare cases where complications occur, is recommended in the labelling to ensure patient’s safety."
How will these women get the help they need in these rural and remote areas when things go wrong?

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Charter challenge for hiding abortion information

We (ARPA and myself) have now served our application record to the Attorney General of Ontario for our Charter Challenge. Hiding information from taxpayers isn't transparent, open and accountable.

Our application records:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_QDsYLWnwO6bnY3Y2pqd21EYlk/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_QDsYLWnwO6WnBKcEJ1QThTeFU/view?usp=sharing

In fact, the Ontario Government's decision to exclude abortion information from the public directly contravenes their own "Open Data Directive".
"Ontario’s Open Data Directive maximizes access to government data by requiring all data to be made public, unless it is exempt for legal, privacy, security, confidentiality or commercially-sensitive reasons. It sets out key principles and requirements for publishing open data, and applies to data created and managed by Ontario ministries and provincial agencies."
None of these exemptions apply to the abortion information I was trying to get. So why are they hiding it? Good question.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Pro-abortions - are abortions medically necessary or aren't they?

This is rich. Here we have the good old CBC, Canada's publicly funded broadcaster, writing this glowing article on Carafem's 'spa-like' abortion clinic part of new U.S. trend:
"We'll have flowers, there's music, there's no harsh medical smells, images on the walls are of people smiling. We're trying to maintain an experience that is as friendly and comfortable as it possibly could be," says Grant, a former director of Planned Parenthood.  
Carafem, which opened in April 2015 and specializes in the abortion pill for early-term pregnancies, represents a shift in abortion-care ideology — one that aims to "de-medicalize" the whole process. 
...Carafem also refers to patrons as clients, as Grant believes the word "patient" can wrongly suggest people with unintended pregnancies are sick."
But here's the problem.

How do we square "de-medicalizing abortion" because pregnant women aren't sick, with the pro-abortion's mantra that abortions are "medically necessary" and so must be publicly funded?

You can't have it both ways.