Part 1 - CIHI 2021 abortion data

CIHI is out with their 2021 abortion numbers. They are now adjusting their numbers to use doctor's billing codes. That is good. But what is bad is that they are not including all of their previous stats.

"March 23, 2023 — Provision of abortion services in Canada has evolved in recent years. Since the medical abortion medication Mifegymiso became available in Canada in 2017, medical abortions have become increasingly accessible in non-hospital settings (e.g., nurse practitioner and physician offices, community and public health clinics). In addition, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic may have further shifted abortion services to non-hospital settings. As a result, reporting from traditional hospital data sources has led to an underestimation of the true number of induced abortions in Canada."

There are a lot of caveats to the 2021 data:

"Reporting enhancements

As part of CIHI’s ongoing improvement efforts, we explored opportunities to address data gaps, resulting in a revised methodology for reporting induced abortions for some jurisdictions in Canada. The methodology now includes physician billing data as the source of total abortion volumes and method of abortion for some provinces. 

Because of the revised methodology, 2021 results are not comparable with historical data results. Restated 2020 abortion volumes using the revised methodology can be found in the notes to Table 1. The tables also contain information regarding data sources and coding methodology.

Frequently asked questions

Why is the total number of reported induced abortions larger than in previous years?

The number has increased due to changes in reporting methodology. More complete reporting for 5 provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia) is now sourced from physician billing data. Restated 2020 abortion volumes using the revised methodology can be found in the notes to Table 1.

Why were the reporting changes made now?

We enhanced the methodology as part of our ongoing efforts to improve completeness of reporting. The revised methodology better captures induced abortions, which are increasingly occurring in non-hospital settings (e.g., nurse practitioner and physician offices, community and public health clinics).

Why is the revised methodology used for some provinces only?

Due to variations in physician billing data capture and completeness across the country, it was not feasible to use the revised methodology for all jurisdictions; this has resulted in some ongoing underestimation of total abortion volumes. More comprehensive reporting may be available in future CIHI releases.

Do the results include the number of induced abortions from RU-486/mifepristone/Mifegymiso? 

Reported volumes include abortions induced by Mifegymiso that occurred in a hospital, that were reported voluntarily by clinics or that were captured in the medical abortion physician billing codes. The data does not permit us to report these volumes separately because there is no unique code to identify Mifegymiso in the data sources. A high-level breakdown by method of abortion can be found in Table 3.

Why are there fewer data tables in the 2021 data release compared with previous years?

Breakdowns derived from hospitalization data only are no longer included since they are not representative of all abortions across all settings and represent only a small proportion of the total number of abortions."

So you can see that there is a lot of missing information from previous years:

• By Gestational age
• By number of previous deliveries
• By Number of previous abortions
• By complications

I had to do a fair amount of diddling with the report to get it to print properly, (formatting, etc) and haven't had time yet to review the actual data yet. 

Part 3 - pro-abortion author continues witch hunt

Previous post Part 2 - Pro-abortion report - uses US experience of PCCs

You know, it is very sad when people have so much ill will towards pregnancy care centres, that they relentlessly attack these centres for years on end. But that's not enough. They have also made repeated unwarranted complaints to CRA about them. Thankfully CRA has not acted on these complaints. Regardless, nobody should have to endure such frivolous, vexatious and unfounded accusations.

"As of December 2022, a total of 66 complaints have been made to the CRA by ARCC and allied groups, against 40 CPCs and 26 advocacy groups. None has had their charity status revoked due to the complaints. ARCC has also researched the wealthiest or most influential anti-choice groups in Canada and found that ten had an annual revenue of over $750,000 was in 2021, including seven CPCs or advocacy groups that run CPCs.

To give you some context to this myth that pro-life groups are "wealthy", the ten pro-life charities the pro-abortion author refers to, received a total of $365,028 in one year of government funding. On the other hand, the pro-abortion Action Canada for Sexual Health and Reproductive Rights, received a whopping $3,003,355 from government funding in one year. And that's for only one pro-abortion organization, not ten. I've written before about the billions the pro-abortions receive in government funding.

The pro-abortion author's next vexatious attack:

"When the pandemic arrived in 2020, the Liberal government launched the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy program (CEWS) to give financial relief to employers so they could retain and pay their staff. A total of 53 anti-choice groups received CEWS funding, including 35 CPCs. 

In fall 2020, ARCC submitted a petition with over 11,000 signatures asking the government to stop and rescind the funding, 200 and change the program’s criteria to match the Canada Summer Jobs new criteria. The government was non-responsive to the petition and all requests. The CEWS program ended in August 2021.

It seems that once again, CRA did not act on these frivolous, vexatious, unfounded and frankly, ridiculous complaints.

"Given the results of this study, we recommend that CPCs in Canada be regulated in order to better public health and respect the rights of patients seeking healthcare. We specifically recommend that CPCs: be required to disclose their anti-choice and religious stance be stopped from providing unregulated medical services such as ultrasounds, not be publicly funded be removed from referral lists used by legitimate medical facilities, have their charitable tax status revoked for those that are charities,be stopped from teaching sex education in public schools, and not be allowed to place misleading advertising in public."

It wasn't enough to complain to CRA over and over again, the pro-abortions want nothing less than to ensure that pregnancy care centres are unable at all to do the work they do so well.

Calling this a witch hunt is an understatement.

Mother Teresa and abortion

 “Mother Teresa of Calcutta, National Prayer Breakfast, Washington DC. February 1994

. . . I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love and we must remind ourselves that love means willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave his His life to love us. So, the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love, that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts.

 

By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills her even own child to solve her problems. And, by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. The father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion.

 

. . . Each child is created in the special image and likeness of God for greater things – to love and to be loved.”

Canada performs abortions on Americans and other nationals

I received an ATIP to Immigration and citizenship, done by someone else after the overturning of Roe VS Wade:

Please send me your briefing notes, correspondence and reports on the recent American abortion court rulings and new laws, since May 1, 2022, and its impacts upon Canada - e.g., Americans travelling here for abortions, the new burden on our medical system, changes to the Canada Health Act. [Background - Regarding abortion rights, on June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe vs Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. On May 2, 2022, Politico released a leaked first draft of this majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito. ] The decision means women living in states with new restrictions on abortion could be forced to travel to Canada to obtain the procedure. Travel to Canada also requires a passport and a vaccine card. Abortion coalitions are calling on Canadian governments to give clinics more funding, saying even a small number of Americans can overwhelm our system. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hinted Canada could be a destination. Statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show a fairly steady increase in the number of people from the U.S. who were granted permanent residence in Canada each year since 2015 (when Donald Trump was soon to be elected). So far, 2022 is shaping up to be another banner year: 3,235 applications were approved in the first quarter, the highest total for that three-month period in the past eight years. ]

So Canada will perform abortions on Americans who come here. And if women come to Canada in a "refugee-like situation or in a situation where humanitarian considerations apply", Canada will also pay for their abortions. The money comes from another one of Justin Trudeau's endless money trees, planted somewhere in LaLa land. This one is from the $740 million Federal Health Program.

Not too sure what is humanitarian about killing a foreign national's pre-born child. Certainly not very humanitarian for that baby.

Part 2 - Pro-abortion report - uses US experience of PCCs

Further to Part 1 - Pro-abortion report - anti-Christian hate speech? I'd like to address the fact that Joyce Arthur (the pro-abortion author) uses numerous footnotes that have no bearing on the Canadian experience of Pregnancy Care Centres. They are used to bolster the pro-abortion author's claim that Canadian PCCs deceive and misinform women. 

Note 1: The term Crisis Pregnancy Centres (CPCs) is used interchangeably with Pregnancy Care Centres (PCCs).

Note 2: Many references are to the American experience with CPCs. This is illogical. Two separate countries, two separate situations. They are not the same. Therefore these references should be ignored.

Note 3: Abortion Rights Coalition, Action Canada for Sexual Health, and the BC Humanist association are all fundamentalist biased pro-abortion references. Therefore all these references should be ignored.

Note 4: A majority of the footnotes are links to the PCCs themselves, that the pro-abortion author is looking at. The pro-abortion author sees all manner of bogeymen in these care centres, even though by her own admission she bases all of her so-called "review" of these centres, solely on what she sees on their websites. The pro-abortion author notes that there were no site visits or discussions with centre staff. How can you properly investigate any organization solely on what their website says? You can't.

Note 5: Nine references to Bryant, an American, who writes solely on CPCs in the US. Therefore all these references should be ignored.

Note 6: Sixteen references to Hussey, an American who writes solely on CPCs in the US. Therefore all these references should be ignored.

Note 7: Two references are to articles in Cosmopolitan magazine. These references are about American experience about CPCs. Therefore these references should be ignored.

From the Study aims and objectives:

'The aim of this study was to determine the presence of any deception or misinformation on the websites of Canadian “crisis pregnancy centres,” or CPCs, and compare the results to a similar study we conducted in 2016 to better understand changes over time. CPCs often try to prevent pregnant people from obtaining an abortion or accessing birth control through a variety of tactics that include deception and the dissemination of misinformation.1 This contributes to abortion stigma and interferes with people’s ability to make a fully informed decision about an unwanted pregnancy."  [why bother pretending "to determine the presence of any deception or misinformation", since it's already the pro-abortion author's foregone conclusion that CPCs deceive and misinform women? As well, her 2016 report has also been refuted.] 

Some details below. It's all kind of boring, but necessary. 

Footnotes 1-3 are references to the American/pro-abortion situation. (The pro-abortion author relies heavily on the American experience with CPCs but is not relevant to the Canadian experience.)

1 Bryant AG & Swartz JJ (2018 March). “Why crisis pregnancy centers are legal but unethical.” AMA Journal of Ethics, 20(3), 269–277. https://doi.org/10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.3.pfor1-1803

2 College of Public Health at the University of Georgia (2022). “Crisis pregnancy center map.” https://crisispregnancycentermap.com

3 Kirstein M, et al. (2022 October). “100 days post-Roe: At least 66 clinics across 15 US states have stopped offering abortion care.”Guttmacher Institute. https://tinyurl.com/4crx6vn5 

Footnote 8 contains 11 references. All of these refer to the American and pro-abortion viewpoint and thus have no bearing on Canada's situation. Therefore they should be ignored.

See inter alia (by date): Montoya MN, Judge-Golden C, Swartz JJ (2022 June 8). “The Problems with Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Reviewing the Literature and Identifying New Directions for Future Research.” Int J Womens Health. 2022; 14: 757–763. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9189146/; McKenna J and Murtha T (2021 October 28). “Designed to deceive: A study of the crisis pregnancy center industry in nine states.” The Alliance: State Advocates for Women’s Rights & Gender Equality. https://tinyurl.com/2edbj9yc; Polcyn C, et al. (2020 July 27). “Truth and transparency in crisis pregnancy centers.” Women’s Health Reports, 1, 224–226. https://doi.org/10.1089/whr.2020.0057; Kimport K (2020 February). “Pregnant women’s reasons for and experiences of visiting antiabortion pregnancy resource centers.” Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 52(1), 49–56. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32103617/; Swartzendruber A, et al. (2019 October) “Crisis pregnancy centers in the United States: Lack of adherence to medical and ethical practice standards; A joint position statement of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine and the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology.” Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, 32, 563–566. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpag.2019.10.008; NARAL Pro-Choice Connecticut Foundation (2018). “Crisis pregnancy centers: A threat to reproductive freedom.” https://tinyurl.com/4ynznaff; Swartzendruber A (2017 November). “A study of information and misinformation presented on the websites of crisis pregnancy centers in Georgia.” Scholars Strategy Network. http://tiny.cc/c864vz; Bryant & Swartz 2018; Winter M (2015 July 14). “What some pregnancy centers are really saying to women with unplanned pregnancies.” https://tinyurl.com/yc257huf; Winter M (2015 April 6). “‘Save the mother, save the baby’: An inside look at a pregnancy center conference.” Cosmopolitan. https://tinyurl.com/327fkjk9; McIntire L (2015 January). “Crisis pregnancy centers lie: the insidious threat to reproductive freedom.” NARAL Pro-Choice America. https://tinyurl.com/u629azpr; Waxman HA [prepared for] (2006 July). “False and misleading health information provided by federally funded pregnancy resource centers.” United States House of Representatives, Committee on Government Reform – Minority Staff, Special Investigations Division. www.motherjones.com/files/waxman2.pdf;   

Footnotes 9-17 are a repeat from pro-abortion's 2016 report. All of these were refuted in my 2017 rebuttal of this report https://run-with-life.blogspot.com/2017/05/abortion-rights-coalition-of-canada_10.html, a rebuttal the pro-abortion author ignores. She also ignores CAPPS's rebuttal of her 2009 report which corrects numerous of her false allegations about these centres. Therefore these references should be ignored.

9 CTV (2000 November 5). “The Pretenders.” W-Five documentary news program.

10 Arthur J (2009 January). “Exposing crisis pregnancy centres in British Columbia.” Pro-Choice Action Network. www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/Exposing-CPCs-in-BC.pdf.

11 Smith J (2010). “Deception used in counselling women against abortion.” The Star. https://tinyurl.com/ykascusf

12 Tilley S (2011). “Are anti-choice crisis pregnancy centres targeting female students on Ontario university campuses?” Student research paper, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto. www.arcc-cdac.ca/media/2020/06/CPCs-Universities-2011-Sara-Tilley.pdf

13 Woodward J (2012 April 27). “Surrey charity gives dubious abortion advice: Investigation.” CTV News Vancouver. https://tinyurl.com/d873u966

14 Khandaker T (2013 June 26). “Phony abortion clinics In Canada are scaring women with lies.” VICE. https://tinyurl.com/yh6sckbp

15 Gonin A, Pronovost V, & Blais M (2014). “Enjeux éthiques de l’intervention auprès de femmes vivant une grossesse imprévue au Québec: Discours et pratiques de ressources anti-choix et pro-choix – Rapport de recherche.” [“Ethical Issues of intervention with unplanned pregnancy experienced by women living in Quebec: Anti-choice and pro-choice discourse and resource practices – Research report.”] Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) and Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (FQPN). https://tinyurl.com/4f6eh5s3

16 FQPN – Fédération du Québec pour le planning des naissances (2014). “Mieux comprendre les ressources conseil grossesse anti-choix au Québec : Outil d’information, de réflexion et pistes de recommandation.” [Translation: “To better understand anti-choice pregnancy counselling resources in Quebec: A tool for information, reflection and tracking recommendations”]. https://api.fqpn.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/RESS_CG_WEB_FIN.pdf

17 LaRoche KJ, & Foster AM (2015 November). “Toll free but not judgment free: Evaluating postabortion support services in Ontario.” Contraception, 92(5), 469–474. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26260687

18 Arthur J, et al. (2016 May). “Review of ‘crisis pregnancy centre’ websites in Canada.” ARCC. https://tinyurl.com/bddv2ybr (already refuted by me in 2017)

Footnote 19 is interesting. Li H. (2019). “Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Canada and Reproductive Justice Organizations’ Responses.” Global Journal of Health Science. Vol. 11, No. 2. https://ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/gjhs/article/view/0/38088

Li writes (notice the bit emphasized below):

"A 2016 study by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC), Review of "Crisis Pregnancy Centre" Websites in Canada (Arthur et al., 2016), drew significant attention from both sides of the Canadian “abortion war.” An anti-abortion activist described the study as “witch hunts” (Maloney, 2017). A humanist association referred to it as “a hugely important study” (BC Humanist Association, 2016); similarly, a feminist organization considered it “important to keep in mind” (Laurier Brantford Women's Centre, 2016). One of the very few reports that investigate Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in Canada, this report specifically focuses on how these centers’ websites distribute misinformation and withhold facts. Reproductive justice (RJ) activists found this report significantly constructive because CPCs now outnumber abortion providers in Canada, thus posing a threat to women’s reproductive freedom."

This was the only reference I found anywhere in the report, or in any of the footnotes, or any of the references, from a pro-life person (me). This one sentence, which doesn't actually say anything. Nothing about all of the false allegations I refuted, or anything else from any other pro-life person.

And yes, the pro-abortion author has been, is now, and always will be, on a witch hunt towards Pregnancy Care Centres, since they will not refer women for abortions.

Some might say, why bother with the myths and false allegations written by the pro-abortion author at all? Why not just ignore them? The answer is, of course, we do so at our peril. The media and pro-choice and pro-abortion people frequently (as in, all the time) refer to the pro-abortion author's so-called "research". She knows she can write her allegations with impunity. Very few people contradict her vitriol. Heck even Justin Trudeau quotes from her play book. Pro-abortion people never ever refer to those of us who refute her writings (as in the example above). So it is important that we do what we can to set the record straight.

Below are examples of others quoting the pro-abortion author's work.

20 (Quotes pro-abortion author) Browne R (2019 June 1). “Pro-choice advocates want crisis pregnancy centres defunded and regulated.” Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/5328797/crisis-pregnancy-centres-abortion/

21 (Quotes pro-abortion author) Mitchell K (2019). “Access in Alberta: Understanding barriers to abortion and the role of crisis pregnancy centres.” In Political Challenges and Digital Frontiers Reproductive Health and Services in Southern Alberta. Eds. K Mitchell, C Giles, and C Williams. Parkland Institute, pp. 39–60. https://tinyurl.com/2p9fhneb (14 references to ARCC, including the pro-abortion 's 2009 and 2016 debunked reports.)

22 (Pro-abortion author) Murdoch A (2020). “Analyzing the communication methods of crisis pregnancy centres: A conventional content analysis.” Master’s thesis, Western University. https://tinyurl.com/mr3cszax

Interesting enough, Murdoch states her own pro-abortion bias:

"I went into this work with a bias, in that I am a pro choice woman. I was raised in a pro-choice household, and I have done previous work in the area of reproductive justice...”

Murdoch also has 37 references to Bryant who writes of the American experience with PCCs and so is not relevant to Canada.

23 (Quotes pro-abortion author) Upshaw B (2022 March). “Comparative analysis of crisis pregnancy centres – Canada and international.” Memo prepared for ARCC through PBSC-UNB. https://tinyurl.com/h4sww64z (Refers to 2016 report)

24 (Quotes pro-abortion author). Rudrum S. (2023 December 21). “Student encounters with a campus crisis pregnancy centre: Choice, reproductive justice and sexual and reproductive health supports.” Canadian Journal of Sociology, 47(1). https://doi.org/10.29173/cjs29754 (Refers to 2016 report)

25 to 28 all fundamentalist pro-abortion groups, hell bent on getting rid of Pregnancy Care Centres.

25 Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights (2019 September 19). “Access at a glance: Abortion services in Canada.” https://tinyurl.com/2wbn7p7r

26 ARCC (2021 June). “Anti-choice private member bills and motions introduced in Canada since 1987.” www.arcc-cdac.ca/presentations-anti-bills/

27 Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights 2019.

28 ARCC (2022 November). “The refusal to provide health care in Canada.” https://tinyurl.com/3vdfs445

29-30 (American experience, not pertinent to Canada) Hussey LS (2020). The pro-life pregnancy help movement: Serving women or saving babies? USA: University Press of Kansas, p.2

33, 34, 36, 37, 44 Hussey, American experience, not pertinent to Canada, ignore

40, 41, 45, Bryant, American experience, not pertinent to Canada, ignore

46 BCHA (link not provided) BC Humanist Association is pro-abortion

47, 48 (pro-abortion author)

The pro-abortion author also refers to other research regarding the abortion breast cancer (ABC) link, psychological effects of abortion, etc, all of which were refuted in CAPSS rebuttal of the 2009 report.

Sorry for the length. It had to be done.

Abortion will end in God's time

Maureen and I had our own little pilgrimage on Friday (thanks to Maureen for her creative documentation of said pilgrimage). 

First stop, the Ottawa Morgentaler place on Bank St. to pray the Rosary. Next stop, St. Patrick's Basilica for a beautiful Mass in honour of St. Patrick. It was our first opportunity to hear the Liturgy by Ottawa's Archbishop Marcel Damphousse.

You know, the pro-abortions have their abortions, and we have our prayers to end abortion. What we have is so much more powerful than their abortion ideology will ever be. 

We know who wins in the end. All in God's time.

Dying with Dignity approves of patient waiver for euthanasia

In the fall there was an article in a magazine I received for retirees. Dying with Dignity was quoted. You know, the people who love MAID, and get government funding to love it. 

I wrote a letter. 

What a great place to advertise your death wares--to retirees.

Part 1 - Pro-abortion report - anti-Christian hate speech?

Joyce Arthur is at it again. She's just released her third hit piece against Pregnancy Care Centres (PCCs) in Canada. These centres support women through unplanned pregnancies. Their grave and unforgivable sins are that they are pro-life, not pro-abortion, and frequently Christian. And they will not refer for abortions. Which is a spurious argument at best, since in Canada you don't need a referral for an abortion, a fact well known by Arthur.

Her latest report is really just a rehash (reminds me of hash-browned potatoes) of Arthur's 2016 and 2009 reports (both of which have been soundly refuted here and here ). Also recall that Arthur received a taxpayer funded grant of $27,400 to write her vicious 2009 report.

In this post I'd like to take aim at just one aspect of Arthur's report, and will write more posts later as necessary.

The first notable aspect of most of Arthur's writings, and this report in particular, is her undisguised disdain for religion, and in particular, all things Christian and Catholic. It's also hard not to notice what usually goes along with theme number one, that is, theme number two: all of these centres that she takes aim at, also (in her mind anyway) deceive, misinform, give inaccurate information, are biased etc.

I have detailed below the number of times Arthur uses these terms in her report.

• Catholic (23 times)
• Christian (24 times)
• Protestant (2 times)
• Orthodox (3 times)
• Jesus Christ (2 times)
• Religious (94 times)

-----------------------------------------

• fear-mongering (2 times)
• dissuade (5 times)
• biased (7 times)
• referrals (12 times) ie as in do not provide abortion referrals
• inaccurate (9 times)
• deceptive (9 times) ie “From their very inception, CPCs have employed deceptive practices and disinformation to further their agenda.”
• misinformation (34 times)
• disinformation (3 times) as far as I know this word makes its first appearance in this report. I expect we'll see more of this word from Arthur in the future.
• anti-choice (186 times)
• misleading (25 times)

Arthur makes great pains, in all of her writings, to make sure her readers know that pregnancy Care centers are run by Christians, and then in her next breath--or the next 117 pages--informs the world that these very same Christians deceive, misinform and fear monger to women. All of these claims have been refuted here and here.

Extreme pro-abortion idealogues would like to see a world where pregnancy Care centres simply cease to exist. This is Arthur's goal. This abortion utopia would ensure that only one option remains for a woman in an unplanned pregnancy situation: abortion.

Ontario farms out 44 plus abortions to other provinces

In 2021, Ontario farmed out between 44 and 54 of its abortions to other provinces (Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia.