We still don't know number of late-term abortions in Canada

By Patricia Maloney

Pro-abortion activist Joyce Arthur thinks that only 0.59 percent of all abortions performed in Canada for 2015 are late-term.

There is no way Arthur can know this, since very few late-term abortions are reported to CIHI. All we know for sure is, that based on the 19,039 hospital abortions for which we have a gestational age, there were 587 late-term hospital abortions in Canada in 2015. (an excel spreadsheet will be downloaded to your computer, see Table 4)

I've discussed this a few times before, links here. 

So let's do it again for 2015.

CIHI reported 100,104 abortions in 2015. Of these 100,104 abortions, the gestational age is only reported for 19,039 of the abortions (7,330 performed on fetuses <=8 weeks, 8,701 on fetuses 9-12 weeks, 1,585 on fetuses 13-16 weeks, 836 on fetuses 17-20 weeks, 587 on fetuses 21+ weeks). Note that these known gestational age abortions are reported only for hospital abortions--we have no gestational ages for abortions done in clinics or physician's offices. And 4,522 of these hospital abortions have an unknown gestational age.

Therefore, there were at least 81,065 (100,104 minus 19,039) abortions performed in 2015 with an unknown gestational age. This means all of those 81,065 abortions, or most of them, or some of them, or none of them, could be late term abortions--we do not know. And we don’t know these gestational ages because most abortion providers don't report the gestational ages of abortions. 

In other words of the 100,104 known abortions we only know gestational ages for 19,039 of them.

If all of the unknown gestational age abortions were in fact late term abortions, then the percentage  of late term abortions could be as high as 81%. But we don't know do we? To say that only .59% of abortions are late-term is unknowable. It is also misleading.

Even if the rate of late-term abortions was linear, then that would mean that there could be 3,103 late-term abortions and not 587 (587 is 3.1% of 19,039, therefore 3.1% of 100,104 is 3,103).

And as Suzanne Fortin wisely noted regarding the possible rarity of late term abortions:

"So what if they're [late-term abortions] rare? They HAPPEN! Murder is rare too. One is too many."

Dr. Eric Hoskins - fifth request for abortion information

Dear Dr. Hoskins,

It has now been two months since I first started asking you for abortion information outside of FIPPA. I've already made four requests for this information (my last request was actually number three, not two as I stated). 

And I still haven't heard back from you.

I was assured by your lawyer Dan Guttman, in front of a judge in the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, that I only needed to ask for this information and I would receive it:

"today we are saying publicly both in our factum and in court here today before you that if we are asked, our position will if we are asked, we will give generalized abortion statistics out."

Yet I still find myself having to ask you for information that the judge was assured would be provided for the asking. And still I haven't heard back from you.

Remember your Open Government initiative?

"Ontario’s Open Government Initiative is about creating a more open and transparent government for the people of Ontario. We are aiming to make Ontario the most open and transparent jurisdiction in Canada by creating increased opportunities for civic dialogue, sharing government data, and providing citizens with the information they need to better understand how their government works." 

Were these just empty words?

Will you please let me know when I can expect to receive this information? 

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Request for abortion information (10 weeks and counting)

April 17, 2017

Dear Dr. Eric Hoskins,

I have now sent you two requests asking for abortion information for 2014/2015, on Feb 2, 2017 and on March 24 2017.

That's more than 10 (ten) weeks ago.

I still haven't heard back from you. Can you please tell me when I can expect an answer?

Sincerely,

Patricia Maloney

Reported abortions in Canada are up

CIHI total reported abortions numbers are up in Canada. I say "reported" because we know what is reported, is under reported.

In fact hospital abortions are down while reported clinic abortions are up by about 30%.

And I still haven't heard back from Health Minister Eric Hoskins yet where I asked him for the total number of abortions broken down by hospitals, clinics and doctor's offices. What's he waiting for, the cows to come home?

2015 abortion stats from CIHI scheduled for February 28

From CIHI:

"The abortion stats are currently scheduled for release on Feb. 28. You can check our upcoming releases page, which will be updated if there are any changes."