Quebec has more late-term born-alive abortions than the rest of Canada

Andrea Mrozek writes about the recent study out of Quebec on born-alive abortions.

'The kicker for Canadians is that the study sample was 13,777 abortions done between 1989 and 2021 in Quebec. This means that over 32 years, about 430 abortions resulted in live births every single year in that province.'

These late term abortions also happen every year, in every other province in Canada. I have been collecting this data for many years from CIHI, but CIHI never reports on Quebec data. Now we know that there is an average of 430 of these late-term abortions in Quebec every year. This is a staggering number. It is also way higher than the number of late-term born-alive abortions in the rest of Canada (there were 131 in the rest of Canada in 2022/2023). 

Only 5.5% of these born alive abortions received palliative care.

'In analyses of live births, one-quarter of neonates (24.5%) were admitted to an intensive care unit and 5.5% received palliative care.'

Abort late-term baby. Abortion fails. Baby is born-alive. Don't give it palliative care. This is just plain evil.

A Statement on Roe v Wade from Pro-Life Women in Canada

If you would like to sign a letter in support of the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe VS Wade, you can do so here:

https://www.prowomanprolife.org/2022/06/21/a-statement-on-roe-v-wade-from-pro-life-women-in-canada/

"Today the US Supreme Court officially released a decision overruling Roe v. Wade. While this is an American decision with no implication for Canadian law, some politicians north of the border have already politicized the issue. For all of the undersigned women, however, overturning bad law marks a point of immense encouragement. We speak out because those leaders who defend abortion do not speak for us. We speak out in defence of all human beings from their biological beginnings until death. We speak out because defending and advocating for women also means defending and advocating for our preborn children."

Andrea Mrozek is also interviewed here by the CBC on the decision.

https://www.prowomanprolife.org/2022/06/24/cbc-interviews-pro-woman-pro-life-founder-andrea-mrozek/

Why Abortion is not a Right

Reprinted with permission

Citing the Supreme Court’s historic Morgentaler decision, Andrea Mrozek and Faye Sonier show why Prime Minister Trudeau gets so-called abortion rights so wrong.

January 23, 2018  |  By Andrea Mrozek with Faye Sonier

In listening to our political leaders, you’d be hard pressed to know there is no right to abortion in Canada. Take the Prime Minister’s recent comments regarding the Canada Summer Jobs program, which now requires prospective employers, from soup kitchens to summer camps, to declare support for abortion to receive a government grant to hire students. In his justification of this new policy at a recent townhall,  the Prime Minister certainly used the word “rights” often. He ardently defends “rights”—even unpopular ones (just not so unpopular as the rights of the preborn child); we can’t “restrict women’s rights” by “removing rights to abortion” as this is a “really important right that we have established.” Except that we, how to put this, haven’t.

How did the Prime Minister come to defend rights that don’t exist? He can’t make this claim on the basis of R v. Morgentaler. Yes, the 1988 decision threw out Canada’s existing abortion laws, which required the issuance of a certificate by a therapeutic abortion committee at a hospital for an abortion to be legally provided. Since not every hospital had a committee, it resulted in unequal access to abortion for women who would otherwise meet the necessary criteria.

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The only justice to declare a positive right to abortion was Justice Bertha Wilson, writing in a minority dissent. Still, she didn’t declare this right unfettered throughout all nine months of pregnancy. She wrote:

The question is: at what point in the pregnancy does the protection of the foetus become such a pressing and substantial concern as to outweigh the fundamental right of the woman to decide whether or not to carry the foetus to term? At what point does the state’s interest in the protection of the foetus become “compelling” and justify state intervention in what is otherwise a matter of purely personal and private concern?

Pro-choice professor Shelley A.M. Gavigan of Osgoode Hall Law School echoes the idea that the Morgentaler decision did not create a right: “The Supreme Court’s decision, profound as it was, did not create a right to abortion for Canadian women, nor did it offer any resolution of the abortion issue.”

How is it so many believe there is a right to abortion then? It could be the language of abortion activists is becoming entrenched. Many who support “abortion rights” take exception to the term “pro-choice.” A recent book, Without Apology, Writings on Abortion in Canada identifies “pro-choice” as too conciliatory, lending credence to the notion there are good and bad reasons for abortion. “Pro-choice” does not promote the absolute entitlement of women to access abortion. When Hillary Clinton said abortions should be “safe, legal and rare” some pro-choice activists were critical. For if abortion access is necessary or a cultural good, why should the procedure be rare?

In identifying an abortion right, Canadians may also wrongly be drawing from the U.S. situation. The rough U.S. equivalent to the Morgentaler decision, Roe v. Wade of 1973 did invent, albeit on spurious grounds, the right to abortion via a “right to privacy.” But the American context is vastly different from ours.

The chasm between abortion politics, our bold “women’s rights” campaigner of a Prime Minister, and the reality of women’s experiences is very wide.
Our Supreme Court left a legislative void by striking down our law, unanimously finding that the Canadian government had a legitimate interest in creating a better law to protect the pre-born child.  Going even further than that, they stated that the Charter authorizes laws limiting abortion access. For example, Justices Beetz and Estey, both of whom concurred with the striking down of the abortion provision, wrote:

I am of the view that the protection of the foetus is and, as the Court of Appeal observed, always has been, a valid objective in Canadian criminal law... I think s. 1 of the Charter authorizes reasonable limits to be put on a woman’s right having regard to the state interest in the protection of the foetus. 

Let that sink in for a moment. In Morgentaler, the Supreme Court stated that the Charter itself justifies the legislature limiting abortion access. This is a far cry from the claim that the Morgentaler decision established a right to abortion or that advocating for legislators to develop laws to protect the pre-born child is somehow anti-Charter.

In watching the Prime Minister defend “abortion rights” it may appear as though the pro-choice side is winning a great victory these days. But democratic winds can shift, which is what justifies democratic debate in the first place. We have seen what might be a first inkling of such a shift. There’s been a rare show of media support for pro-life groups remaining eligible to receive Canada Summer Jobs. Even a Globe and Mail editorial last week said, “[c]onflating opposition to abortion with bigotry is simplistic, and no better than demagoguery.”

There are, in fact, numerous democratically legitimate arguments against declaring abortion a right. Several chapters in the above-mentioned book, Without Apology, share women’s abortion stories so their voices can be heard. So many of those stories could be lifted almost word for word and told into the next pro-life book. One woman tells her abortion doctor, “I don’t feel I have any choice;” not exactly a resounding endorsement for a positive right.

The chasm between abortion politics, our bold “women’s rights” campaigner of a Prime Minister, and the reality of women’s experiences is very wide. For every politician with bold political rhetoric defending abortion, there is a woman, mourning a basic lack of support. Falsely claiming abortion is a right won’t improve that.

Andrea Mrozek is program director of Cardus Family and founder of ProWomanProLife.org. Faye Sonier is executive director and general legal counsel for Canadian Physicians for Life.

Freedom of conscience is for everyone including doctors

I'm always dumbfounded by the inane and gloriously off-the-wall-and-off-topic-comments I often read on articles posted online on anything that could be even remotely associated with pro-life viewpoints.

To see what I mean check out Andrea Mrozek's thoughtful and coherant article posted on Huffington Post about doctor's freedom of conscience rights.

I think some of these commentors might want to stop talking about their disdain at doctors practicing freedom of conscience rights--which I might add are actual rights and not make-believe rights like "abortion rights"--and instead educate themselves on the subject.

But no. They'd prefer to hear themselves blather on instead. I think they just like to see their name in print. I guess it makes them feel important.

So here's the thing. Freedom of conscience is a right guaranteed under our Canadian Charter. That means everyone, including doctors have this right. It's not a right for the few, it is a right for all.

If you don't like the fact that a doctor won't provide you with your contraception, then you are free to go elsewhere for it. Nobody's forcing you to go to that doctor. The choice crowd is in love with the word "choice". So use it. Because I'd prefer to know my doctor bases his medical expertise in concert with his conscience, and doesn't ignore it. I imagine there were doctors who went against their conscience in the concentration camps in Auschwitz. Not something (I hope) we would ever want from our own doctors.

Here's something else to ponder for those who who like to hear themselves talk and say nothing. Joyce Arthur also thinks conscientious objection for doctors shouldn't be allowed. But surprisingly, not all of her compatriots agree with her: Global Doctors for Choice, bpas (The British pregnancy Advisory Service), and the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics (IJGO), all believe that conscientious objection should be allowed.

The media - are they anti pro-life or am I imagining things?

The media is all in a flap about Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons receiving the Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee medals.

Andrea Mrozek gives us an excellent synopsis as to the story behind why pro-life heroes Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner keep going to jail. And it isn't because they are criminals:
In 1994, a “temporary” injunction was set up around some abortion clinics in Ontario at the request of abortion providers, violating freedom of expression and assembly. These protest-free bubble zones, generally with a radius of 60 feet from the actual clinic, included public sidewalk space. Linda Gibbons peacefully and quietly enters those boundaries.

Those asking for the injunctions claimed that abortion protesters were intimidating and harassing clients and staff. They argued women who had already made a decision about abortion needed to be protected from messaging that might offend them.

Pro-lifers, on the other hand, have long argued that women choosing abortions are not getting full information and support.

It is true that the injunctions go back to a time when abortion protest was more heated, in the direct aftermath of the Morgentaler decision of 1988, when Canada’s abortion laws were struck down.

Today, however, there is a much different movement of abortion protesters outside clinics. They hand out literature and in some cases, openly pray. Linda Gibbons, who has spent nine years in jail over the past two decades for refusing to stay outside of the bubble zones, has signs that read: “Why mom? When I have so much love to give.”

In fact, as Ms. Mrozek says:
"Karla Homolka, Canada’s notorious and violent sexual offender, didn’t spend much more time behind bars than Linda Gibbons has."

Maurice Velacott gave us his reasons for the medals:
"Unlike the Justice Minister, Vellacott was unable to award these medals to the victims of crime, because these baby victims are dead, so instead the award to those “heroines of humanity” Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons who are trying to protect defenseless, voiceless human beings in the womb from butchery and death, and trying to let vulnerable women know that there are other options and support and adoption possibilities. It’s what you would expect in a caring compassionate society."

Hard to argue with that logic.

And my own letter today in teh Ottawa Citizen although I couldn't find it on line:
"I was very pleased to hear that Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons have won Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee medals for the work they do in their advocating for the saving and protection of preborn children. These women, at great risk to themselves, are willing to go to jail for their belief that the killing of the weakest of the weak is wrong.

According to Wikipedia, Dr. Henry Morgentaler, "in spite of the risks to himself—loss of career, prison for years or for life—he decided to perform safe, sterile abortions for women and, at the same time, challenge the law." For Morgentaler's civil disobedience and his belief that abortion should be a "woman's right" at the expense of the unborn child, he won the Order of Canada.

At least Mary Wagner's and Linda Gibbons' civil disobedience is for the purpose of saving lives, not taking lives."

So the summary, of the summary, as to why Linda Gibbons and Mary Wagner deserve these medals:

These women are not criminals; Ms. Gibbons spent not much less time in prison than notorious murderer Karla Homolka; Mr. Vellacott couldn't give the medals to dead babies; unlike Henry Morgentaler, Ms. Gibbons' and Ms. Wagner's goals are to save babies and help their mothers, while Morgentaler kills babies and harms their mothers.

So give it a rest media.

The pro-abortions should listen to themselves

I think the pro-abortions are losing it.

If you don't believe me, watch Natalie Hudson-Sonnen debating Joyce Arthur, and Andre Mrozek debating Carolyn Egan on Stephen Woodworth's motion.

The radical feminists just keep dragging out their same, old, tired, boring, urban legend myths, every time they talk. I wonder if they ever listen to themselves:

"abortion is a basic human right."

"abortion is a constitutional right."

"legal restrictions on abortion don't work because women will still have them anyway."

(While we're at it, maybe we should make murder legal too, since people will still murder anyway.)

When Ms. Arthur was asked about a compromise in the abortion debate, she completely ignores the question and instead says:

"I want to respond to what Natalie said about the polls. It[abortion] is too complex an issue to have it accurately judged by polls."

Really? Is that because people are too stupid to understand the questions being asked them?

And because these polls are:

"Commissioned by anti-choice groups or use anti-choice propaganda, the answers can't be trusted."

Take that Environics.

Then Ms. Arthur starts on a new tangent and tells us that:

"it is totally inappropriate to have legal restrictions playing a role in medicine...no treatment or procedure in medicine covered by law."

Except that abortion isn't a treatment for anything Joyce. Abortion is the destruction of a defenceless human. This is a situation where the law has an extremely appropriate role.

They are really really afraid of this motion, and the abortion debate it's generating. What's happening here, is that the pro-abortions don't want us to talk about abortion because they know whenever the topic comes up, like in Mr. Woodworth's motion, their pro-abortion arguments simply don't hold up to scrutiny or logic. The more we put the pro-abortions on the hot seat and make them defend their radical views, the more everyone will see how what they say doesn't make any sense.

I did notice that Ms. Arthur actually said that the:

"Fetus is biologically human".

Oh my, was that a mistake?

We sure do want the debate

I agree with Andrea Mrozek and her three cheers for We Want the Debate.

What I don't understand is--that press release issued by the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada's entitled Abortion: There’s Nothing to Debate.

Why would anyone issue a press release, that says there's nothing to debate, then debate the very thing, they say there's nothing to debate about?

Maybe it's because the debate they don't want to debate, is actually a really good topic to debate.

Maybe it's something like when Jean Chretien said:
"It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven."

I didn't understand that either.

Promotion of abortion

During a recent posting of mine, Adoption instead of abortion, commenter "Ginny" said:
"pro-choice groups aren't opposed to women being informed”.

I disagree.

You see, "pro-choice" groups only selectively inform women and ignore any evidence that they don't like. Evidence that might make women think twice about having an abortion. Evidence that shows a link between abortion and breast cancer. Evidence that shows a fetus can suffer excruciating pain during an abortion. Evidence of the psychological and physical harm done to women from abortion. “Pro-choice” people debunk this evidence and tell women that they are being lied to, and that they are being misinformed, and deceived.

I've discussed this before, but it obviously bears repeating. Let’s start with the evidence of a link between abortion and breast cancer (ABC). In 2003, the National Cancer Institute conference concluded there was no ABC link. But one participant at that conference, Dr. Joel Brind (Ph.D., Professor, Human Biology and Endocrinology) disagreed. He said he was:
"convinced that the weight of available evidence suggests a real, independent, positive association between induced abortion and breast cancer risk."

Dr. Brind's report is here.

Other studies that support the ABC link here.

In fact one of the researchers and organizers of that conference, Dr. Louise Brinton, reversed her position on the ABC link in January 09.

The Pro-choice Action Network reported in their so-called "expose" on crisis pregnancy centres that a fetus:
"cannot feel pain until at least the third trimester".

But there is lots of evidence that a fetus does in fact, feel pain at 20 weeks gestation and even before that. Dr. K.S. Anand is a world authority on research into pain perception in fetal and neonatal children. His study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1987. At the Partial Birth Abortion hearings in the Southern District of New York in 2004, Dr. Anand testified that:
"the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain by 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children."

Dr. Anand's testimony is here.

Dr. Paul Ranalli, a Toronto Neurologist, in a public information meeting in Toronto, Canada in October 2008, sponsored by the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research agrees with Dr. Anand. Dr. Ranalli's talk is quite compelling--I suggest you listen to it and make your own conclusions on when a fetus feels pain here.

Pro-Can’s report also says:
"there is no evidence to suggest that women who have abortions experience any more or less sadness and regret than women who complete an unwanted pregnancy".

The report cites the American Psychological Association (APA) as one source. Andrea Mrozek, manager of research and communications at the Institute of Marriage and Family Canada, explains here why the APA research was flawed.

And here’s more research of the after affects of abortion here and here.

So to conclude, many “pro-choice” people are opposed to women being informed of all the information that would actually enable them to make a truly informed decision regarding having an abortion or not. Because if women were "informed" of this evidence, they might even change their minds and not have that abortion. And this would make a dent in the goal of the the pro-abortions’ continual and relentless promotion of abortion.