CIHI clarification on abortion statistics

Last week I posted abortion statistics from OHIP records for 2010.

I noted the discrepancy between this FOI information I received, and what CIHI published for 2009. (My FOI asked for 2010, but CIHI hadn't published 2010 yet, so I made some general comparisons to previous years 2009, 2008, and 2007).

OHIP records showed at least 31% more abortions than what CIHI typically reports.

So I decided to ask CIHI if they could explain this discrepency.

This is what CIHI told me:

"Thank you for bringing this to our attention. As you know, CIHI just took over reporting on induced abortions from Statistics Canada last year. We are committed to improving the data quality, and have already made strides in areas such as increased accuracy regarding abortion methods and the number of complications associated with in-hospital procedures. We’ve also expanded coverage as a whole.

Currently, our Ontario data on abortion comes from hospitals and clinics. Hospital-based abortions are from administrative data and represent actual number of procedures; they are not based on OHIP billing data. In the case of clinics, we receive records from the provincial ministry that are based on OHIP data. They are for the two billing codes—S752 and S785—that most accurately reflect the scope of our induced abortion database.

We are investigating the information you have provided in order to better understand the discrepancies, and will continue to incorporate any information which will improve our data quality."

I've asked CIHI for some further clarification. I'll keep you posted.

Wanted: love and compassion

I recently made a donation to the Miriam Centre of Ottawa, for which I received a beautiful thank you note. The note said in part:

"Your generosity allows us to welcome with love and compassion, mothers who are facing a difficult pregnancy. On behalf of all our mothers and their families, we wish to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your gift."

The Miriam Centre's services are provided without federal, provincial or municipal funding, and are funded only with donations.

Their goal is:

"to minister love and compassion to all mothers and also to those involved in their pregnancies.

Mothers, single or married, regardless of age or situation, are welcomed to the Centre before and after the birth of their child.

Miriam Centre offers assistance to mothers who have already given birth and are having difficulty adjusting to their new lives. Thus they are more confident of their future and that of their child."

It got me thinking.

On the one hand, here is an organization; run by a handful of staff members and some volunteers; whose only source of revenue are donations from the public; who receives no government funding; whose goal is to help a woman with a crisis pregnancy.

On the other hand, Ontario doctors performed at least 44,000 abortions last year; publicly funded by the taxpayer; at an average cost of $800 dollars per abortion.

That's about $35,000,000 Ontarians paid in 2010; for a procedure that is not medically necessary; that is harmful to women and their families; that doesn't help society; that destroys innocent human beings; in a time where every health dollar spent in Ontario is crucial.

Is it only me, or is there something wrong with this picture?

When the medical profession normalizes abortion

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine is claiming that abortion has virtually no negative effect on women.

The article says:

"Few long-term sequelae are evident after abortion, and the morbidity and mortality are lower with induced abortion (either medical or surgical) than with pregnancy carried to term."

How depressing.

We have normalized abortion to such a degree now that it seems we don't even think of other alternatives like adoption anymore. How tragic for the women who have unwittingly or wittingly bought into this pro-abortion viewpoint.

But it is not surprising that women have succumbed to this philosophy, when on the one hand she is influenced by the extreme minority who tell women they should be "pro-choice". And on the other hand, she can read something like this in a medical journal, where the entire article is written from the assumption that the taking of the life of an unborn person, is as normal and acceptable as some minor surgery. But abortion is not the same. A woman will remember and suffer from an abortion for the rest of her life. She is as much a victim as the child is.

Why can't the medical profession be truly compassionate with women and offer them support and counselling to encourage them to find another option and save the child inside of her? They would also be saving the life of the mother.

Whatever happened to the doctor's creed to first do no harm?

Putting an end to abortion

The pro-abortions hate it when we bring morality into the abortion debate. Their comeback is usually the forgettable "Against abortion? Don't have one." This week's We want the Debate poster puts that line in its proper perspective.

I think the topic of morality makes pro-abortions queasy. Like, what if there really is something morally questionable about destroying a little defenceless human being, for no other reason than it's my self given right to do so?

To assuage their icky feelings, they may read something from a hard line pro-abort, like "the only moral abortion is my abortion", with the hope that this will ease their conscience. I wonder if it actually does?

Over time, I suppose, they may convince themselves that abortion is perfectly okay, that it doesn't harm the woman at all. And the unborn child, what do they think of her?

The thing is, what do the pro-abortions think the criminal code is based on, if not morality? Don't murder, don't steal, don't rape. The list goes on.

So why are we against abortion? Because abortion hurts a woman, it hurts her family, it hurts society and it hurts a child. There are better ways for a woman to deal with an unplanned pregnancy, like getting support from a crisis pregnancy centre, or putting the child up for adoption. Why is it that the pro-abortions never talk about adoption?

Thank goodness we finally put an end to slavery.

We will put an end to abortion too.

Ontario abortion doctors very busy in 2010

I recently submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term care for 2010 abortion OHIP billing information. This is what I asked for:

1) How many procedures, and how many dollars, were billed for all abortion clinics in Ontario, for each of the following codes:

S752, S785, P053, P054, S770, S783

2) How many procedures, and how many dollars, were billed for all private physicians' offices in Ontario, for each of the following codes:

S752, S785, P053, P054, S770, S783

3) How many procedures, and how many dollars, were billed for all hospitals in Ontario, for each of the following codes:

S752, S785, P053, P054, S770, S783

(Procedure descriptions here and here and are also included in my graph below. The graph also contains a compilation of the statistics that I received from the Ministry.)

There were 77 selective fetal reduction procedures done in Ontario in 2010.

There were at least 43,997 procedures performed in 2010 in Ontario for a base cost of $5,470,562.36.

(Note: this is only what doctors billed for. See Ministry notes 2 and 3 below regarding costs. Therefore this base cost does not appear to reflect the total cost of an abortion to the taxpayer, which has been estimated at an average cost of about $800/abortion)

CIHI had reported that in 2009, there were 30,268 abortions in Ontario; that in 2008 there were 32,150 abortions, and in 2007, 32,331abortions.

We have suspected that CIHI/Statistics Canada abortions have been under reported. These 2010 figures from these OHIP billings, are actually about 45.4% (my original entry reported this at 31%, which is incorrect) higher than the CIHI figures for 2009 and seems to confirm that abortions are being under reported in Ontario.

(The following three notes were included in the response I received back from the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-term care for this 2010 abortion OHIP billing information.)

(1) The total procedures corresponds solely to the volumes of these procedures as per listed fee schedule codes.

(2) The total billed is based on the billed amount submitted on the claim and does not necessarily represent what was approved and paid for the claim (emphasis included). For example facility fees for specific TA clinics are not included in the fee billed total. The total billed measure includes billed amounts for the professional component volumes as well as the anaesthesia and/or surgical assist components where applicable.

(3) Both fee-for-service as well as globally funded claims were included and restricted to Ontario physicians, in-province claims only. Any potential out-of-province, out-of-country claims were not included.

Note: On May 4, 2012, I corrected an error I made in this blog entry in the percentage calculation above. I reported OHIP's numbers as being 31% higher that CIHI's numbers. It should have read that OHIP's numbers were 45.4% higher than CIHI's numbers.

UPDATE January 15, 2017: OHIP's numbers are actually 53.3% higher than CIHI's numbers for 2010 stats as I calculated here.

Click on the graph below and it will enlarge.