Canada has its own abortion concerns

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/06/2019 (2035 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At a recent dinner party, a guest (not me) introduced a passionate denouncement of the harsh abortion laws arising in several U.S. states, calling it a reprehensible reversal of women’s reproductive rights.

When she stopped to take a breath, another guest (me) suggested that, as Canadians, our concern would more effectively be directed at Canada’s law on abortion. We don’t have such a law. Abortions in Canada are legal until the moment of birth.

This assertion seemed to surprise another guest, who decided to fact-check by getting out his phone to Google, a gaffe that made our hostess frown with dismay and say, “Perhaps we can talk about something else.” In retrospect, the abortion discussion accomplished nothing more than making it likely the hostess would invite better-behaved guests in the future.

Canada should not boast of the company it keeps by legally allowing abortions through all three trimesters. The only other two countries that legally allow abortions until birth — North Korea and mainland China — are not noted for their high regard for the sanctity of life.

Why should we care that Canada doesn’t have term limits on abortions? The matter is suddenly relevant because term limits are the crux of the controversy in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio, where so-called heartbeat bills effectively ban abortions after six to eight weeks of pregnancy.

Here are three reasons why Canadians concerned about U.S. abortion laws might be more constructive if they shift their attention to the abortion situation north of the border:

First, it’s downright imprudent of Canadians to condemn American states for their abortion term limits when our politicians have been loathe to tackle the at-home issue that Canada — alone among the world’s democracies — has no term limits.

Second, Americans don’t care what we say. We have no influence with these American states on the abortion issue, but we have influence in Canada by lobbying, voting and expressing our opinion in social forums, including this newspaper.

Third, there is no reliable evidence the U.S. trend toward tightened abortion laws will cross the border into Canada. Unfortunately, some Canadian politicians are fear-mongering to gain the support of abortion proponents, but these politicians are all talk, no action. No parties campaigning for the Oct. 21 federal election would dare propose changes to Canada’s abortion non-law.

It must be emphasized that, while Canada doesn’t have an abortion law, health professionals follow strict guidelines. Doctors in Canada rarely abort a pregnancy past 20 weeks, though exceptions are made when the fetus is seriously malformed or the life of the mother is at risk.

That point is so important, it’s worth repeating. Just because the Canadian law allows abortions until the day of birth, doctors will almost always refuse to do later-stage abortions.

One problem with setting up health professionals as the responsible gatekeepers of abortion is that they have limited control of patients who seek only a prescription to Mifegymiso, a combination of two medications known as the abortion drug. Some Canadian health professionals insist on being present when the first of two drugs is taken, but some don’t require that safeguard and, once responsible advice is given and the prescription is dispensed, the patient is on her own if she chooses.

The ease with which women with a Mifegymiso prescription can ignore their health professional’s important direction for proper use has led to fears the abortion drug could be misused. For example, a patient could use Mifegymiso at a later stage of pregnancy, or give the Mifegymiso to another person who is far along in pregnancy.

Such patients aren’t about to report their ill-advised actions to authorities, so there’s little hard data about how often patients misuse Mifegymiso. But it’s important to acknowledge not all health professionals control medical (Mifegymiso) abortions with the same responsible measures they use for surgical abortions.

When it comes to hospitals and clinics, an accurate account of abortions later in pregnancy is also hard to compile, partly because some clinics do not report information to the federal government, and partly because Quebec withholds information. A pro-life blogger, Patricia Maloney, has repeatedly used the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to dig out information. Last year, the Canadian Institute for Health Information told her at least 152 children were born alive after abortions later in pregnancy in 2017. That means pregnancies were ended late enough that the child survived outside the womb but died soon after.

It’s in the public interest for medical institutions, including clinics, to report such cases because they present serious ethical and legal problems. For example, once born, these 152 babies must be recognized as human beings in Canadian law and are due all rights and protections.

Canada is a country without an abortion law, a country in which the abortion drug has the potential to be misused outside of clinical safeguards, a country where some authorities don’t disclose the circumstances of abortions in which children are born alive.

Such made-in-Canada issues are worth a conversation, although not at the dinner table.

Carl DeGurse is a member of the Free Press editorial board.

carl.degurse@freepress.mb.ca