By Dave Andrusko

Please send your thoughts and observations to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

As our Canadian pro-life brethren will attest, the anti-life winds blow very cold up north. Even the most limited, commonsense requirements intended to protect the health of women are greeted with something approaching--if not exceeding--hysteria.

A recent example (reading from The Globe and Mail newspaper) is what the headline described as the attempt by the Quebec's Health Minister to "impose" what it described as "stringent new guidelines" for private abortion clinics. The "outcry," we read, was so intense that it "prompted Health Minister Yves Bolduc to backtrack. He now says he will wait for the Quebec College of Physicians to devise more relaxed rules, expected this week." Needless to add, "critics" want Bolduc's head on a platter.

(A fifth to as much as a third of all abortions in Quebec are performed in private clinics, which then send their bills to the government, according to The Globe and Mail.)

So what were these "stringent new guidelines" that prompted some clinics to threaten to close? "The guidelines, contained in a new law, would subject the private abortion clinics to the same standards as clinics that perform procedures such as cataract or hip-replacement surgery," according to the Globe and Mail.

The two-fold complaint, we're told, is unnecessary cost and that it would "create a less welcoming environment for patients."

When I first read that, I reminded myself that sometimes newspapers unfairly paraphrase. Not this time.

"They want to dehumanize the intervention room," said France Desilets, manager of the Morgentaler clinic in Montreal, the first abortion clinic in Canada. "It would become a cold environment, rather than the warm environment we have now."

I don't live in Canada and don't pretend to understand the ethos, so I was glad that the newspaper added the following by way of explaining how the changes are supposedly both redundant and would challenge the lovey-dovey relationship found at a place that kills unborn babies for a living.

"The abortion clinics say the tighter rules, requiring the costly conversion of procedure rooms into sterile operating rooms, are not necessary," we read.

"Although the instruments in abortion are sterile [that's reassuring!], the procedure can be done in an examination room, without medical gowns or other strict requirements."

I am tempted to ridicule that statement, but this is too important to end with a flip dismissal. Maybe it's best to end with a truism, if ever there was one: There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
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Judge Upholds North Dakota Heartbeat Law
By Liz Townsend

Upholding a pro-life law passed this spring, a judge ruled August 12 that a woman seeking an abortion in North Dakota must be told by the abortion clinic that she has the right to view an ultrasound and hear audio of her child's heartbeat.

East Central District Judge Douglas Herman added that the abortion clinic does not have to provide those services itself, but must follow the law by referring the woman to a location that has the necessary equipment, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The law passed by large margins in the House (77–9 on January 30) and in the Senate (44–1 on April 3), and was signed into law by Gov. John Hoeven April 20. Due to go into effect August 1, the Red River Women's Clinic in Fargo, North Dakota's only abortion clinic, filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction and calling the fetal heartbeat provision "confusing and unconstitutionally vague," the AP reported. The clinic already has an ultrasound machine, but claimed it needed special equipment to allow the heartbeat to be heard.

"It's unclear why a clinic, which claims to care about women, would be afraid to offer their patients all the vital and relevant information before performing a life-changing and intrusive medical procedure," said Mary Spaulding Balch, J.D., NRLC state legislative director. "Diagnostic ultrasounds and listening to the fetal heartbeat provides mothers accurate information about the development of their unborn child. Why is the abortion industry afraid of these tools?"

Although the law went into effect as scheduled, prosecutors told the AP that they would not enforce the law until Herman made his ruling. The judge upheld the law and rejected the abortion clinic's claims of vagueness, saying the law did not require the clinic to buy new equipment for auscultation (listening to sounds inside the body). "Rather, it can be interpreted in a straightforward manner requiring the clinic simply to provide information as to auscultation services in addition to the active ultrasound devices the clinic itself offers if available within the community," wrote Herman.

Pro-lifers applauded the law. "We want women to be informed, and receive all possible information available--much of which has historically been omitted by those in the abortion industry," Balch said. "It is shameful in our society that women cannot rely on abortionists to voluntarily provide them with information that would help them make the best decision for themselves and their unborn children."