May 4, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

I am as little an expert on abortion in Canada as I am fascinating by a country which so reminds me of the United States a number of years ago. From what I can tell from my location here south of the border, support for abortion is the rigid and unyielding orthodoxy in virtually all precincts of the chattering classes and established organs of power.

Pro-abortion Secretary of State Hillary Clinton trashed Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a March 30 meeting in Gatineau, Quebec.

If you read the disdainful and mocking tone which runs through so much coverage, you'd think that there is no chance that respect for all human life could ever make a comeback. And then there comes along fissures and cracks in the ranks which give you much cause for hope.

Last week I wrote about the refusal of Canadian Premier Stephen Harper to funnel foreign-aid money into abortion--and the heat he took for it, including from our own pro-abortion zany Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/April10/nv043010part2.html)

Harper calmly replied to her all-out attack: "We want to make sure that our funds are used to save the lives of women and children, and are used on the many, many things that are available to us that frankly do not divide the Canadian population." This only made his critics madder. To intimate that not everybody is as fanatically pro-abortion as they are just illustrates how out of touch Harper supposedly is.

Well, that was then, and this is now. Even some pro-abortionists are expressing doubts, either on political grounds or because (dare they admit it?) the evidence does not support the Clintonesque argument that you improve maternal health by increasing the number of dead babies.

Most of the derisive attention in the Canadian press has been paid to an obscenity voiced Monday by an exasperated pro-abortion member of Parliament. She was fed up with the militancy of "women's groups" who were relentlessly attacking Harper.

According to CBC News, "Ruth sponsored the Ottawa meeting at which a panel discussion turned to the government's intention to omit funding for abortion from its maternal health aid for developing countries. The panelists said it was a matter they couldn't ignore, but Ruth said pushing the abortion issue is not the right strategy to advance progress on maternal health." Except in telling her pro-abortion associates to stifle it, Ruth used much blunter language.

But the more substantive point was made by pro-abortion columnist Jonathan Kay in the National Post. Contrary to the haughty dismissals of many politicians and columnists, the (two-fold) long and the short of it begins with the fact that Harper has a point: "[T]here is no abortion 'consensus' in Canada," Kay wrote. "So stop talking about the issue as if it's settled."

More interesting to outsiders is that while Kay believes that access to abortion does (or could) account for some tiny improvement ("a small chunk") in maternal mortality, he understands that "A much larger problem, in terms of the number of female lives affected, is the decidedly less headline-grabbing subject of hemorrhages - which include antepartun hemorrhages (bleeding from the genital tract during the last three months of pregnancy) and primary postpartum hemorrhages. Then there is sepsis (which in this context means infection of the genital tract or surrounding areas following childbirth), blood-pressure disorders associated with pregnancy, and obstructed labour. On the infant side of the equation, life-threatening conditions in need of G8 attention include low birthweight, birth asphyxia, and infections."

Kay adds, "Of course, you don't hear Harper-bashing leftist politicians talking about sepsis and hemorrhages and such--no votes to be had in Toronto and Montreal on such issues. But statistically speaking, these are the real big-league killers."

National Right to Life has been making the case for years (as Jeanne Head, R.N. has written) that "The lack of modern medicine and quality health care, not the prohibition of abortion, results in high maternal mortality rates. Legalized abortion actually leads to more abortions--and in the developing world, where maternal health care is poor, legalization would increase the number of women who die or are harmed by abortion." All of the recent data is bearing out the facts that we can reduce maternal morality rates with clean water, a clean blood supply and an adequate health care system.

In fact, in documenting a 35% decrease in worldwide maternal mortality, a recent report published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet did not once mention the word abortion. The explanation for the improvement lay in improved medicine, better medical care deliverers ("skilled attendants"), and increased education for women.

Very much worth noting is that The Lancet study showed that two countries that are doing exceptionally well in decreasing maternal mortality rates are Bolivia and Egypt -- both of which have kept their pro-life laws intact while decreasing the deaths of pregnant women.
Meanwhile Harper continues to get skewered by the pro-abortion press and opposition parties. But Kay--himself pro-abortion--says it all in his last paragraph;

"Only in Canada could such a sensible approach become the subject of such extreme criticism."

Be sure to read "National Right to Life News Today" (www.nationalrighttolifenewstoday.org) and please send me your thoughts on any or all parts at daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Part Two
Part Three