Canadian Physicians For Life - Open Letter to Health Ministe re abortion

August 15, 2001

An Open Letter to Canada's Health Minister Honourable Allan Rock

Current questions regarding abortion funding, gender selection, and conscience rights could serve as an opportunity to reassess and discuss the abortion issue. Can we agree that over 110,000 abortions annually in Canada is evidence of social failure? Then it is time to state our positions and work on resolutions to improve this situation.

Hippocratic principle abandoned

There has been remarkable change in the attitude of the medical profession and the public toward elective abortion during the past 35 years. For 2,500 years the medical profession rejected abortion. Physicians took the Hippocratic oath, pledging not to perform or to advise having an abortion.

The 1963 Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association had this to say about abortion:

"The induction or procuring of abortion involves the destruction of life. It is a violation both of the moral law and of the Criminal Code of Canada, except when there is justification for its performance. The only justification is that the continuance of pregnancy would imperil the life of the mother."

Since abortion was legalized in 1969 and subsequently removed entirely from the Criminal Code, the medical community capitulated, and endorsed "choice," as did most establishments in Canada. This approval was not based on any new scientific discovery or observation. On the contrary, science increasingly respects the unique characteristics of the unborn child.

No Medical Necessity

Treating abortion as merely a medical procedure ignores the issue of the morality of abortion. Abortion is a moral issue because, as recognized by Planned Parenthood, "abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun." 1 Such a procedure cannot be amoral. If, as a society, we believe that the morality of abortion hinges completely on the "choice" of the pregnant woman, why is it considered a "medical necessity?"

The Canada Health Act states that provincial health insurance plans must cover "insured health services" which include "hospital services." These hospital services are defined in Section 2 of the Act as services which are "medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining health, preventing disease, or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or disease."

Abortion is not an essential medical service. It is designated "medically necessary" for purely social and political, not medical, reasons. Pregnancy is not an "injury, illness or disease." There is no proof that abortion improves health. In fact it disrupts a normal physiological process, poses a risk to the mother, and ends the life of her developing child. There is no "medical necessity" where no medical benefit or health risk exists.

Abortion funding

The Canada Health Act (CHA) does not require that elective procedures be funded. It would be appropriate for the CHA to include a clause that "medically unnecessary procedures should not be funded." As an unmedical act and an untherapeutic act, abortion does not deserve a place in the roster of paid services. To justify funding of a service, the medical necessity and therapeutic value of that service should be undisputed.

Most Canadians do not support public funding of abortion as revealed in polls performed in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick. The most recent poll by Corporate Research Associates found that only 31% of respondents in New Brunswick supported this use of taxpayer's dollars. Of women poll respondents, 63% were opposed to funding of clinic abortions. 2

If the federal government had any confidence that a majority of Canadians wish to see abortion funded by the taxpayer, it could easily prove so in a referendum. Without such a democratic affirmation of national support for free abortions, the government should at least respect the diversity of provincial government approaches to abortion funding.

Politicians avoid the issue; taxpayers cannot

As a statement of federal policy, the Canada Health Act respects that the provinces must have flexibility in deciding how to best organize, finance and deliver health services. 3 However, in defending abortion funding, some provincial leaders argue that they have no choice due to CHA requirements. Provinces that do not comply with federal demands are threatened with clawing back of their transfer payments. 4 Some federal politicians avoid the issue by saying it is under provincial jurisdiction.

Canadians cannot opt out of paying taxes for the public system of universal healthcare which also funds ending a healthy pregnancy. Taxpayers are funding abortions while many areas of healthcare are deteriorating for lack of funds. To add insult to injury, the Liberal government is not honouring the right of provincial governments to determine limits to abortion funding, respecting the majority view of citizens. In recent years, the Ministry of Health has ordered the governments of Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Manitoba to change their abortion funding policies.

"Reproductive rights" are becoming "reproductive mandates."

The abortion-rights establishment, determined to avoid straight talk about what abortion really is, imposes a stifling orthodoxy which marginalizes those who question "choice." This "no choice but pro-choice" ideology endangers women by not respecting their right to fully informed choice and by demonstrating a worrisome refusal to discuss the harm that abortion is causing to women, children, and society.

What is clear -- and so little is in this debate -- is that what we are doing now is not working. We have more polarization, more abortions, more pain, loss and damage and no one is winning. People of good faith on both sides do have a common ground. We both want the best for women and their children.

Feminist writer and editor of SisterLife, Frederica Mathewes-Green, writes,

"Women don't leave abortion clinics whistling. For years we've had the circular idea that, sure, abortion kills babies, but it's what women want. But we know that it's not what women want, not in any reasonable sense of the word. It's what women choose when they run out of choices. They want it like a cancer patient wants to lose a breast. But this is even worse, because what you lose is your own child." 5

In Canada today it is often easier for women to obtain an abortion than support and counselling services. For a woman to make an informed "choice" she must be presented with the embryology of her unborn child so that she will know that she is aborting a human being, not just a clump of cells or a piece of her own tissues. She deserves to be informed of studies reporting a strong correlation between abortion, especially of a first pregnancy, and breast cancer risk. She should be warned of the risk of post-abortion emotional trauma. Withholding basic information shows disrespect for women and is both dishonest and patronizing, since it implies that women are too weak to know the truth.

Conscience Protection Laws Needed

Canadian Physicians for Life affirms the Hippocratic tradition in medicine. We are dedicated to the respect and ethical treatment of every human being, regardless of age or infirmity. Those of us who hold these principles must not be pressured to act contrary to them as they are foundational to the integrity of our profession and the trust of the public.

Conscientious objection is of keen concern to pro-life physicians and increasingly at issue in the practice of family medicine. While existing human rights legislation and various medical bodies do, in principle, protect conscientious objectors, evidence is growing that this is not adequate (see www.consciencelaws.org ). Protection of conscience legislation is needed to prevent discrimination against pro-life health care students and practitioners.

The moral convictions of conscientious objectors are shared by many in religious, philosophical and moral traditions that have existed for centuries. An adequate Protection of Conscience Law should protect conscientious objectors from coercive hiring or employment practices, discrimination, and other forms of punishment or pressure. Several countries and states do have such legislation; Canada does not.

Canadians remain divided

Prime Minister Jean Chretien said during the 2000 election campaign that since the 1988 Supreme Court decision "we have social peace in Canada on the question of abortion." 6 We do not agree.

Canadians remain deeply divided on the morality of abortion and rights of the fetus. Gallup Poll results in 2000 show 26% of Canadians support legal abortion under any circumstances (down from 34% approval in 1992) and 19% think it should be illegal in all circumstances. The majority of Canadians, 51%, believe abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances. 7

You have stated that, as Minister of Health, you wish to reduce the need for abortions. 8 However, the Liberal government support for unrestricted abortion promotes the problem. The only abortions your Ministry would deny, that we are aware of, are gender selection abortions, under the proposed new bill on reproductive technologies. [We question why such a specific reason for eliminating one's unborn child is wrong when no reason at all is good enough? If we think it through, we might see that devaluing females is no different than devaluing all "unwanted" human beings.]

The Supreme Court of Canada's 1988 ruling concluded that parliament had the power to restrict abortion and to protect unborn human beings. Your action in this regard is long overdue.

Is it possible for us to come together to examine new ways to reduce abortion rates in Canada? Can we learn something from other countries where abortion rates are low and/or declining? Is it possible that increased public education and restrictions which are consistent with democratic principles have been under-utilized in reducing the harm caused by abortion? It is time to build tentative bridges between the two solitudes before more harm is done.

Respectfully Submitted,

Paul Adams, MD - Winnipeg, MB

Joseph Askin, MD - Calgary, AB

Noel Corser, MD - Sudbury, ON

Donald J. Curry, MD - Calgary, AB

Delores Doherty, MD - St. John's, NF

Catherine Ferrier, MD - Montreal, PQ

Christin Hilbert, MD - Calgary, AB

Will Johnston, MD - Vancouver, BC

Margaret Keresztesi, MD - Courtney, BC

Dr. Julius Keresztesi, MD - Courtney, BC

Rene Leiva, MD - Montreal, PQ