That is the conclusion of Renate Klein, an anti-abortion pill, pro-surgical abortion activist. This combination makes her preface in the second edition of RU486: Misconceptions, Myths and Morals an interesting contribution to the discussion around the abortion pill. She’s not arguing for the humanity of the pre-born child. She’s arguing for women.
Klein goes into depth on the excruciating experience that is the abortion pill. This includes the extreme pain and bleeding that are normal, as well as possible complications including ongoing pregnancy requiring a follow up surgical abortion, hemorrhaging, retained parts of the pre-born child or placenta, or infection.
What a woman sees after the abortion pill
Klein describes the “profound difference” between the abortion pill and a surgical abortion as “the likelihood with chemical abortion that women will actually see the expelled embryo in their sanitary pad or toilet, and although an embryo is still small at 7 or 9 weeks (1-1.5 cm), it is recognizable as the possibility of a child that has now ceased to exist.”
These of course are euphemisms. “Embryo” and “the possibility of a child” are attempts to dehumanize the pre-born child. Referring to abortion as a process that “expels” a child that “has now ceased to exist” is a neat way to describe the brutal ending of a human life.
But even with these careful ways of describing what is going on, Klein understands that it is distressing for women to face the truth. “[T]hose women who understand the precise action of RU-486 – that it stops nutrients reaching the implanted embryo – might be very disturbed by this method of terminating their growing embryo’s existence.” That is, women who understand that they are starving their child and, causing her death are upset.
Klein goes on to cite a 1998 UK study which found that “women who saw the foetus were most susceptible to psychological distress, including nightmares, flashbacks, and unwanted thoughts related to the procedure.”
What do you do with what you see?
It turns out that women are not comfortable with seeing what they are doing to their child. Seeing the reality means they can’t pretend not to know what abortion is. When faced with the body of the pre-born child who died due to their choice, women are distressed.
The question is what women will do with this distress. Klein thinks the solution is to just offer a surgical abortion where she doesn’t have to see her child. But does it really help women to shield them from the truth? The abortion pill provides women the opportunity to face reality. One such women is Elizabeth who told her story in the Missing Project series. Since seeing her pre-born child after taking the abortion pill, she has used her to story to try to reach others and help prevent other women from going through the same experience she did.
Let’s hope more women who see the truth will use their voice to help end this injustice.
But wait.
Abortion is taxpayer funded, so who does “cheaper” really benefit? If the government is pushing something because its budget-friendly, can I trust that it’s in my best interests?
“Done in the comfort of your own home” sounds a lot like a euphemism for “do-it-yourself abortion.” I thought we wanted to move away from back alley abortions, where women handle things themselves. If abortion is a medical procedure, shouldn’t a medical expert be involved?
At least it is proven effective. But what if I change my mind, and want to keep my baby? Will I be able to get a prescription for an abortion reversal, or will it be too late because this medication is just so effective?
No ultrasound. This is great – I live in a rural community and might not be able to access one quickly. But, we’re trusting that my estimated date is accurate, that I am definitely 9 weeks pregnant or less, that this pregnancy is absolutely in my uterus, not ectopic. I appreciate the confidence in my awareness of my own body, but I’m not sure I’m willing to stake my life on it. Will it be safe for me to take the pill if I’m actually 12 weeks pregnant? If I start hemorrhaging, what do I do? I don’t have great access to emergency care, and it could be awhile before an ambulance gets to me.
The abortion pill comes with a lot of questions, and not a lot of good answers. Abortion activists focus on Mifegymiso as a way to increase abortion access, especially in rural and remote communities. Since these communities often have lower income women and the least access to ultrasound machines and doctors, they advocate for the removal of “barriers.” This means ensuring the pills are provincially funded, eliminating the need for an ultrasound prior to getting a prescription, and allowing pharmacists, nurses and nurse practitioners to prescribe the medication.
Activists have been very effective in removing perceived barriers to access for the abortion pill. Despite these successful efforts, however, recent reports find that access still remains centred in abortion clinics as the main prescribers. While prescribing pills may be less invasive than inserting a vacuum into a woman’s uterus, the outcome is exactly the same: the death of a human child at some stage of development. A simple fact that abortion activists do not want to accept is that most doctors, whatever their reasons may be, do not want to be abortion providers, regardless of the means. Abortion pill usage rates are climbing, but they are being prescribed by the same people who were doing the surgical abortions, sometimes to the demise of surgical business. It remains to be seen whether this continues; if so, the pill is only a change in method, not prevalence.
As pill usage rates climb and safeguards are eliminated, there is much reason for concern. Moving abortion to our homes will only increase the sense of isolation and sole responsibility women feel when facing an unplanned crisis pregnancy. Many women cite a feeling of desperation when they discover they are unexpectedly pregnant. Desperation and isolation are not something anyone should be promoting for Canadian women. While the abortion pill purports to give women more control over the abortion experience, in fact it further puts the onus of pregnancy (and, by association, child-rearing) on them alone.
As a culture we have dehumanized and devalued pre-born children. Advocating for ubiquitous access to Mifegymiso devalues women as well, by taking a “do-it-yourself” attitude to a life and death issue, and leaving women to deal with the consequences.
Cheap, convenient and highly effective – Mifegymiso is what every medication should be. So, if it wasn’t for the loss of pre-born human life and the lack of caring for women’s health and well-being, I would be totally on board.
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A recent article in the National Post presents the regulations around the pill, and the response. Pro-abortion groups are angry that this medication can be prescribed only by a physician, and further incensed that those doctors may choose to have the patient ingest the first dose in their office. In apparent evidence of their desire to make this a game-changer for easing access to abortion in Canada, they want to ignore the warnings of potential harm with which these drugs come. Blood infections, hemorrhages, one (non-fatal) heart attack – it is no wonder this drug took 4 years to be approved, “due to insufficient or missing safety data”.
You would think a group that claims to be focused on women’s health would be a little concerned with safety data. And if we’re concerned about women, we should insist she see an actual doctor, shouldn’t we? If the pregnancy is farther along than she claims, complications also increase. Secretly taking drugs designed to make you bleed quickly, painfully and heavily is not recommended for just anyone.
Let us also consider more closely the point of contention that the doctor has the option to insist that the first dose administered in the office. Abortion advocates argue that the purpose of these drugs should be to revolutionize abortion access in Canada. This “revolution” would allow anyone, anywhere, to get these drugs quickly and quietly in the mail, and deal with the aftermath in the privacy of her own home, where she can pass it off as a natural miscarriage or never tell anyone at all.
This free-for-all undermines actual care for women. To suggest it is unreasonable for a doctor to see the patient take the medication says they are willing to open up vulnerable women to likely abuses of such a drug. This is not just prescribing a medication someone’s teenager may sneak to get high, this is choosing to end a developing life. It seems fairly important that the woman asking for the drug is, in fact, the woman using the drug. Otherwise, if you have a girlfriend, daughter, or student you accidentally impregnated you could find a way to get these drugs and then slip a few pills into their smoothie or pass them the “antibiotic” their doctor prescribed. So much for “choice.”
The abortion pill is already a travesty in Canada. In the womb, the place that should be the safest for a pre-born child, she is deliberately targeted by a medication that thins the uterine lining on which she depends and then, while she’s barely hanging on, follows up with strong contractions to force her out of her haven into arms waiting with a hand on the toilet paper roll and an elbow on the flush handle.
To suggest that we still aren’t making it convenient enough for a woman to kill her baby goes beyond all comprehensible moral standards. If other contract killers had half these conveniences, you can bet the mob would have taken over the world.
Thank you to LifeNews for also publishing this article.
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Health Canada has approved the introduction of the infamous abortion drug RU-486 for use in Canada.
“Today’s decision establishes an expansion of access to abortion and is not welcome news for pre-born children in Canada,” said Mike Schouten of WeNeedaLAW.ca. “This will undoubtedly add to the over 100,000 lives already lost to abortion every year while also trivializing the purposeful destruction of human life when it is most vulnerable.”
Mifepristone, otherwise known as RU-486, is a drug that interferes with the hormones necessary to sustain pregnancy. When taken by a pregnant woman in the first trimester of pregnancy, it will cause her to miscarry, resulting in the death of the child.
“That Health Canada has now approved RU-486 through the proverbial backdoor is contrary to democratic principles that should allow for an abortion discussion” said Schouten.
Abortion is a criminal matter and as such the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently looked to Parliament to craft a new abortion policy.
Health Canada is governed by the Food and Drugs Act and is the ultimate responsibility of the Minister of Health. The Act also contains provisions for the Minister of Health to issue an Interim Order if the Minister, “Believes that immediate action is required to deal with a significant risk, direct or indirect, to health, safety or the environment.” [30.1(1)]
“We are calling on the Minister of Health, the Honourable Rona Ambrose to do the right thing and immediately issue an Interim Order suspending the decision of Health Canada. In addition to pre-born children being at grave risk with the approval of RU-486, the lives of pregnant women are also subject to harm. In 2011 alone, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported 2200 adverse effects, including 14 deaths, 58 ectopic pregnancies, and hundreds of infections that required blood transfusions,” said Schouten.
This decision needs to be reversed! Use our Simplemail technology to urge your MP, the Minister of Health and the Prime Minister to stop the expansion of abortion services!
- Click here for Letter #1 – Do the right thing
- Click here for Letter #2 – RU-486 will result in women and children dying
- Click here for Letter #3 – Leadership requires courage
“It’s time the Conservatives, NDP, and Liberals realized how out of step they are when it comes to the protection of pre-born human rights. Why is it that lawmakers in every other Western nation can debate and pass abortion regulations with civility, but Canada’s political parties continue to treat pre-born children as a political liability, trying to one-up each other in expanding the abortion regime?” noted Schouten.
“It’s not just other countries that our political parties are out of step with. Polls consistently show a strong majority of Canadians do not support the status quo. Sneakily expanding abortion services through the back door may be convenient, but it comes with a high cost – real human lives will be lost unless the decision is reversed,” concluded Schouten.
It only takes 5-10 minutes to use SimpleMail to respectfully but firmly request the Minister of Health to do the right thing and stop this decision from coming into force. Please take action, and encourage your friends to do the same.
]]>Here is a quote from Renate Klein’s book found in this post from Ms. Maloney. It sheds light on the question as to why RU-486 is so blindly promoted by abortion advocates.
Another myth is that RU-486 will make it easier for women to end their pregnancies in remote areas where access to a hospital is scarce. But, as Ms. Maloney explains here the side effects can be so severe that an emergency room is mandatory.
Confused? So are many Canadians. That is why we encourage you to check out Ms. Maloney’s blog. Starting here.
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Mifepristone, otherwise known as RU-486, is a drug that interferes with the hormones necessary to sustain pregnancy. When taken by a pregnant woman in the first trimester of pregnancy, it will cause her to miscarry.
Abortion advocates are hoping the abortion drug will be made available very soon. On the other hand, Canada’s anti-abortion activists are urging Health Canada to consider the detrimental effects RU-486 has had on women’s health in countries where it is already in use. According to Johanne Brownrigg of Campaign Life Coalition, “In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reported 2200 adverse effects, including 14 US deaths, 58 ectopic pregnancies, 256 infections, and 339 incidents requiring transfusions.”
Should anti-abortion groups even be concerned? Does it really matter how abortions are performed when they are legal for any reason throughout an entire pregnancy anyway? Because RU-486 is only used early in the first trimester and we are so far away from regulating those abortions anyway, is it prudent to invest time and energy into trying to prevent its use in Canada?
In short, yes, we absolutely need to be concerned. In addition to RU-486 posing a serious threat to the health of mothers – and of course their pre-born child – it is clearly an expansion of access to abortion. And it seems to be happening without any public debate.
Health Canada will not allow input from the Canadian public when such an application is made. A spokesperson from Health Canada is quoted as saying, “Health Canada is bound by laws preventing disclosure of confidential information that is proprietary to the respective manufacturer. Once a submission is received, its existence or non-existence within the department remains confidential, proprietary information until it is approved.”
The Conservative government along with all the political parties in Ottawa have denounced any attempts at debating abortion in the House of Commons. This was most recently manifested by the harsh opposition to even discussing something as benign as Motion 408 which merely sought to condemn gender selective abortions. The news that the approval of RU-486 is imminent, with no debate, smacks of hypocrisy.
This expansion of access to abortion through the back door flies in the face of transparency and is not in line with proper democratic processes. Rather than legalizing a whole new form of abortion, Canada needs our elected lawmakers to ensure we have a full abortion debate in Parliament about not only this drug, but everything else related to abortion as well.
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The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) is asking for public input as part of its regular review of policy guidelines. At issue in this current review is the right of doctors to refuse to provide certain treatments based on religious or moral grounds.
There will always be some tension between the moral convictions of an individual medical professional who adheres to his or her own worldview and the different procedures that are legally available in a pluralistic society. The current CPSO guidelines recognize this tension. In an effort to balance competing interests, the policy allows doctors to refrain from performing non-emergency procedures should the procedures violate their individual conscience.
It is always beneficial to review policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to the health and wellbeing of Canadians. But the current review and discussion over CPSO guidelines is not about improving care for residents of Ontario. Instead, it seems to be about forcing medical professionals to set aside their own worldview and adopt a conflicting one.
To be clear, we are not talking about providing health-care services where a patient’s life is at risk. No, when a discussion about conscience-protection takes place it is almost always surrounding issues such as like infant male circumcision, prescribed birth control, certain types of medications, medicinal marijuana, or an abortion procedure. In the future, this list may very well include euthanasia or assisted suicide.
On occasion, the tension between the conscience of a doctor and the desire of a patient is experienced in a tangible way. Kate Desjardins is a 25-year-old Ottawa resident who, earlier this year, entered a walk-in clinic to have her prescription for birth control renewed. However, this was not a routine visit. As Ms. Desjardins quickly found out, the doctor on duty did not prescribe contraceptives. Although Ms. Desjardins’ life wasn’t in danger and she could most certainly have secured a prescription renewal at any number of surrounding clinics, her experience has been highlighted by those pushing to have the conscience objection nullified by the CPSO.
Clearly this isn’t about adequate and timely access to health-care, both of which were still available to Ms. Desjardins. Essentially, this is about a patient’s right to access all medical services from any doctor of his or her choosing. It’s not about availability of services, but about imposing morality on all physicians, to the point where doctors need to violate their own conscience in order to serve their patients.
Justin Trudeau was chastised from a wide variety of Canadians when he decided to impose his worldview on the Liberal Party of Canada by forcing Liberal MPs to violate their consciences in the event that an abortion law ever made it to a vote in Parliament. The same principle applies in the present debate surrounding conscience protection for physicians. This is a battle about conflicting worldviews, not adequate access to healthcare. The target of leftist ideologues include all those who hold to a worldview (religious or otherwise) opposed to their own. So, who actually is forcing their religion on whom?
On the one hand, we have doctors arguing for their freedom of conscience, which is guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And on the other, we have patients who believe they have the right to a medical procedure from any physician of their choosing. If the object of the CPSO guidelines is to balance rights and obligations, then taking away conscience objections would throw balance out the window altogether.
Conscience-protection guidelines are vital if we are to have a well functioning and vibrant health care system. As Dr. Margaret Somerville, the founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University said recently, “Do you really want to be treated by a doctor who doesn’t care if he thinks that he’s doing something unconscionable or unethical or immoral?”
Canadians are not perishing because doctors won’t take part in elective, non-emergency medical procedures. That someone was offended because they had to walk a few extra blocks to renew their birth control prescription does not justify the CPSO forcing doctors to contravene their Charter-protected freedom of conscience.
National Post
Mike Schouten is the director of WeNeedaLAW.ca, a campaign to build support for laws protecting pre-born children.
]]>Kate Desjardins, a 25-year-old from Ottawa entered a walk-in clinic earlier this year to have her birth control prescription renewed. Except this was not a routine visit, as Ms. Desjardins quickly found out that the doctor on duty did not prescribe contraceptives.
These two experiences have resulted in a renewed debate over conscience protection for doctors.
Dr. Margaret Somerville, Director of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law debates Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba on the question, “Should doctors have the right to refuse to prescribe birth control because of their religious beliefs?” The question should really be, “Should patients have the right to a medical procedure from any physician of their choosing?”
Anyway, Dr. Somerville does a remarkable job at focusing the debate and responds very well to Mr. Schafer in the radio debate. Here is one statement,
“We have a right to freedom of conscience and freedom of belief, and for a physician who believes that contraception is unethical and not morally acceptable, and possibly has religious beliefs or those beliefs might be grounded in his religion or they might not be, than if he prescribes contraceptions than he’s complicit in the action he believes is unethical and immoral.”
You can listen to the thirteen minute interview here.
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The remedy for choice
these days,
is in a little pill.
Just pop one if you’re
pregnant,
and the life within
-will end,
-be still.
Such is the crazy world
we’re in,
a drug for when you’re in
a fix!
A death producing-life defying
RU Four-Eighty-Six.
RU for real?
Can this be true?
a child’s mother pops a pill??
How can these little ones
have voice?
Stand now!
Stand for the Weak!
RU 4 Death?? RU 4 Life??
Stand now! Stand!
Say your piece!
That babies may say
“I was born!”,
and this drug
go the way
of “cease”!
Life is a GIFT!
And a precious one!
A pill should not take that away!
Instead, let’s all live,
and let live to
all those,
who’ve begun
in their own
special way!!
Lori Verhelst, 2014 (in anticipation for March For Life 2014, which the theme is…RU4LIFE!)
]]>For those not aware, mifepristone, otherwise known as RU-486 is a drug that interferes with the hormones necessary to sustain pregnancy. When taken by a pregnant woman in the first trimester of pregnancy is will force her to miscarry her child.
This is clearly an expansion of access to abortion, and it seems to be happening without any public debate.
The Conservative government along with all the political parties in Ottawa have denounced any attempts at debating abortion in the House of Commons. That Health Canada could approve RU-486 through the proverbial backdoor is contrary to democratic principles that should allow for an abortion discussion.
RU-486 matters. You are encouraged to write your MP as well as Health Minister Rona Ambrose to express your opposition to this expansion of access to abortion in Canada.
Click here to find your MP | Minister Ambrose can be reached at rona.ambrose@parl.gc.ca
**Want to know what pro-abortion feminist researchers think about RU-486? See this article to find out.
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