“I don’t think a late-term abortion law would prevent any abortions because abortionists would simply lie about the age of the pre-born child. And, aren’t late-term abortion so rare anyway?”

Such a statement is not uncommon to be heard from the mouths of those opposed to saving some when saving all is not achievable. 

Granted, abortionists may employ deceptive techniques to find ways around such a law, but we can’t be so presumptuous as to use this as a reason not to enact legislation. We do not abolish laws just because we can’t guarantee they will always be successful in preventing certain actions from taking place.

A late-term abortion law would in fact be a major deterrent, as abortionists who lied about the age of the pre-born child and committed illegal abortions would risk fines and/or a prison sentence that would most likely be associated with such a piece of legislation.

We have to be careful in dismissing laws just because they are more difficult to prosecute or the crimes they address are rarely committed.

If it becomes problematic to prosecute certain crimes we don’t decriminalize them. We work doubly hard to find ways to ensure they are prosecuted!

As for rarely committed crimes, think of child labour laws. Imagine the outcry if there were a move to de-criminalize the practice of child labour simply because it rarely occurred? Regarding late-term abortions, the fact is they are common in Canada.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information statistics indicate that of all the abortions reported in Canada in 2010, only 22% of them included the gestational age of the fetus at the time of abortion. Even with such a small percentage reported, there were 537 abortions in Canada after 20 weeks gestation. Assuming we can project that ratio onto the 78% of abortions which did not record gestational ages, there may have been over 1,900 abortions after 20 weeks!

A law that would introduce a new injustice is certainly not one that should receive support. On the contrary, everyone ought to be working towards the implementation of laws that limit an already occurring injustice. A law we should support then, is one that would limit abortion to a certain gestational age, thereby restricting the existing injustice and saving hundreds if not thousands of babies per year.

From Run With Life,

“This week I came across a joint statement by Campaign Life Coalition and Alliance for Life Ontario. It was titled “WHY THE CASE FOR GESTATIONAL ABORTION LAWS IS MORALLY AND LOGICALLY INCOHERENT”.

We have yet to see such a statement, but according to Run With Life it includes statements like,

“We will never propose or support a gestational abortion law for Canada.”

And a little further on,

“A deliberate decision to propose, support, or vote for a gestational abortion law is a behaviour that is in itself immoral.”

These two organizations fail to understand what political prudence is.

To quote Clarke Forsythe Senior Legal Counsel of Americans United for Life, “It is not immoral to be limited by obstacles beyond your control. You are not responsible for what you cannot achieve. You are responsible for what you can achieve.”

A statement such as this from Campaign Life Coalition and Alliance for Life Ontario requires further response. For now we leave you with these words from Pat Maloney, “If others do not believe in gestational legislation as a valid strategy, that is fine. But making up reasons that are untrue to argue one’s case, is not the way to persuade others to your viewpoint.”

“We have to go back to the cardinal virtue of prudence. It is the premiere political virtue, we have to be anchored by it and taught by it. Prudence is not pragmatism it is …always oriented towards moral purposes and good goals.”

Van Maren asked Forsythe specifically about the promotion of gestational laws in the Canadian political system. Mr. Forsythe was emphatic in his support for making progress by taking steps. He spoke about the opportunities and obstacles and the reality they present to pro-lifers saying,

“It is not immoral to be limited by obstacles beyond your control. You are not responsible for what you cannot achieve. You are responsible for what you can achieve.”

Listen the the interview here.

The continuum of human life begins at fertilization and ends at natural death. Currently under Canadian law only ‘born’ humans have protection, so our law today already divides humans into “protected” and “unprotected” classes. If the law was changed to reflect increased protection by extending it to ‘pre-born’ humans from, say 14 weeks to birth, then fewer babies would fall under the unprotected class, thus limiting the injustice of abortion.

A gestational law is one step to saving some as we work towards saving all.