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.
]]>As Maloney herself notes, there is much speculation about why and how these deaths happen. The sources listed on her blog give us numbers but they don’t tell us how or why these children died after a failed abortion, and why this is still considered an abortion rather than a stillbirth or murder.
But ignoring the issue because of the gray areas will never gain us more clarity. We have a pretty terrible reporting system around abortion. Hospitals report their abortion-related data, but they perform only about a quarter of the approximately 100,000 abortions that occur annually in Canada. Private clinics take care of the remaining 75%, but they are not required to report their data on anything from gestational age at the time of abortion to complications that followed.
To be clear, most late-term abortions are performed in hospitals, and so recorded. Clinics generally do not perform abortions after the first trimester. It is also likely that many of these children suffered from diseases or abnormalities that resulted in a quick death after birth, or their hearts were injected with something intended to kill them prior to birth which took effect shortly after. However, until we know for sure with proper records, these vague and horrifying numbers will have no context and there will be no criminal consequences for potentially real criminal acts.
Our Criminal Code is very clear that pre-born children are not considered persons under the law until they have proceeded, in a living state, from the body of the mother. At this point, after exiting the ‘magical birth canal’ as one viral video calls it, the child has full human rights. The death of a child that proceeded in a living state from its mother may be called a failed abortion, but the rights conferred on that child at birth should stand.
So should these deaths be called abortions? Is medically-induced delivery of a baby prior to its due date with the intention of letting it die abortion? We would argue it is not, in terms of statistics. Killing a child in the womb and removing the pieces is abortion. This forced delivery without intent to save falls more to the line of infanticide.
Most presume these late-term abortions happen because a fatal abnormality or disability has been detected by ultrasound. This may occasionally be the case, but it is just as likely that the disability is simply unwanted. This could be anything from Trisomy 18 to Down Syndrome to a cleft palate.
It seems we allow children born alive to die without intervention because they are not, for whatever reason, wanted anymore. Often these babies start off wanted, and it is devastating to their parents to discover their child will not be what they hoped and dreamed. We don’t want to minimize the grieving that can accompany a late-term prenatal diagnosis. But neither can we minimize the reality that the diagnosis changes a wanted child to an unwanted one on the whim of the parents. The humanity of the child doesn’t change, but the value placed on her does.
This has an impact on all Canadians who have, or live with, or know someone with, a disability or abnormality. This is a form of ableism that determines the value of a life by comparing it with a subjective ideal.
In Canada, we claim to be a leader in human rights, yet we allow pre-born humans to be aborted because they are girls, because they have a cleft palate, or because they have Down syndrome. Polls show that close to 80% of Canadians assume we have laws limiting abortion at some point in pregnancy. Those Canadians do not believe things like this could happen in Canada, and abortion activists and the media certainly aren’t doing anything to disillusion them.
Every other democracy in the world has some legal protections for children in the womb; Canada does not. Let’s have the discussion. Let’s insist on statistics that account properly for a child’s birth and death. Let’s say there are things which are simply not okay.
There is a painful beauty in the incredible generosity and outpouring of love seen for this tiny baby, who was saved by the quick and decisive actions of medical staff.
There is also a troubling disconnect in the paradox of a medical system that (rightly) fights to save two lives, and a criminal justice system that recognizes only one. Had Gagné died as the result of violent crime, not in the vicinity of a hospital as she did, her baby would also have died, and then that little girl would not have counted.
A life that so obviously counts, that so obviously matters to the thousand-plus people moved to immediately donate to her future, THAT life would not have mattered if she had died somewhere, somehow, else. This is the story of babies like Molly, whose mother Cassie was murdered at 7 months pregnant with no medical staff around to save her viable baby girl.
It is a testament to our medical system that those on scene responded without hesitation, knowing that the pre-born baby deserved care as much as her mother. It is to our legislature’s and justice system’s shame that no safeguards exist to protect pre-born children from crime, and no consequences exist for taking the life of a pre-born child through crime.
This oversight is even more inexcusable when we know from national polling that close to 70% of Canadians support harsher sentences for criminals who take the life of a pregnant woman. The response to this baby’s birth in Quebec City supports this, as people rally instantly around the beauty of life even in such a dark circumstance.
MP Cathay Wagantall has introduced a bill in the legislature that aims to address this void in our justice system. Bill C-225 recognizes that, no matter where or how a pre-born child loses her mother, she still deserves the right to life her mother wanted her to have. The life that is lost is worth something, and deserves recognition and justice.
The baby girl delivered from tragedy in Quebec City is rightfully treasured and supported, and we wish nothing but the best for her and her father as they face this life without Marie-Pier Gagné. Above all, we are thankful she was given life, not considered unworthy because she still resided in her mother’s womb at the time of the accident. May her life remind us all of the beauty and value of life no matter one’s size, ability, or location.
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A recent article by Sherry Colb and Michael Dorf questions the divide between animal rights activists and pro-life activists. They pose these two questions: “Do animal-rights activists care more about the well-being of nonhuman animals than about the survival of tiny humans?” and “Do pro-life activists care more about a human cell than about the suffering of fully sentient animals whose evolutionary history, brain chemistry, and emotional repertoire closely resemble our own?”
Some activists certainly are on the side of life in both these debates, but the two sides do not interact or agree as much as one might think. The authors of the article conclude, “There is so little overlap between the movements because each asserts what the other denies. Opposition to ending a pregnancy, even in its earliest stages, rests on the view that the humanity of a zygote, embryo, or fetus makes all the difference. Rejection of the slaughter and use of animals for food, fiber, and entertainment rests on the view that an animal’s nonhuman status makes no difference.”
While attempting to take a balanced approach, the article clearly finds it easier to support animal rights than pre-born human rights. This decision is based in sentience, or the subjective awareness of suffering that animals have over newly conceived human babies.
Certainly, no animal should be made to suffer, but is it awareness of suffering that makes that suffering immoral or unjustified? Can we inflict deliberate pain on those in a coma, or with paralysis, since they won’t feel it? Can we berate and verbally abuse those with dementia or the severely mentally disabled? And, if it is sentience that is the deciding factor, and we know that babies can feel pain in the womb, why is there resistance to late-term abortion laws that ban abortion on children who will suffer horribly in the process?
Our treatment of animals and humans should not be affected by whether or not they are aware of how they are being treated. Whether or not a pre-born child is aware of an attack upon them does not make the act any more justifiable, and ending someone’s life does not become ok simply because they do not know the end is coming.
[Death of innocence]
I too was human, just like you…
My right to life? Sadly ignored.
Therefore, I now appeal to you…
O, may this vile crime be abhorred!
Made human, yet, I had no choice.
Their pets received more love than I
And so I ask you, “Be my voice,
Shout out, “It’s wrong I had to die!”
Human, like anyone you’d meet,
Denied a choice that I should live,
An act of malice made complete,
Denied my chance much love to give.
Once human, now, I am no more,
Unique, with my own DNA,
Discarded smudge, some blood and gore
And yet, like you in every way.
Compassion has a human soul!
Then hear my cry, heed my appeal,
Love’s but a twoway street made whole,
Both, life and love combined, reveal.
A. Blokhuis, Aug. 29/15
]]>“It is a beautiful morning.” That was my first thought as I stepped out of the front door at 7:25 this morning. The snow blanketed most of the ground, but it’s been melting in patches, bits of grass are peeking through to remind us that spring is coming. A light mist hung just above the snow, giving the morning a sort of mystery, as if the day is full of secrets just waiting to be found out. The air is cool, it’s still winter, but it’s starting to smell like spring. As the sun began to slip over the horizon, I said it out loud, “It’s a beautiful morning.”
It’s a beautiful morning, the start of what I hoped would be a beautiful new day. But it is a new day for Dr. Fraser Fellows too. It is a new day for abortion doctors across the country. And for a moment I had forgotten that it is a new day for three hundred pre-born babies, their last new day; and they didn’t even get to smell the sweet smell of the coming spring. And suddenly, even the sunrise seemed tinged with red.
I felt guilty. I shouldn’t feel so happy when this is happening. It isn’t right, is it?
I haven’t been active in the pro-life movement very long, only about two years, but I’ve learned a lot in those two years. One of the most valuable things I’ve learned is not to lose sight of what’s important. That means not losing sight of the babies, of course, but it also means not losing sight of friendship and beauty and love.
It’s an ugly world, a sinful, dark world. I know that, in some small way I’ve seen it. But there are reasons to laugh, there are reasons to smile, there are reasons to sing. I think of my family and my friends and I smile. I think of spring and I smile. I think of baby Noah, saved from abortion and born this past week and I smile until it hurts. Don’t lose sight of the beauty.
The balance is important. Hanging onto beauty means we need to be careful not lose a sense of the magnitude of what is happening. We can’t lose sight of that either. It’s hard. It’s hard knowing what we know, seeing what we see and trying to stay in the light without losing sight of the darkness. We can do it, though, and tonight, take time to watch the sunset, and as you see the sky streaked with red and gold: take a moment of silence, a moment for reflection, a moment for prayer.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” G.K. Chesterton.
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[A Real Father]
Iver Benson, I’m so glad
That you have a real dad,
One who loves more than most know
And is there to watch you grow.
Love borne on and in his chest
Without mom, yet richly blessed.
How this fragile thing called Life,
Gifted you, yet took mom’s life.
Iver caused us understand,
Life’s a gift from Father’s hand
We may think that life’s unfair,
Yet, your dad showed Father’s care,
Mere opinions won’t prevail
Truth’s of Life! Who can assail?
Virtues, Loves, which manifest,
Fatherhood’s ultimate test.
A. Blokuis Feb.13.14
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First of all, the dedication and love of Dylan Benson towards his brain dead wife Robyn and their pre-born son Iver is heart warming in the face of a family tragedy.
Secondly, the other profound conclusion one has to come away with after reading about baby ‘Iver’ is there are alternatives to terminating a pregnancy. Sometimes life presents hard choices. While it may be that an easier solution seems the best way forward, clearly we are called to do what is right.
Dylan Benson is not only loving his wife, but also the new and completely distinct life developing in the womb of his brain dead wife.
This is sacrificial love at work and Benson is to be commended for it.
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A pre-born foetus has no choice;
These pre-born babies have no voice,
This choice is left to you and me:
Compassion marks society.
Compassion and the will to know
Truth’s justice! Grant that this may grow
And nurture loving families,
Whereby we build communities,
Where children are a welcome sight
And parents view them with delight.
They are the future of our past
Regard them first, as we’re the last,
We are the vanguard in this fight;
Is death the rearguard of sin’s blight?
A. Blokhuis
]]>There are locations in our country where it is not safe to be, where the law offers no protection.
A fetus located in the womb has no protection under Canadian law. It can be killed at any time through the nine months of pregnancy.
Yet when it changes location and travels a few inches out the birth canal, it is suddenly recognized as a precious little person.
How can a change of location make someone a person? Do you become more human (or less) when you move from one room to the next? How can where you are have any bearing on who you are?
Medical advances make it possible to take a fetus completely out of its mother, treat the child, and then place it back inside mom to continue developing until it comes to term.
Under our present law, this child is recognized as a person when it leaves its mother’s womb but stops being a person when it returns inside.
This is nonsense.
We need laws that protect all babies… wherever they live.
In Canada where you live shouldn’t determine if you live.
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