Monday, March 19, 2007

How *do* they do late-term abortions in Canada?

So I'm poking around the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada webpage, and I happen upon a document discussing partial birth abortion:

Some have suggested that “partial-birth” and late term abortions should be banned in Canada.The point is moot because the D&X abortion technique is rarely if ever used in Canada. Lateterm abortions done in Canada are generally performed via induction of labour.


Rarely, if ever? What does that mean? You mean they don't know if it's ever used? You're the abortion people. Don't you keep your own statistics?

And if "dilation and extraction" is the allegedly "safest" method to perform an abortion, why isn't it being used in Canada?

They say that late-term abortions are done by "induction", which consists of making the woman go into labour and giving birth. If the baby is alive by the time he is born, he is not attended to-- he is allowed to die.

Thereby violating that newborn's right to the security of the person.

It's not like it's never been done before.

At Calgary's Foothills Hospital some premature infants are born alive, then routinely allowed to die. For instance, last August a doctor told a mother-to- be that her baby suffered from lethal genetic defects. The mother was persuaded to undergo a "genetic termination," and a regularly used procedure called an induction abortion was performed only five weeks before the baby was due. Chemically induced labour was followed by a live birth. But because the mother had decided her child should not live, nurses were forbidden to provide even such basics as food and fluids. "For 12 hours we took turns rocking and holding the baby until it finally died," says foothills nurse "Catherine," whose real name, along with the baby's sex, have been withheld to protect her job. The mother believed her child was subnormal, but Catherine could see only a baby. "I was sick for weeks," she says.


I have a hunch that these abortions aren't even counted in official statistics. I've seen Catholic hospitals in the States commit "inductions" to get around Church doctrine around abortions (or so they think). And they aren't counted as abortions.

A fear that abortion providers could become targets is not unrealistic, says lawyer McCourt. But he suggests doctors should be more worried about criminal sanctions than snipers' bullets. Author of several academic articles on fetal protection, the 32-year-old Edmonton lawyer says that when babies survive late-term abortion attempts, a hospital is treading on dangerous ground if it refuses to offer at least minimum care. He points to Section 223 of the Canadian Criminal Code which states that a child becomes a human being "when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of the mother, whether or not it has breathed, has an independent circulation, or the naval string is severed."


You wonder how many of these babies are failed to be saved by hospital staff.

The thing about the abortion lobby is that they often don't tell the whole truth, in a plain, straightforward fashion. For instance, when describing D and X, the ARCC says that the baby's head is "collapsed". Note the euphemism. There is no mention of stabbing the head, sucking the brain out or crushing the head. Or when Planned Parenthood describes the suction/aspiration abortion, there is never any mention that the fetus is ripped apart.

All that matters to them is the woman. Their hearts are entirely calloused to the fate of the baby. That a baby gets his brain sucked out, or that he gasps for air as a newborn and suffocates to death is completely of no concern to them.



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