Extract [Outline of the findings of the Badgley Committee studying the operation of the abortion law.] A trend seen since 1970 is the reduction in the number of “back street abortions” and the sharp decrease in morbidity and mortality stemming from such procedures. Perhaps the most telling sentence in the 474-page report is this: “The procedure in the Criminal Code for obtaining abortion is in practice illusory for many Canadian women.
Extract . . . risks are relative. A woman exposed to childbirth is at greater risk than a woman having an induced abortion . . . Blame for cervical lacerations sustained in the course of an induced abortion should be laid on the surgeon, not on the procedure. . . . .We are impressed by improvements in maternal and infant health reported in areas where safe legal abortions are relatively easy to obtain: mortality and morbidity from septic illegal abortion all but disappear and neonatal mortality plummets. . . While the state did not force her to have heterosexual intercourse, it is clearly intending her to remain pregnant against her will by making it impossible to interrupt a pregnancy she has tried to avoid. It is our view that abortion should be at the bottom of a list of options available to an unwillingly pregnant woman. . . . there needs to be a consensus among gynecologists as to the point during gestation when abortion is no longer an option. . . abortion is a nasty business. The answer to its elimination surely lies in . . . adequate sex education in our schools, and training programs in human sexuality and reproductive regulation in the curricula of our health care educational institutions.
Extract Dr. Loveridge states that the examples I quoted in my previous letter “are just not correct”. On the contrary, all the facts and figures I have given are correct and come from respectable sources [Gives details] . . .The reason that illegal abortions are not necessarily reduced in number and that the total number of abortions in- creases when a government legalizes abortion (and seemingly condones it) is that there are always a large number of women who prefer to have an abortion privately and a climate of abortion is created wherein large numbers of women consider abortion who would not otherwise have done so.
Extract . . . papers are continually being published pointing out the hazards in subsequent childbirth after an induced abortion. . . .There is a great deal of woolly thinking about the viability of the fetus. . . One can think of several other situations where humans are totally dependent on others for their continuing existence but are not considered expendable. . . I honestly think we tend to salve our consciences far too carelessly when we use the vague term “nonviability” as a reason for condoning the termination of lives that are far from inanimate.
Extract In the intensive care unit at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton a fetus weighing 720 g has survived and thrived. By definition, any fetus of that size or larger should be considered potentially viable. . . . . In Alberta in 1975 there were two abortions induced by saline infusion; the fetuses weighed 800 and 1250 g, respectively. These weights were discovered by accident because hospitals allowing abortions prohibit the weighing of aborted fetuses. In fact, one of the fetuses was rushed to an intensive care unit in Edmonton, so it must still have been alive. . . . There is no question that the Criminal Code needs amendment to accomplish two things: (a) to make recording of weights of aborted fetuses mandatory and (b) to make it possible to take criminal action against any doctor who kills a potentially viable fetus by abortion.
Extract Your correspondents Dr. Coffey and Drs. Cohen, Rapson and Watters (ibid, page 213) all refer to our review, published over 4 years ago,1 of the consequences of induced abortion to children born subsequently. Much progress has since been made in Europe in preventing these consequences . . .
The main conclusions of our 1972 review have, indeed, been confirmed in many subsequent studies and more recent reviews. It may reasonably be inferred from the Bristol study and from other European studies that between 20 and 25% of women who have had an induced abortion need a cerclage operation to be able to carry a subsequent pregnancy to term. The percentage may well be lower in Canada if a higher percentage of abortions are undertaken earlier in pregnancy. . .
It is important for any woman who hopes to have a child subsequent to an induced abortion to accept that she will then be in a high-risk category and must report a subsequent pregnancy early, and that she will need specialist obstetric care. . . .
Cohen and her colleagues describe us as “two crusaders for compulsory pregnancy”. This is untruthful abuse. Your correspondence columns might better be used to discuss the many steps that might be taken in Canada to reduce the unfortunate consequences of induced abortion, including the careful counselling of women and the wider use of the cerclage operation early enough in a subsequent pregnancy.
Extract None of us “advise” either prenatal diagnosis or therapeutic abortion; we attempt to inform the families of their risks and available options and help them make a decision in the light of their perception of the burden 0f the disease in question, the degree of their desire to have more children and their religious or ethical beliefs. . . . only 5% of the pregnancies: of women who underwent amniocentesis for prenatal diagnosis were selectively aborted, that the procedure served as reassurance for the parents of the fetus, and that in some cases, amniocentesis may have prevented therapeutic abortion being performed because of fear that the fetus was defective, when the fetus was in fact normal.
Robin F Badgley, Denyse Fortin Caron, Marion G Powell
Badgley Report
Abstract The procedures set out for the operation of the Abortion Law are not working equitably across Canada. In almost every aspect dealing with induced abortion which was reviewed by the Committee, there was considerable confusion, unclear standards or social inequity involved with this procedure. In addition to the terms of the law, a variety of provincial regulations govern the establishment of hospital therapeutic abortion committees and there is a diverse interpretation of the indications for this procedure by hospital boards and the medical profession. These factors have led to: sharp disparities in the distribution and the accessibility of therapeutic abortion services; a continuous exodus of Canadian women to the United States to obtain this operation; and delays in women obtaining induced abortions in Canada.
Helen Cvejic, Irene Lipper, Robert A Kinch, Peter Benjamin
Canadian Medical Association Journal
Abstract Thirty-eight adolescents who underwent an abortion were studied by questionnaire and interview with a psychiatrist and a social worker 2 years after the abortion. Most did not regret their abortion and considered it a positive experience. Most said they would not have another abortion, although adoption was unanimously rejected as a choice for the pregnant teenager. Relations with their parents were generally good and the families were supportive in the decision-making process and in the postabortion period. The girl’s father had been absent because of death or separation in 37% of instances. A lengthy relationship with the putative father before the abortion was common, but 37% of the relationships were not able to withstand the pregnancy-abortion crisis. The proportion using contraceptives before the abortion was 2%, and 2 years after the abortion, 84%.
Extract In “The Release of the Destruction of Life Devoid of Value” Hoche, a distinguished psychiatrist, and Binding, a highly respected jurist, persuasively developed the concept of “worthless human beings”, such as the hopelessly crippled, deformed and insane. They stressed the misery and futility of such unfortunate lives and the cruel economic burden they represented to their relatives and society. . . the legalization of abortion by the Canadian Parliament in 1969 have laid the foundation for the legalization of euthanasia, or the killing of people medically judged to be “incapable of meaningful life”, such as mongoloid idiots, imbeciles, the terminally ill, persons with senile melancholia, stroke victims living like “vegetables”, and – well, the sort of people, besides unwanted babies, who would be “better off dead”. Be patient: euthanasia is coming.
