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 . . . 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 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.
Extract The main thrust of the letter by Drs. Cohen, Rapson and Watters (Can Med Assoc J 114: 593, 1976) is that abortion is good medicine and should not be denied to certain groups of citizens. I think, on the other hand, that liberalized abortion is bad medicine and should be curtailed rather than encouraged. . . . It is becoming increasingly clear that abortion is a hazardous operation with far-reaching effects. . . . After some years abortion tends to be used as a birth control measure. Many women have more than one abortion. Legalizing abortion may not reduce greatly the illegal practice of it and some reports have shown that it has increased this practice.
Extract On the issue of complications following legal abortion, Dr. Coffey quotes Jeffcoate, whose antiabortion views are widely known, and the Wynn report, a document compiled by two crusaders for “compulsory pregnancy’s who used data inappropriately in an attempt to substantiate their personal beliefs. . . Results of studies in Aberdeen, England and Sweden suggested that women denied a safe legal abortion – that is, the victims of compulsory pregnancy – were more likely to experience emotional distress than women who were allowed to exercise reproductive responsibility by the use of the option of legal abortion. In other words, compulsory pregnancy is bad medicine. Dr. Coffey makes another statement that is contradicted by modern evidence. The notion that abortion tends to be used as a method of primary birth control does not square with the evidence from the Population Council . . . .We can trace the enactment of antiabortion laws throughout history to policies of demographic aggression. . . .the Quebec government, in a state of demographic panic over its low birth rate, harassing our colleague Dr. Henry Morgentaler; and Canada competing demographically with the United States: all such irresponsible behaviour is potentially more lethal than nuclear holocaust. For almost a decade the United Nations has granted people the world over the right to plan their families without any interference from the state. This is a paper right until it extends, de facto as well as de jure, beyond conception to the point of potential viability.
Extract I was not concerned with the rights and wrongs of abortions; the point I made was that if an individual, or a minority group, contracted out of this service the burden on the remaining consultants (gynaecologists and anesthetists) would be correspondingly increased and that it is understandable that employing authorities will tend to avoid creating a situation which is fraught with friction and dissatisfaction. I would agree that it is a further illustration of the potential dangers of an inflexible monopoly employer.
Extract Some of your correspondents on this subject seem to be ignoring the fact that the NHS Acts and Regulations impose upon all doctors employed in the Health Service a duty to make available to their patients any treatment which their condition may warrant, and in certain cases one such treatment is the termination of pregnancy. These cases are defined in the Abortion Act 1967 and the clear implication of section 1 (1) of that Act, taken in conjunction with the general duty outlined above, is that a doctor must consider whether any patient requesting a termination of pregnancy falls within the criteria set out in the Act, and if so he must make the appropriate treatment available to her. He need not, however, participate in the treatment.
Extract Dr R Salm’s letter (26 June, p 1593) saddened me because in it he fails to make clear that he understands the grave injury that Mr Walley and many others have suffered. I am sure that he does not think that having to give up for life one’s ambition to practise the specialty of one’s choice in one’s own country is a mere inconvenience. Both to change one’s specialty and to go into exile are poor alternatives. Has he considered that it would be possible to arrange a system for abortions in which all the parties concerned obtained reasonable satisfaction and nobody was hurt in this way ? I am far from convinced that this is impossible.
Extract Parliament went out of its way to avoid the situation Mr Walley describes by inserting a conscience clause. At no stage of the debate was there any suggestion that this clause was only to apply to the present holders of jobs, and had there been any such suggestion it is extremely unlikely that the bill would ever have been passed.
