ActionLife.org Blog

Last fall, an Alberta woman was let off with no jail time for strangling her newborn son. She was given a suspended sentence of three years. She had previously been found guilty by two juries of second degree murder for strangling her newborn baby boy and throwing his body over a fence. Those verdicts were repealed. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench justified giving her only a suspended sentence by arguing that Canada’s absence of any law on abortion shows that Canadians are sympathetic to the mother in cases of infanticide.

Judge Joanne Veight said:
“Canada is one of the very few countries in the world that, for the last nearly 25 years, has had no regulation of abortion, even in relation to the third trimester. At a minimum, this reflects the lack of consensus. In my view, it also reflects the fact that while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, Canadians generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.

Concerning  infanticide, she said : “Naturally, Canadians are aggrieved by an infant’s death especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother.”

The pro-life movement has often warned that the legalization of abortion would lead to a devaluation of human life. It would seem this now extends to the life of newborn children.

Canadians want legal protection before birth

72% of Canadians surveyed in the September National Omnibus poll supported legal protection for unborn babies at some point before birth. 62% said they want protection either from conception or 2-3 months gestation and on. Another 10% want protection from 6 months on.

Participants were told that the fetal heart begins beating about three weeks after conception, brain waves can be detected within two months of conception and all organs are in place by two months.

However, there are currently no legal restrictions on abortion in Canada. In the absence of a law, abortion is allowed at any stage of pregnancy and for any reason. Only 20% of people supported the current policy in Canada of no protection for human life until birth, while a total of 74% of women and 67% of men supported protection before birth.
Taxpayers currently pay for almost all of the 100,000 abortions which take place every year, but only 30% polled support paying for all abortions. 54% said abortions should only be tax-funded in emergency situations when the mother’s life was threatened or in cases of rape or incest.

The poll was conducted by Environics Research for Life Canada.

Recent articles about the Salvation Army have highlighted  the organization’s support of  abortion in some cases based on the Salvation Army’s International branch statement on abortion.

Although The Salvation Army believes in the sanctity of all human life, the International Positional Statement of the organization on abortion outlines the instances in which abortion is considered permissible.

The organization’s stance shows contradictory positions. The Salvation Army acknowledges “the moment of fertilization as the start of human life”, and says that “Human life is sacred and all people should be treated with dignity and respect”, yet it accepts abortion in certain circumstances. Their opening statement defines abortion as an “operation or other procedure to terminate a pregnancy before the foetus is viable.” Yet induced abortions occur after the point of viability and these are still called abortions. The circumstances in which the Salvation Army believes that abortion can occur are: pregnancy as a result of rape or incest, when carrying the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother, or when there is a foetal abnormality and the baby will not live long after birth. However, how can the poor health of a baby be a justification for killing an unborn child when in another statement they insist that “all people-without exception- are of value… irrespective of age, gender, race, religion, health or social status, or their potential for achievement”?

According to Life News.com, Rebecca Kiessling, a former attorney whose mother was a victim of rape told World Net Daily that the Salvation Army’s statement on abortion “is one of the most disheartening things I’ve seen.” -even though she donates to and supports the Salvation Army. “…the Salvation Army has now marginalized children like me who were conceived in rape. In other words, they support the death penalty for innocents like me who were conceived out of violence.”

Leaders of the Salvation Army USA have said that the statement on abortion from the International branch does not reflect their position. They have directed visitors to the statement on their website. They have also placed the issue on the agenda for the next international conference and correspondence will be sent to the International branch on the matter.

An Australian mother pregnant with twins was advised to abort one of the babies because the baby had a congenital heart defect. She was told that his heart defect would require years of operations if the baby survived. 32 weeks pregnant, she underwent the abortion procedure. During the abortion, the ultrasound clinician mistakenly injected the healthy baby with the lethal injection, killing the baby, and leaving the disabled baby alive. The mother then had an emergency c-section during which the sick child was aborted. The Herald Sun reports that “the sick child was terminated in a three hour operation.”
This tragedy could have been avoided. The sick baby should have been allowed to be born, receive care after birth and live until his/her life came to a natural end. In some jurisdictions, perinatal hospice care is available for babies diagnosed with serious health problems and a short life expectancy. In the case of the Australian twins, one tragedy is compounded by another, one abortion then another. Both babies are now dead. This horrible situation was brought about because of the dangerous view that children with disabilities should be aborted.

The truth about sex-selection abortion

A book titled ‘Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men’ addresses the issue of sex-selection abortion. Choosing boys over girls has led to “163 million missing women”, according to author Mara Hvistendahl, mostly in Asia where there is a cultural preference for baby boys. The situation is marked in China were a one-child policy limiting family size entwined with a cultural preference for boys has lead to more abortions of baby girls.

Mara Hvistendahl travelled to nine countries and interviewed doctors, demographers, mothers who aborted their daughters, women who were sold by their families, and men with no prospects of marriage. As she learned more about this demographic crisis, it became clear that many problems ensue when high numbers of female babies are aborted.
Consequences of this sex-imbalance are described in the book: women are kidnapped and forced into marriage, or worse, prostitution. She sees a bleak future for Asian societies, a future likely to be less stable and more violent.

However, Hvistendahl is hesitant to criticize abortion. Although she sees the problem with sex-selection abortions, she does not think anything should be done about abortion. She advances that, “in union with population pressures and technology, choice has been perverted.”
Unfortunately, the author flinches from the truth that if ‘choice’ is what justifies abortion then it will be impossible to fight this ‘gendercide’.

Sue Thayer who worked for Planned Parenthood in Iowa was fired by her former employer over a dispute about abortion.
Sue was hired at the clinic in 1991 as a Family Planning Assistant. The clinic did not perform abortions. She quickly had the opportunity to advance her position with Planned Parenthood, and was interviewed regarding her views on abortion. During the interview she responded that “abortion was murder”, and although the supervisor was surprised at her answer, Sue was still given the position of manager but was required to go through “training”. Sue explained that “every employee, who was in management in the health services part of Planned Parenthood, was required to observe a full day of abortions.”

She remembers well what she saw during her day of training: “The baby is extracted and put into a small little clear dish, and they look at that under a light to try to determine if they have all the body parts, because-of course-during the abortion, the baby is ripped apart and so there are tiny little arms and little legs.” Although she didn’t believe that abortion was a right, she did have the desire to prevent the need for abortions through contraceptives.
Planned Parenthood began to do Telemed abortions in 2008. This meant Sue’s clinic was now involved with dispensing abortion drugs. Her clinic would perform a vaginal ultrasound, send the ultrasound through electronic means to a remote doctor at a central location. The doctor would examine the ultrasound to determine the gestational age of the baby (63 days or less). Following the doctor’s determination of the baby’s age, he would “push a button which would remotely open a drawer beside the mother” thereby dispensing abortion drugs. Sue was stunned by the whole Telemed procedure, and the fact that it was being presented as abortions with “very little overhead”: abortion for profit. It was clear to her that they were not just about reducing abortions through contraceptives. After voicing her concerns, Sue was told her position was terminated due to downsizing.

In fact, Sue  saw a job posting for her position a few weeks later. She realized that she had been fired for challenging Planned Parenthood’s abortion for profit operation.
Sue worked at Planned Parenthood for 17 years. Since leaving the clinic, she has prayed outside the clinic, formed a pro-life group and this group now plans to open a pregnancy centre to continue to try to end abortion.