By Suzanne Fortin
Canadian pro-lifers often look to the United States for information and strategies on late-term abortion. Although our contexts are similar, they are not identical. We cannot assume that American information reflects the Canadian reality.
The information on late-term abortion in Canada is sketchy, to say the least. Nobody involved in the procedure has an interest in divulging any facts surrounding it. So it goes largely undocumented. The information that would be available is probably hidden deep inside medical libraries and government health databases (the latter of which the public does not have access to). Sometimes it comes to the fore on the internet, but it can take persistence to find it. If we want to mount an effective campaign to demonstrate the horror of abortion, we must be willing to do the research and come up with our own data.
To this end, I have written a multi-part series dedicated to my findings on late-term abortion in Canada. I hope that the pro-life community can use this knowledge as a springboard to do further research and gain a more complete picture of this practice.
The first part deals with the semantics of late-term abortion.
PART 1: DEFINITIONS
In Canada, abortions can be neatly divided into those that are performed before 20 weeks, and those that are done after. The latter are what are generally called “late-term abortions”, although the phrase is not technically a medical one. It is sometimes applied in other scenarios (e.g. early 2nd semester abortions, or those after 24 weeks.)
It may come as a surprise to learn that the medical community does not consider a late-term abortion to be an abortion, strictly speaking. The word “abortion” was once synonymous with “miscarriage”, that is, fetal death before viability. (Fetal viability is considered theoretically possible at 20 weeks gestation, or once the child weighs more than 500 grams.) Unintentional fetal death is referred to as a “spontaneous abortion”. In contrast, the Canadian Medical Association’s definition of “induced abortion” is “the active termination of a pregnancy before fetal viability.”
The active termination of a pregnancy after fetal viability, therefore, is not an abortion.
I would hesitate to say that the medical community deliberately tries to mislead the public with this language. But the medical lexicon does provide a convenient camouflage. The general public (including most pro-lifers) are generally unaware that a late-term abortion is usually called a “termination of pregnancy” (TOP) or an “induction”. It is almost never called an “abortion” in the formal literature on the subject.
The product of a late-term abortion is also different than that of an early one. Whereas an elective abortion produces a miscarriage, a late-term abortion results in stillbirth.
This distinction is important because it has an effect on the official abortion statistics. In Canada, the government counts induced abortions, but, generally, speaking, it does not count induced stillbirths. Canadian standards of medical coding make no distinction between natural stillbirths and induced stillbirths. As there is no means to easily distinguish between the two, we cannot properly count late-term abortions, and this provides a neat cover-up. I do not believe this was done deliberately. But it happens to be convenient. Very few people in the medical field have objected, up until now. A committee of the Canadian Congenital Anomalies Surveillance Network, which is part of the Public Health Agency of Canada, has suggested that provincial health databases be made to distinguish between natural and induced stillbirths. The lack of distinction between the two makes it more difficult for their researchers, because they cannot know whether a preborn baby diagnosed with a problem died of the anomaly itself, or of a termination. Sometimes statistical tools are used to guess at the rate of natural deaths, but an aura of uncertainty always hovers over the data.
I have not seen any sign that this recommendation to recognize induced stillbirth has been implemented. But it would be extremely useful for the pro-life cause. Statistics Canada reports that between the years 2000 and 2006, the number of early stillbirths (between 20 and 27 weeks) rose by 14%, whereas the number of late stillbirths (after 28 weeks) remained stable. It is difficult to believe this rise of 14% is entirely due to natural causes. A proper medical coding system could confirm this. If these stillbirths are the product of a growing trend to late-term abortions, it would provide more incentive to examine the question.
This information about late-term abortion is important to remember in your discussions about the topic, because the vast majority of people are completely unaware of it. They may even say that because the Canadian Medical Association only defines elective abortions, it does not approve of late-term abortions, or that it even bans them. If we demystify the semantics of late-term abortion, we demystify the practice.
In the next column in this series, I will discuss late-term abortion statistics.
Suzanne is an organizer with the Family Coalition Party of Ontario and blogs at Big Blue Wave.
Public date: June 23rd, 2009
June 23, 2009
I know a woman who had an induced abortion of her child at 24 weeks. It was done in Halifax at the IWK Children’s Hospital. This is where all of the abortions, late term, on what are called “fetal anomalies” are performed. Campaign Life Coalition obtained stats for the number there and I believe the last year they had figures for was 2005, and the number was around 65 terminations.
June 23, 2009
A useful and well-researched reference article.
Thanks Suzanne
June 23, 2009
How did Campaign Life obtain those stats? Access to Information request?
Interesting.
June 25, 2009
If I were a betting person, I’d say figures about induced still birth will not be released! Thanks Suzanne
July 5, 2009
I just hate to be the Devil’s Advocate but it seems to me that tway in which current endless war between “pro-life” and “pro-choice” camps of political and social activists is being fought produces worst possible outcome; high infertility, high numbers of pre-term births with high mortality/high complication rates, overall low birth rate, massive state sponsored children (mostly newborn) trafficking (high apprehension rates of newborn children by social services to feed adoption market), forced abortions (abortions as way to prevent social services from stealing newborn child)and host of other problems.
Why do I say that?? Early term abortions (surgical abortions) cause that a bone fragments of aborted baby get embedded in walls of uterus of women who had that procedure. During subsequent pregnancy as uterine walls expand to accommodate baby sharp ends of these bone fragments start to protrude from walls of uterus and they rip amniotic sac. Just read quotes from Jill Stanek and Jill Doctoroff posted below.
Considering that surgical abortions result in inability to carry subsequent pregnancy to term pro-lifers should push for ban on surgical abortion and demand that only induced (late term) abortions be legal.
Such push would reduce number of abortions as it would make women having induced abortions think twice about their choices, and it would save women from infertility.
What we have now is that “pro-lifers” and “pro-choicers” have no stomach for late abortions and that results in a never ending disaster.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=91295
Jill Stanek
‘Killing Girls’
Posted: March 11, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
© 2009
A documentary about late-term abortions in Russia, seven years in the making, has just been released.
“Killing Girls” has already been nominated for best documentary film in three European film festivals….
The primary setting of “Killing Girls” is the Center for Family Planning and Reproduction in St Petersburg, a large, old hospital where babies are delivered on one floor and aborted on the next. Mothers recover together.
Late-term abortions are common in Russia. In a country where the film tells us 80 percent of women abort an average of two to 10 times, older girls tell younger girls to wait until after 20 weeks to abort because, they say, it is better for the female body to have an induced abortion than surgical abortion. The girls worry about becoming sterile. Very messed up. This despite the fact abortions are free up to 12 weeks….
http://bluewavecanada.blogspot.com/2009/07/canadian-abortion-clinic-director.html
Jill Doctoroff Director, Elizabeth Bagshaw Women’s Clinic, Vancouver: We don’t know about people like my sister and her husband who, after trying to conceive for two years, got lucky on their first try with in-vitro fertilization only to have her “water break” at 17 weeks. After weeks of almost no amniotic fluid, which is required for lung development, the prognosis for my sister’s pregnancy was dire. While in the end she decided to continue her pregnancy, which resulted in a premature baby boy dying on the day he was born due to under-developed lungs, she needed the option of and access to a later abortion in order to make a fully informed choice. She needed access to abortion to make a choice or to execute that…
July 6, 2009
Suzanne,
I just want you to know that this post that I tried to post on this thread couple of hours ago, I wrote it couple of days ago as an email and I already sent it to Jill Stanek, Jill Doctoroff, Barbara Kay and other people as well. I would have sent it to you as well if I had your email address.
Whoever decided to block my post is not going to stop information contained in it from getting out anyway. When you block my post, all that you do is create an impression that you care more about your own reputation than about health of Canadian mothers and their kids and that does more damage to your credibility than admitting that you might have been wrong in your approach.
BTW, I recently received copies of some very interesting documents from Germany (from KL Dachau to be precise) regarding Dr. Henry Morgentaler. These documents could be yours just for asking and they could be very valuable in exposing Dr. Morgentaler as a medical fraud.
Cheers,