Abortion Canadian Facts

Many people in Canada pride themselves for being citizens of a technological and scientifically advanced country. Indeed many in Canada pride themselves for being citizens of a nation that is less combative than others in terms of rhetoric and military ambitions. Our country is affectionately regarded as a leading supporter of the freedom of personal expression and individual rights. However, one could easily support from Scripture that these rights to self-expression (doing and saying what we want) is not always spiritually desirable or edifying. The encouragement of sinful choices, fleshly lifestyles, and immoral teachings is hardly beneficial for a country.

In this article we want to focus on one particular blight in our culture. It is that of our ‘cherished freedom’ to kill unwanted children. We couch this freedom in other, more innocuous, words such as pro-choice, personal freedom, rights-of-the-mother, necessary medical procedure, birth control, etc. Nevertheless, ALL abortions kill the life of a defenseless person who is created in the image of God. To cover the hideous nature of this, Canadian law does not consider unborn babies to be legal persons until they are born. So we wash our hands, legally speaking, and say that no ‘person’ is killed via abortion. Our blindness and hypocrisy on this matter as a nation is profound. Currently there are no laws within Canada that protect the life of unborn babies.

To bring you up to speed concerning the plague of abortion within Canada we have provided some facts for the reader to soberly consider. The information below has been compiled by the Campaign Life Coalition and, with their permission, we have reprinted much of what they have collected. At the time of printing this issue of Menbuilders the following material, and more, is accessible online at https://www.campaignlifecoalition.com/abortion/ . We hope that the data below will provide you with an eye-opening reminder as to the debauchery that Canada both legally and financially advocates. Perhaps we will come to the conclusion that we are in a desperate spiritual state as a nation after all. The fact that the atrocity of abortion continues, with barely a public whisper of a contrary opinion, is truly alarming.

Proverbs 6:16-17
“These six things the LORD hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him: a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood.”

Psalm 139:13-14
“For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

What the Canadian Statistics are on Abortion

• Since 1969, abortion has killed over 4.5 million preborn babies in Canada.¹
• An estimated 100,000 induced abortions are committed annually in Canada.²
• The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) reported 97,211 abortions in 2022³, although CIHI acknowledges this data is incomplete. While hospitals are required to report the number of abortions committed, such reporting is voluntary for private abortion facilities. Abortions that aren’t covered by the respective province’s health insurance plan aren’t necessarily included either.
• In Canada, approximately 1 baby is aborted for every 4 born alive.⁴
• Almost a third of Canadian women over 45 are post-abortive.⁵

What the Legal Status of Abortion is in Canada

• Abortion was permitted under certain conditions in 1969. Prior to this, committing an abortion was a crime under the Criminal Code.
• In R. v. Morgentaler, 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada made its landmark decision to throw out the 1969 abortion law on the basis that it was “unconstitutional,” ruling that the law’s detailed criteria for obtaining an abortion violated a woman’s Charter right to security of the person.
• Neither the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms nor the Supreme Court of Canada established a right to abortion.⁶ The Supreme Court tasked Parliament in 1988 with creating a new law. This never happened, though an attempt was made in 1989 with Bill C-43 (An Act respecting abortion) that satisfied neither pro-life nor abortion advocates.
• Abortion still persists in a legal vacuum to this day, leaving the preborn with no legal protection.
• Section 223 of the Criminal Code of Canada states that a child only “becomes a human being” when it has “completely proceeded [...] from the body of its mother.” This section denies humanity to the preborn, stripping them of their right to life.
• This means that abortion is permitted throughout all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason or no reason whatsoever, up to the moment of birth.
• Canadian Parliament has voted down attempts to criminalize coerced abortions⁷ and sex-selective abortions.⁸ It has failed to protect preborn victims of crime who die in the womb when their mothers are assaulted or killed.⁹
• Seven out of ten provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland & Labrador — prohibit pro-life advocates from witnessing outside abortion facilities with “bubble zone” legislation. In late 2021, Saskatchewan prohibited protests outside hospitals and schools for two years, but not private abortion centres.

How Abortion is Funded

• Domestically, Canadians spend over $100 million on abortion every year ($1000+ x 100,000 abortions). $1000/abortion is a fairly conservative estimate, so the total cost, especially considering complications, is possibly significantly greater than $100 million.
• Abortions are funded with taxpayer dollars through every provincial health care system
• The Canada Health Act does not require abortion costs to be insured. It states only that “medically necessary” procedures must be insured. Abortions are never medically necessary — a fact that over 1000 medical professionals have attested to in the Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare.¹⁰ Provincial legislatures can pass a law recognizing this fact at any time.
• Every province provides coverage for the chemical abortion product Mifegymiso.¹¹

Why Women Choose Abortion

Unfortunately, there is an absence of data on why women choose to abort in Canada. Surveys conducted elsewhere, however, tend to reveal that women choose to abort for many reasons. While abortion activists argue for abortion by appealing to the “hard cases,” such hard cases are, at least in the United States, statistically rare. Based on data spanning from 1996 to 2020 across several states and compiled by Human Life International:¹²

• Less than 0.5% of abortions are due to rape and incest.
• Less than 1% of abortions are related to the physical health or disabilities of the fetus.
• Approximately 2.5% of abortions are related to the life or health (mental or physical) of the mother.
• Therefore, less than 4% of cases are due to “hard cases” and over 96% of abortions are due to social or economic reasons. Even pro-abortion researchers have come to similar conclusions. A 2013 BMC Women’s Health article¹³ based on data from the much-criticized¹⁴ Turnaway Study concluded that of abortions:
• 40% were related to financial reasons.
• 36% were related to bad timing for a pregnancy/baby.
• 31% were related to the mother’s relationship with the father of the baby.
• 29% were related to the mother’s perceived need to focus on her other children.
• 6% were related to “concern” for the mother’s health.
• 5% were related to “concern” for the health of the fetus. The Guttmacher Institute, formerly the research arm of Planned Parenthood, found in a 2004 survey¹⁵ that of abortions:
• 1% were related to rape.
• 3% were primarily related to possible health problems of the fetus.
• 4% were primarily related to the physical health of the mother.

Some abortion advocates argue that abortion wouldn’t be necessary if there was better access to contraceptives. In reality, women often resort to abortion when their contraceptives fail, as no contraceptive method is 100% effective.

In fact, use of contraceptives leads to more, not fewer abortions. Abortion advocates admit the link between contraception use and abortion. “Most abortions result from failed contraception,” stated Joyce Arthur, founder and executive director of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.¹⁶ Arthur’s statement parallels a prediction made in 1973 by Dr. Malcolm Potts, former medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, who stated: “As people turn to contraception, there will be a rise, not a fall, in the abortion rate.”¹⁷ Even in 1955, controversial sexologist Alfred Kinsey stated that “we have found the highest frequency of induced abortions in the groups which, in general, most frequently uses contraception.”¹⁸

According to studies conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, more than half of American women seeking abortions report using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant.¹⁹

What Canadians Think about Abortion

• A 2020 survey by the Angus Reid Institute found that 26% of Canadians believe abortion to be usually or always wrong.²⁰
• A DART & Maru/Blue Voice Canada Poll, released in February 2020, found that of Canadians:
  • Only 34% believe that human life begins at fertilization/conception — which is when science has proven that it begins.²¹ Conversely, only 18% of Canadians believe it begins at birth, which is the definition the Criminal Code of Canada uses.
  • Just 13% identify as pro-life, while 62% identify as pro-choice, and 25% don’t identify with either category.
  • 71% believe the government shouldn’t reopen the issue of abortion, but that’s without being asked about specific regulation.
  • 93% think it should be required for women to be informed about the possible risks of abortion before procuring one.
  • 84% oppose permitting the practice of sex-selective abortion.
  • 78% think it should be required for women to be informed about alternatives to abortion before procuring one.
  • 65% support a 24-hour waiting period before a woman can procure an abortion. 
  • 57% generally oppose partial-birth abortions, a late-term abortion procedure in which a preborn child is partially delivered before being killed.
  • 49% believe minors should have parental consent before procuring an abortion.

Sources:

¹ http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-canada.html

² http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-canada.html

³ https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/induced-abortions-reported-in-canada-2022-data-tables-en.xlsx

⁴ https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310041401

⁵ https://macleans.ca/society/life/a-new-kind-of-mid-life-crisis-unwanted-pregnancies/

⁶ http://www.morgentalerdecision.ca/

⁷ https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/40-3/bill/C-510/first-reading

⁸ https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-2/bill/C-233/first-reading

⁹ https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/bill/C-225/first-reading

¹⁰ https://www.dublindeclaration.com/

¹¹ https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/sask-covers-abortion-pill-mifegymiso- 1.5166420

¹² https://www.hli.org/resources/why-women-abort/ 

¹³ https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6874-13-29#Tab2

¹⁴ https://www.liveaction.org/news/turnaway-study-authors-continue-deceive-public-abortions-consequences/

¹⁵ https://www.guttmacher.org/journals/psrh/2005/reasons-us-women-have-abortions-quantitative-and-qualitative-perspectives

¹⁶ https://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/abortion-polls.shtml

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Ibid.

¹⁹ https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2018/about-half-us-abortion-patients-report-using-contraception-month-they-became

²⁰ https://angusreid.org/modern-morality/

²¹ https://acpeds.org/position-statements/when-human-life-begins