Thanks to pro-abortion activist Joyce Arthur for posting a link to the number of late-term abortions in Canada Via Politics N Poetry
The table reveals there was a total of 103 619 abortions reported in Canada. Of those records, 46 322 were detailed. Of that sample, 0.7 per cent were late-term abortions past 20 weeks. So that's approximately 325 late-term abortions a year that we know about. In all likelihood, there were more. If we use the same rate of 0.7 per cent for the total number of abortions in Canada, we arrive at approximately 726 late-term abortions in Canada. Of course this is somewhat speculative. It could be more, it could be less.
So we can infer that in Canada, several hundred late-term abortions take place every year.
Joyce Arthur cites some other numbers, but doesn't give a source for the data. On Politics N Poetry, She states:
Latest stats from Statistics Canada and CIHI: 320 abortions done in 2005 over 20 weeks. (This figure obtained from StatsCan on a proprietary basis and released by the National Abortion Federation at the NAF Annual Meeting in San Francisco, April 22, 2006.) Almost all of these occurred between 20 and 22 weeks, a small number for compelling social reasons (e.g., teenagers who were in denial of their pregnancy, women in abusive relationships, etc.)
Interesting. How many are done for "social reasons"? And why are teenagers allowed to kill their babies? Why should babies have to suffer because of their own denial? Women in abusive relationships? How about protecting the woman instead of killing the fetus? And why not have a fetal protection law to serve as a deterrent to men who beat their pregnant wives?
Please note also that the 3rd trimester is after 24 weeks. The numbers of abortions done after 24 weeks in Canada is a tiny handful, although we don’t have exact numbers, and ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION are for cases of lethal fetal abnormality, where the fetus cannot survive after birth. No doctor in Canada will perform abortions after about 22 weeks, except for reasons of lethal fetal abnormality, and we actually know of only TWO doctors in all of Canada who are able and willing to do those.
I'd like a source on that.
Assuming these numbers are correct, it begs the question: why won't any doctors perform abortions past 22 weeks?
Perhaps it's an issue of being able to perform the "technique". After all, if you don't get a chance to perform this so-called procedure very often, maybe you just don't have what it takes to kill a late-term fetus. But I wonder how hard it could really be? Or does the nature of the procedure lend itself to a great risk of error or damage to the woman? It bears investigation.
Quebec Health Minister, Philip Couillard, a doctor himself, had one insight into one reason doctors won't do late-term abortions:
"It is extremely hard for a woman to have a late abortion and also hard for the doctor that performs it, both psychologically and other ways, Couillard told CBC radio. "
Henry Morgentaler also has issues about late-term abortions. According to one article by Margaret Somervile, reprinted on from Christianity.ca:
But even Henry Morgentaler, the "grandfather" of the current legal vacuum around abortion in Canada, has qualms about such procedures. From his Toronto clinic, Morgentaler responded to the Quebec announcement [to find a late-term abortionist]: "We don't abort babies, we want to abort fetuses before they become babies.
Interesting.
I suspect that many abortionists share those same issues. Killing late-term fetus is tough. It's hard to watch the baby suffer.
What is perplexing is why they will not allow for these babies to have legal rights.
Sounds to me like ideology is trumping reality. Women love their unborn children. The medical establishment calls them "unborn children". Everyone loves them. Until they're inconvenient. What segment of the population is treated like that? We even have laws in Canada that regulate how and under what circumstances you can terminate animals. That late-term fetuses are not accorded the same consideration is outrageous.
