Pro-choice?
With any medical procedure, patients need to be informed of any possible risks.
But it seems that some “pro-choice” advocates are not in favour of a woman being fully informed of the risks of having an abortion or of a woman being told about the stage of development of her unborn child or showing her an ultrasound of her unborn child. They are absolutely opposed to a woman being shown an ultrasound. Many women change their mind after seeing an ultrasound of the child in their womb which means fewer abortions for abortion clinics. If women are not fully informed of the risks and consequences of abortion, then one cannot speak of informed consent.

 Not informing women about the child in their womb and the risks of abortion seems to be more of a pro-abortion attitude than a so called pro-choice one. How many women are informed of the risks of premature birth in subsequent pregnancies after an abortion? How many are told of the potential psychological effects of abortion? How many are informed about the medical and scientific evidence of an increased risk for the later development of breast cancer following an induced abortion ? 
As Lorne Gunter commented in the National Post, “I am astounded by the lengths so-called pro-choicers will go to ensure women have abortions. I don’t mean the lengths the pro-choice movement will go to ensure that safe, legal, clinical abortions are available to women who decide to have them, I mean the legal and political gymnastics pro-choice activists will perform to ensure women follow through on their decision to have an abortion.”
In an Angus Reid Strategies poll in 2008, 95% of Canadians said they want women to be told about the potential physical and psychological effects of abortion.
If abortion advocates don’t acknowledge the facts and risks that might cause a pregnant woman to change her mind about having an abortion, is it really a ‘choice’ at all? If “pro-choicers” are really what they say they are, why would they be unhappy if a woman changed her mind and decided not to have an abortion? Isn’t that a woman’s right?

 Mother and Baby- We love them both.

Many women who regret their abortions say, ‘If only they had told me it was a baby.’ Some abortion advocates refer to the human being in the womb as tissue, clump of cells, uterine contents or product of conception. Deplorably, some have even called the baby, a parasite. In working to legalize abortion, it was important for the pro-abortion movement to dehumanize the child in the womb, to distance abortion from the reality that it kills a living human being.

An editorial in the September 1970 California Medicine Journal, “A New Ethic for Medicine and Society”, said:
“Since the old ethic has not yet been fully displaced, it has been necessary to separate the idea of abortion from the idea of killing, which continues to be socially abhorrent. The result has been a curious avoidance of the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra-or-extra-uterine until death. The very considerable semantic gymnastics which are required to rationalize abortion as anything but taking a human life would be ludicrous if they were not put forth under socially impeccable auspices.”

Abby Johnson, who quit her job as director of a Planned Parenthood clinic, says she was instructed to not refer to the ‘baby’. Speaking the truth about the development of the child in the womb is important and showing women pictures of prenatal development or ultrasound imagery is empowering. Women should be given scientific information about their developing baby.

The focus should be on caring equally for both. The mother may choose to raise her child or choose adoption when she does not wish to raise a child at this time in her life. Adoption is also a loving option. Sadly, we live in times where some believe abortion preferable to adoption.

Some people say “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but it should be up to the mother to decide.”

Why are you personally opposed to abortion? If it is not wrong, if it does not take the life of an unborn child, why be opposed at all? Women should be able to have as many as they want. It is illogical to recognize the taking of an innocent human life, claim to be opposed and support its legality. Would you say “I’m personally opposed to child abuse or slavery, but it should be up to the individual to decide, a mother or father should be free to abuse their child if they want to?”Of course, not.

In reality, the “personally opposed” argument is no different than supporting abortion.

 Abortion doctors charged with murder after fetuses found in the fridge

Two doctors who performed late-term abortions in Maryland have been arrested and charged with murder. The investigation started in August 2010 when an 18-year old woman who was pregnant had her uterus ruptured during an abortion of her 21 week old unborn baby. Instead of calling 911, the two doctors responsible, Dr. Steven Brigham and Dr. Nicola Riley, drove the woman to a hospital. A search of their clinic followed and a freezer was found with 35 late-term fetuses inside, including one that was aborted at 36 weeks.

Abortion kills an unborn baby, and currently the law in Maryland permits abortions even in late pregnancy. However, two doctors were charged with murder for doing just this because as reported by LifeNews.com, “if a preborn baby is past viability and his or her life is taken in an illegal act, murder charges can be brought.” Dr. Steven Brigham operated a secret late term abortion clinic in Elkton, Maryland even though he had no license to practice in that state.”  Dr. Brigham  or his colleague Dr. Nicola Riley would start the late-term abortions at his office in New Jersey and then the women would be driven to his secret clinic in Maryland to finish the abortion procedure. The state of New Jersey does not permit late term abortions in clinics. Dr. Brigham and his colleague Dr. Riley were therefore beginning illegal late abortions in the state of New Jersey also.

It is horrible that these babies’ bodies were kept frozen in the clinic. If this is upsetting to some supporters of abortion, we should ask why it is so wrong, and why when the results of abortion are unseen, it does not bother them. Dead fetuses in a fridge should be an outrage, but it should also spur on more action to end the injustice of abortion.

As Kelly McParland with the National Post points out, “So what’s the big issue? If a fetus isn’t human, what’s wrong with tossing it in the fridge? That’s what abortion is all about: ‘terminating’ non-human life forms that don’t count as human. If you accept that, then there’s no reason to treat the result of the abortion with any respect. If you think there’s something wrong with storing abortion results in a fridge, then maybe you don’t really believe all that stuff the pro-abortion people have been feeding you.”

And that’s just it, you see, the bodies of aborted babies in a freezer unmask  the word games that some abortion advocates have played for years: mainly that the unborn child is not a human being or that it is merely a potential human being or a clump of cells or tissue or product of conception. The bodies of these little babies show the reality of abortion. Abortion kills a human being.

A new human being exists from the moment of conception. Sex is determined at that moment as is the colour of your hair, your eyes, your height and your skin. Regardless of gestational age, every unborn child should have the right to life.

Records show that Dr. Brigham has a left a trail of misery behind him. His medical license was suspended in other states for injuring women in botched abortions and violations of health and safety standards.

The latest issue of the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute’s (BCPI) newsletter reports that it often receives questions concerning the number of studies which show “a positive correlation or statistically significant results regarding induced abortion and breast cancer.”

Dr Angela Lafranchi, a breast cancer surgeon and President of BCPI, conducted a search of the literature to provide an answer to the question.

Her findings were that of the 66 studies done since 1957 to examine the link between abortion and breast cancer, there were 53 which “showed a positive correlation and 25 that were statistically significant.” 13 studies showed no association. Dr. Lafranchi points out that Louise Brinton, the author of one study,”had been a leader at at the 2003 National Cancer Institute workshop on Early reproductive Events and Breast Cancer risk which concluded that there was no association between breast cancer and induced abortion.” In 2009, she says , Louise Brinton, “has now reported that there is a 40% statistically significant  increase of breast cancer with induced abortion.”

Among other signicant studies on induced abortion and breast cancer, a sudy By Patrick Carroll published in 2007 in the American Journal of Physicians and Surgeons concluded that “induced abortion is found to be the best predictor” of breast cancer.

See the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute’s website for a complete list of epidemiological studies.

A one sided report
As mentioned previously, the Royal Society of Canada’s Expert Panel recently released a report on End-of-Life Decision Making. It recommended the legalization of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide. However, it is important to realize the weakness of this report, and how it failed to present both sides of the debate.
The report was not a balanced effort given that many of the authors and the people whom the panel consulted are known to be euthanasia advocates. It is nothing more than an euthanasia tract.
The report does not provide an in depth analysis of abuses of euthanasia and assisted suicide in jurisdictions where these practices are legal. On this point, Margaret Somerville, director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University, notes in an article about the report:
“For example, the report indicates that there has been one case of the use of euthanasia on disabled babies in the Netherlands. This is probably correct in the short time since the criteria for allowing such euthanasia was formally accepted by the Dutch Society for Pediatrics in 2005. But an article in the New England Journal of Medicine documents 22 cases of babies with spina bifida being euthanized in the Netherlands prior to that; this is not mentioned in the report. Likewise a survey of Belgian physicians, who had carried out euthanasia that found that 32% of those physicians had euthanized patients without their request or consent, is never mentioned.”

The report also advances the possibility of future acceptance of euthanizing patients with dementia. There is the usual mention of rising health care costs and an aging population as if euthanasia is somehow the solution to this situation. Every patient regardless of age and incapacity is deserving of the best of health care.
Ms. Somerville remarks on the findings of a 2010 Environics poll of 2,000 Canadians on euthanasia. They were asked whether “the government’s priority should be: legalizing euthanasia, improving end-of life care, or both. 71 percent of respondents said improving end-of-life care, 19 percent said legalizing euthanasia, and 5 percent said both.”

The report of the Royal Society of Canada was hardly surprising given the makeup of the members of the panel.

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.

With about 7 billion people on the planet, headlines about overpopulation disasters are continuously being made. In the past 100 years, the world’s population has doubled, and doubled again.
However, during the past century population growth has meant greater prosperity. People are now healthier, living longer, are better educated and are financially better off. The number of people living in poverty is declining.

In fact, when we look to the future, the worry is about too few children, not too many. Western nations with their declining birth rates are facing a Demographic winter. Human birthrates continue to decline, and not only will our numbers never double again, but we continue to abort children.

According to the Guttmacher Institute’s latest report, (the Guttmacher Institute was founded by Planned Parenthood), there are 42 million induced abortions a year worldwide. The real global total could be higher than that, since Guttmacher has no way of getting accurate statistics from countries with high abortion rates; China alone probably performs somewhere between 10-14 million abortions per year say Steven Mosher and Colin Mason of the Poulation Research Institute. 

Colin Mason and Steven Mosher point our in their LifeNews.com article, that if we assume Guttmacher is somewhat correct, then “at 40 million abortions a year, it would only take 25 years to eliminate one billion babies. Since the abortion business really took off around 1960 or so, we have probably eliminated nearly twice that number, or two billion unborn human beings.”

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.