Canada Pro-Lifers: Letter Puts Abortion Practitioner Morgentaler in New Light
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 8, 2008
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) — Henry Morgentaler’s name is synonymous with abortion in Canada. Abortion is allowed because of the abortion practitioner and abortions are paid for with taxpayer funds because of his activism. But a new letter has one pro-life group saying Canadians should see him in a different light.
University of British Columbia history professor George Egerton has discovered a confidential letter unearthed in the archives of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.
The letter, which is the subject of a new report in the current issue of Macleans, puts a different face on Henry Morgentaler than the public is used to seeing.
Far from a contender for the Order of Canada, the Campaign Life Coalition says the letter Morgentaler wrote to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau reeks of blackmail and disregard for patient confidentiality.
In the April 28, 1973 letter to Trudeau, Morgentaler wrote that he had done abortions on members of Parliament and friends and family of theirs and Trudeau’s.
"Do I have to convince you really of the hypocrisy of the present laws?" he asked. "Do you know that in my clinic, I have helped wives, daughters, mistresses and relatives of members of the Federal and Provincial Cabinet, including some relatives of yours?"
"Do you know that Dr. Leon Trudeau, a cousin of yours, has been referring cases to me? Do you know that Quebec ministers who officially came out against abortion, have had relatives treated in my clinic and helped there?" Morgentaler continued.
"Do you know that a relative of (Quebec health minister) Claude Castonguay (who refused to recognize my clinic as requested by me) has had an abortion in my clinic just the day before I was raided?" he concluded.
Jim Hughes, the president of the pro-life group, commented on the letter in a press release LifeNews.com obtained.
"I remember Morgentaler used to taunt us during pickets that he had aborted the mistresses of Ontario cabinet ministers and judges so there was no way we were going to get anywhere with our opposition," he recalled.
"So maybe now the public has a better understanding of what we’ve been up against the last forty years," he said.
Mary Ellen Douglas, another CLC representative, told LifeNews.com the letter makes it clear that Morgentaler has no regard for patient confidentiality.
""How can Morgentaler call himself someone who works for women’s rights when he was not even courteous enough to preserve the right to confidentiality of the patients he saw," she explained. "He used them as political tools to further his agenda."
