More than 2,000 Canadian pro-life advocates gathered this past weekend for a rally calling on the government of Ontario to end provincial funding for abortions.
With about $30 million in taxpayer funds spent on 30,000 abortions annually in the province, Alissa Golob, the youth co-ordinator for Campaign Life Coalition and organizer of the Defund Abortion Rally, said enough is enough.
“This is outrageous that we are forced to fund an elective, medically unnecessary procedure,” she said, according to the Catholic register.
“Campaign Life Coalition Youth holds the position that government-funded abortions are a blatant abuse of tax dollars, are severely unjust, and that these funds can and MUST be directed away from the killing of our preborn children,” the organization said. “This is an issue that should be held close to the hearts of young people in particular. We did not have a choice to stand-up against the Morgentaler decision, but we have a choice now. Let’s use it. We are the survivors and it’s our job to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.”
The prolife group Canadian Physicians for Life also supported the rally and release a statement saying, “Abortion is not an essential medical service. It is designated “medically necessary” for purely social and political, not medical, reasons. Pregnancy is not an “injury, illness or disease.” There is no proof that abortion improves health. In fact it disrupts a normal physiological process, poses a risk to the mother, and ends the life of her developing child. There is no “medical necessity” where no medical benefit or health risk exists.”
“To justify funding of a service, the medical necessity and therapeutic value of that service should be undisputed,” CPL added. “If the federal government had any confidence that a majority of Canadians wish to see abortion funded by the taxpayer, it could easily prove so in a referendum. Without such a democratic affirmation of national support for free abortions, the government should at least respect the diversity of provincial government approaches to abortion funding.”
The Canadian Institute for Health Information indicates anywhere from 32,000 to 51,000 abortions are done in Ontario annually but, in recent years, Statistics Canada deemed abortion data “unreliable” because too few clinics and hospitals reported their numbers to the government.
More recently, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) took over responsibility for abortion statistics, Campaign Life Coalition indicates. Their report for 2007 and 2008, released last December, is riddled with categories labeled “unknown” because so few hospitals and clinics submit complete data.
Jim Hughes, president of Campaign Life Coalition, said the money would be better spent elsewhere.
“This has been going on for over 40 years,” he said. “Imagine how many hospitals could have been built around Ontario, how many doctors and nurses could have been hired.”
