What everyone in Alberta knows about abortion was finally made public by the Alberta Medical Association (AMA).
Dr. Richard Kennedy, president of the AMA and Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai, the associate president-elect, declared in November that the Alberta government should stop covering abortions under the provincial medical plan because abortions are not legitimate medical procedures. Abortions, they stated, have mainly become a taxpayer-subsidized form of belated contraception.
According to Dr. Collins-Nakai “they (abortions) are being done because of lack of birth control or irresponsibility concerning birth control.”
It is significant that Dr. Collins-Nakai pointed out in her statement that 13 to 14 per cent of abortions approved were repeats. She stated “Doctors have been doing what amounts to abortion on demand. The (hospital) Therapeutic Abortion Committees have simply been rubber-stamping abortion cases.”
Abortion statistics of 1985 for all of Canada show that since 1975, the number of women having second, third, fourth and more, abortions has risen from 8.6 per cent of all women having abortions in 1975 to 20.4 per cent in 1985. Thus in 1985, more than one in every five women having an induced abortion in a hospital had already had at least one previous abortion.
Unfortunately, however, the Alberta Medical Association spokesman concluded that the answer to the “problem” would be to establish a special clinic for non-medical or “elective” abortions at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.
