Campaign Life Coalition official shave reiterated the need for social policies which emphasize childbirth and strengthen the family unit as a prelude to safeguarding the rights of the unborn in Canada.
The call comes in light of a study published in the U.S. Family Planning Perspectives showing a rising abortion rate in Canada. The study, using data collected by Statistics Canada, indicates that over the next generations, up to 34 per cent of Canadian women will have had an abortion at some point in their lives.
Although there is some debate as to the accuracy and completeness of Canadian abortion statistics, Campaign Life believes the latest study reveals the prevalence of abortion in the lives of Canadian women.
“There is nothing really new about the figures outlined in the study,” said Lyn Smith, a researcher with Action Life in Ottawa. “But it doesn’t change the fact that there is a shocking number of abortions in this country and that they are still regarded as a medically necessary intervention.”
CLC also wondered how a U.S. based organization was able to obtain abortion figures from StatsCan, when these figures are unavailable to Canadian researchers.
Family Planning Perspectives is published by the Guttmacher Institute of New York, the research arm of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The latest study shows an increasing rate of abortions in Canadian women between 1975 and 1993. It also revealed an increase in the rate of repeat and first-time abortions for the same time period.
