Paul Tuns:

According to data obtained from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, researcher Patricia Maloney, who blogs at Run with Life, has found that more than 1500 babies born-alive after a failed abortion have been left to die over the past 23 years and Campaign Life Coalition has renewed calls for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate those deaths as homicides.

Maloney revealed that the number of Canadian babies born alive after a failed late-term abortion has increased. Maloney has been collecting data from the government-run databases since 2012, and she noted that there were 149 cases of infants born-alive after a botched abortion and left to die in 2021-2022, up from 127 the previous year, an increase of 22 cases. All the babies born-alive were aborted at a gestational age of 20 weeks or later, including many at 24 weeks or later, the age at which a child is considered viable outside the womb.

The data from regulated medical facilities show that, in the words of CLC director of communications Pete Baklinski, the babies were “left to die, cold, alone, and unloved.”

Baklinski said the “details of exactly what happened to these babies after they were born following a failed abortion and how they died remain unknown.” He said the “only evidence of their short existence in this world is known through health-system codes such as ‘P96.4’ and the words ‘Termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborns.’” It is precisely because the details are unknown that the RCMP should look into the deaths of these newborn babies. “Did these babies enter the world after surviving abortion only to be abandoned without proper medical care?” Baklinski asks.

CLC notes that “Canadian law states that a ‘child becomes a human being…when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother,”’ and therefore “babies born alive after a failed abortion are ‘human beings’ according to section 223(1) of the Criminal Code and are therefore owed certain legal rights, including the ‘right to life, liberty, and security of the person’ as guaranteed by the Charter of rights and freedoms.”

CLC also notes that “the Criminal Code continues that a ‘person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being’.” So, CLC states, “If these children who are born alive after a failed abortion are in any way being intentionally hastened to their deaths by the attending abortionist, it could be a clear case of first-degree murder.”

Baklinski stated, “Canadians deserve answers regarding what is happening to these babies born alive after a failed abortion. At the heart of this is not the issue of abortion, but the issue of human rights.”

Baklinski wrote in a blog post for CLC: “These babies born alive after abortion are Canadian citizens with the same rights and protections as every other citizen. They deserve to be protected. Leaving newly born babies simply to die is infanticide. Babies who are born alive must be given every care for their comfort if they are unable to survive and every medical intervention if they have a chance at surviving.”

Campaign Life Coalition launched a petition calling on the RCMP to investigate the deaths, noting: “The police must not let our country’s pro-abortion ideology impede such a necessary investigation. Justice demands that a thorough and impartial investigation be conducted to address what is happening to these smallest and most vulnerable of Canadians among us.”

The petition states: “We urge the RCMP to investigate these suspicious deaths and uncover the truth. The authority to conduct this investigation lies with the RCMP, and it is crucial that this matter be addressed promptly. Canadians deserve answers regarding what is happening to these vulnerable lives, and justice demands that those responsible of any crimes be held accountable for their actions.”

The call to investigate these newborn deaths comes a decade after three Conservative MPs – Leon Benoit, Wladyslaw Lizon, and Maurice Vellacott, all since retired – urged the RCMP to investigate the deaths of infants born-alive after failed abortions, when Maloney found 690 such cases revealed by Statistics Canada from 2000 through 2011. In their open letter to the RCMP, the three MPs said, “This increase” of 199 cases in 2010 and 2011 alone, “indicates the killing of Canadian children may continue to grow if these apparent crimes are not investigated and the perpetrators prosecuted.”

At the time, then-RCMP commissioner Rob Paulson responded that the “RCMP will not initiate a national criminal investigation,” claiming a lack of “relevant information or substantive facts about a specific crime.” The Abortion Survivors’ Network, a U.S.-based organization, estimates that there are more than 85,000 babies who have survived abortions in the U.S. since 1973. They support born-alive legislation to ensure babies that survive failed abortions are given every chance at survival.