Lifesite News

Canadian Alliance MP Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville) has been told by Health Canada that the department has no statistics on whether abortions are medically necessary or medically risky.

On April 23, Breitkreuz submitted an Access to Information request asking for “Copies of documents, reports and correspondence in the department with respect to the total death risk by women having an elective abortion compared to women carrying their baby to term.”

Health Canada’s reply, dated May 9, says the department could find “no records relevant to your request.”

Breitkreuz got an identical response to his August 1, 2000 request for documents, reports and correspondence “that provide evidence that abortions are medically necessary.” The department’s March 8, 2001 reply claimed, “after a search of all likely record holdings,” officials could find “no records relevant to your request.”

Meanwhile “independent medical researcher” Brent Rooney of Vancouver has written the Canadian Institute for Health Information requesting evidence of the alleged health benefits of “therapeutic” abortion.

He sent them a 1997 article from the Danish journal Acta Obstetrica et Gynecologica Scandinavica which he says shows a higher mortality risk from all causes for women who have had abortions as compared to women who gave birth. Rooney copied the letter to several health ministers. Breitkreuz is attempting to verify Rooney’s assertions.

Breitkreuz has also placed the following written question to the government on the Order Paper: “Q-151 – April 24, 2002 – Mr. Breitkreuz (Yorkton-Melville) – Does the government have any statistics or research about the death rate after a pregnancy, and if so, what is, in the 12 months after the end of a pregnancy, the total death rate by women having an elective abortion compared to women carrying their baby to term?”