Procedures deemed ‘unspeakable butchery’ by feminist columnist
The news that provinces including Quebec, British Columbia and Ontario have been sending pregnant women to the U.S. for late-term abortions – at a cost of around $5,000 (US) each – has been met with incredulity in not just the pro-life community, but society at large as well.
Numerous, large-scale media outlets, including the CBC and Sun Media, reported that women have travelled to Colorado, Kansas and Washington for such abortions because no Canadian individual – including abortion king Henry Morgentaler – will commit them. Quebec now says it is hopeful that a newly trained person will “set up practice” and offer the “service” in the province next year.
Abortions are currently being committed in the city of Sherbrooke on preborn human beings up to five-and-a-half months’ gestation, acknowledged Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard. “The right to an abortion is well-recognized in Quebec and Canada,” claimed Cathy Rouleau, a spokesperson for Couillard. “We have an obligation to get a patient the help that she needs.”
At the same time, in a CBC Radio interview, Couillard acknowledged that late-term abortions are “extremely hard” for mothers and the individuals who commit them, “both psychologically and in other ways.”
Luc Gagnon, president of Campaign Quebec Vie, told The Interim he has recently participated in radio and television programs in which the audience was completely against late-term abortions and – to the surprise of the program hosts – abortion in general. In fact, abortion proponents were so embarrassed by the phenomenon of late-term abortion, they refused to debate Gagnon in media appearances. An abortionist and government bureaucrat would agree only to being interviewed in pre-recorded segments.
Even La Presse and Globe and Mail columnist Lysiane Gagnon, of known feminist orientation, in a Sept. 16 piece startlingly referred to a 24-week abortion as “an unspeakable butchery.” At the same time, she asserted that it should still be a woman’s choice.
Luc Gagnon said he made the point on air that at a time when the health system is in need of money, a lot of funding is being provided to export women to the U.S. for abortions. He also said the situation offers the pro-life movement an opportunity to bring the abortion issue forward into the public eye once again.
“The question can be discussed again in the public square. This would be a good first step, without making a compromise on the fact that human life begins at conception,” he said.
In an about-face on killing babies in the third trimester, Morgentaler said he has concerns about late-term abortions. “We don’t abort babies. We want to abort fetuses before they become babies,” he told one news outlet with a straight face. “Around 24 weeks, I have ethical problems doing that.” He went on to assert that his abortuaries counsel women to continue their pregnancies at such a late stage and put their babies up for adoption if they can’t be cared for.
About 30 mothers from Quebec, 15 from Ontario and “a handful every week” from British Columbia, who were more than five-and-a-half months pregnant, travelled to the U.S. for abortions last year. One of their destinations was George Tiller’s (“Tiller the Killer”) abortuary in Wichita, Ks., a site from which it is reported women are often sent to hospital by ambulance. Operation Rescue West spokesperson Troy Newman told the LifeSite News service that a woman was photographed being rushed to hospital from Tiller’s abortuary as recently as Sept. 2.
Gagnon is urging residents in Quebec to write to the minister of health and ask him to cease and desist from his program of supporting the training of a late-term abortionist, as well as sending women to the U.S. for late-term abortions at great cost.
Other Canadian religious and pro-life communities have also been swift to condemn the latest developments in the abortion wars.
