Canada’s Minister of Justice, Ms. Kim Campbell, verified pro-lifers’ worst fears about the government’ new abortion law, Bill C-43.

On October 29, Ms. Campbell issued a new Department of Justice document, reassuring doctors that they have absolutely nothing to fear. The paper concerns “The philosophy and principles underlying Canada’s proposed new legislation on abortion.

General principle

The “proposed law…is brief and straight-forward says the document (p.1.). The law provides a “reasonable legal framework for abortion.” It eliminates the “administrative impediments found under the old law…and provides “a broad definition of the term ‘health’ to include physical, mental or psychological health.”

Some doctors are concerned “about possible criminal prosecutions,” the authors note. They should understand that

  • “The legislation is primarily directed at harmful activities such as abortions performed by non-medical persons…”
  • “The legislation is designed to protect a doctor from being convicted under the new law…[and] protect nurses and other medical staff acting under the doctor’s direction.”
  • Doctors may “take into consideration any matters which, in their opinion, are likely to adversely affect…the woman’s…health.  These factors could include rape, incest, genetic defects and socio-economic factors”. (Page 3)

(For those doctors who still do not grasp how sweeping and complete this permission to perform abortions is, the list is repeated on page 8, to which is added the sentence: “For example, social factors and personal aspirations could be considered in relation to a determination of health).

Protection

The new law, the document says, “would result in less administrative work for doctors.” There are no requirements for “outside opinion, committee approvals and certificates.” The “health interests of the patient rests with the doctor who directs or performs the abortion.”

Doctors “will be legally protected from ‘second guessing’ by any other person, including other doctors.” (P.4)

Private prosecutions under the Criminal Code will be virtually impossible. Such prosecutions need the approval of a Justice of the Peace and the provincial Attorneys-General have “the right to intervene and withdraw or stay the charges.” They can only occur “as a result of clear violations of the law”.

Civil suits such as malpractice actions may be brought only if it can be proven that there was negligence on the part of the doctor “as to jeopardize her health or safety.”

Doctors doing abortions “have no need to fear a greater susceptibility to civil suits than that which existed in the absence of any law,” the document insists.

“Quite the contrary; under the proposed legislation, doctors would have the added protection of the legal recognition that abortion is a lawful medical procedure (p6).

Injunctions against women seeking abortions such as those of the summer of 1989 can no longer be sought. In the Chantal Daigle decision, “the Supreme Court of Canada…could find no law…that a father’s interest…could support a right to veto a woman’s decisions…”

There is no law against picketing, the document states. “While this type of activity could continue… the new law will explicitly recognize the legality of abortion.

Doctors’ concerns

Pages 7 to 10 of the document are devoted to answering doctors’ concerns about prosecution, all of which are shown to be imaginary. To demonstrate just how impossible it will be to sue a doctor for performing an abortion (other than for negligence which applies to all medical procedures), the document returns to the fact that under Bill C-43, nobody can second-guess the abortionist. “It is the state of mind or belief of the doctor at the time he or she forms the opinion that it (the abortion) is relevant and not what the woman or others may say or do after the abortion has been performed…”

Confirmation

And “Doctors are protected by the legal recognition that abortions are performed according to their own medical opinion.”

The document thus confirms the position of the two national pro-life organizations that Bill C-43 is the worst possible bill, amounting to a new and complete re-legalization of abortion for any reason at all.

Campaign Life Coalition and Alliance for Life recognized that the principle of Bill C-43 is to do in 1990 what had been done in 1969, namely to legalize abortion. Only in 1990, Bill –43 does it in such a way that the Supreme Court of Canada will find no reasons to invalidate the law, as it did in January 1988 with the 1969 law. Bill C-43, therefore, has no restrictions of any kind on killing unborn babies other than forbidding unauthorized personnel to participate in such activities.

Bill C-43

This has been the analysis of Alliance for Life and Campaign Life Coalition, in Disagreement with others who felt Bill C-43 was better than no law at all.

It isn’t. By Christian standards, Bill C-43 is an intrinsically evil law. No politician can vote for this Bill other than in direct contradiction to the most fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith.