One of the most important aspects of federal political activity being watched by pro lifers is Roy Romanow’s health care commission. Romanow has presented his interim report and announced the beginning of cross-country public consultations. This commission, launched to address the growing crisis in health care, is an excellent opportunity to raise the abortion funding issue. Provincial governments are de-listing previously funded medical services (e.g. hearing tests) because they can’t afford to pay for as many procedures as they funded in the past.
The Canada Health Act only requires the funding of medically necessary procedures, but it doesn’t define medical necessity, leaving that to the individual provinces, at least in theory. But the expectation is that whatever one province funds will also be paid for by the governments in other provinces. Whatever rhetoric and loopholes exist in this ridiculous legislative quagmire, however, the bottom line is that every time pro-lifers address the issue of defunding with provincial politicians, they always seem to have an excuse to ignore us. Even if they’ve hardened their hearts sufficiently to ignore the fact that the abortion they fund is murder, how can they continue to fund it when it means taking dollars from other procedures and treatments designed to heal people who are sick?
Perhaps it’s time to launch an advertising campaign letting people know that the reason – or one of the reasons anyway – that they are still waiting for that heart bypass surgery or that hip replacement is because the government can’t fund more surgeons and medical treatment in that field because they have to make sure they channel enough money into the baby-killing department of the hospital or medical system.
The crisis in healthcare, with waiting lists growing all the time, is the result (in part) of too few dollars chasing too many health care needs. It is, therefore, elementary that if money was not being channeled to something like killing babies, it would be available for other procedures. That is precisely why governments are de-listing other procedures.
Some people question how much impact de-listing or defunding of abortion would really have. There isn’t a great deal of data on the issue, in part because so few governments that have started paying for abortion have ever terminated such funding. A recent report out of North Carolina, however, was reported in LifeSite Daily News in January. Apparently the abortion rate has dropped by 23 per cent over the past 20 years. Some people are claiming that part of the drop can be attributed to a cut in taxpayer funding in 1995 from $1.2 million to $50,000.
The defunding message is also important to supplement other activity because it really shows how unquestionably foolish abortion advocates are. After all, abortion is not medically necessary, and I dare say it would be impossible to convince anybody with an IQ higher than negative 72 that it is a medically necessary procedure in more than 0.0000000001 per cent of all cases. Hence, to argue that the government, or taxpayers, should cover the cost for people who want to kill their babies is the height of absurdity. The Canada Health Act doesn’t say that governments should pay for all legal procedures and treatments, it says that the government should pay for all medically necessary procedures. Hence there is no legal obligation to pay for abortion just because it is legal.
Moreover, in all the provinces where people have been polled about whether or not they think taxpayers should cover the cost of abortions, a statistically significant majority have said no. Hence, one can make a good case that those who advocate the status quo, and refuse to revisit the question, are manifestly anti-democratic.
