GOVERNMENTS
HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT ABORTIONS ARE “MEDICALLY NECESSARY”
LETTER
FROM HEALTH CANADA CONTRADICTS MINISTER McLELLAN
Ottawa
– Today
in the House of Commons, Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville challenged
Health Minister Anne McLellan, to produce evidence to justify her claims that
all abortions are “medically necessary”.
Breitkreuz released a letter from the Minister’s own department that
contradicts the Minister’s public statements.
Here’s
the record from today’s Hansard:
Mr.
Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton—Melville, Canadian Alliance): On
October 3rd the Health Minister said in The Saint John Telegraph Journal [quote]
“Our view is that obviously abortion is a medically necessary service…”
But I have a letter from her department that says they don’t have any
evidence showing that abortions are “medically necessary”.
Maybe the Minister would care to share the evidence she obviously now has
with the members of this House? I
also have letters from the federal government and ten provincial and territorial
ministers of health stating that they have NOT completed a risk/benefit analysis
on abortion. How can the Minister
claim that ALL abortions are “medically necessary” and how can she justify
funding ALL abortions with public money if, these analyses have not been done?
For many years we have asked this government for their list of medically
necessary services. Is abortion the only service that is on the government’s
list?
Breitkreuz
also released another three-page document that summarizes the responses of
letters he has received from Health Canada and nine provinces and one territory
on the questions of “medically necessary” abortions and risk/benefit
studies. “The federal government
doesn’t have any evidence that abortions are “medically necessary” and
neither do the provinces. Nor has
any government completed any studies to determine or confirm their contention
that benefits of an abortion outweighs the risks,” reported Breitkreuz.
“In
order for a medical procedure to be publicly funded under the Canada Health
Act it must be medically necessary and therapeutic.
How can all these governments continue to use public money to fund
abortions when they don’t know if abortions are doing more damage than
good?” asked Breitkreuz. This is
why I have introduced my Private Member’s Motion M-83 calling on the Standing
Committee on Health to fully examine, study and report to Parliament on: (a)
whether or not abortions are medically necessary for the purpose of maintaining
health, preventing disease or diagnosing or treating an injury, illness or
disability in accordance with the Canada Health Act; and (b) the health
risks for women undergoing abortions compared to women carrying their babies to
full term.
An
extensive Leger Marketing poll made public just this week shows that only 30% of
Canadians are satisfied with the current definition of a human being in the Criminal
Code that only protects human life from the point of birth.
The survey also determined that only 23% of Canadians believe that an
abortion should “always” be paid for by the health-funded tax system.
“It’s been more than ten years since this life and death issue has
been voted on in Parliament. In this period of time, more than a million babies have been
aborted while the government ignored their responsibility and the majority of
parliamentarians have looked the other way.
My 9-year battle to protect all human life will not stop until the
current definition of a human being has been amended,” promised Breitkreuz.
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