REALity Volume XXXIV Issue No. 6 June 2015
The federal and provincial governments and the media have placed a cone of silence over the abortion issue. They don’t want this bitter and divisive issue to be resurrected. Better it remain undisturbed, buried in silence with a woman continuing to decide privately whether she wants her pregnancy to continue, or not, at taxpayer’s expense, for whatever reason – inconvenience, life-style choice, morning sickness, job or educational opportunities, lack of support, etc. Any reason is of little matter. No fuss, no bother, no debate on the ethical, moral, economic, or social implications of abortion. Just let the issue remain hidden, buried as only one of life’s minor questions.
From time to time, however, this artificial calm is broken, revealing a boiling cauldron of dissent, which will not and cannot be silenced. These eruptions will continue until they are too insistent and demanding to be silenced any longer.
One such eruption occurred on April 20, 2015, when the pro-life organization, the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) launched legal proceedings against the Ontario government for refusing to release information related to abortion.
ARPA was joined in this legal action by an Ottawa based pro-life blogger, Patricia Maloney, who had uncovered the sordid story behind Ontario’s cover-up of abortion information.
In 2011, Ms. Maloney had requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, information from the Ontario Ministry of Health on abortion. She learned, at that time, that 44,000 abortions were performed in Ontario in 2010. That is about 45% more than reported by the Canadian Institute of Health Information. In 2012, Ms. Maloney then requested for further information on abortion. She was shocked to learn, however, that the government had secretly amended the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) to prohibit release of any such information on abortion. There is no recorded debate on this amendment in Hansard, nor any committee hearings. It was slipped into the law with no explanation. This is appalling. Why the secrecy? What’s going on?
Initially, requests by Ms. Maloney and other pro-life individuals across Canada to provincial governments, for information on abortion, received the same response – namely, that the information cannot be disclosed as the names of patients are private information. Who had asked for names? No one. It was a ludicrous response.
What was requested was information on the number of abortions performed, demographic statistics of women who had abortions: their age, how many times they have abortions and the gestational age of the unborn child, as well as complications resulting from this procedure. Since the public is paying for these so called medical procedures, why are citizens forbidden to have this basic information? The short answer is that provincial governments don’t want the public to know about the callous and expensive destruction of our future generations. Instead, governments cover it all up because they don’t want the public to interfere in this politically correct policy, which costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year. If we don’t know what’s going on, how can we object?
There is a good possibility that this legal action in Ontario may take a couple of years, with the governments putting up resistance at every turn – but it has to be done.
100,000 Pro-Life Flags
At the same time the legal action was announced at a press conference at Ontario’s legislature, Queen’s Park, over 150 volunteers from the pro-life group “We Need A Law.ca” joined ARPA Canada to set up 100,000 blue and pink flags on the lawn surrounding Queen’s Park. This immense display of flags represented the approximately 100,000 human lives destroyed by abortion every year in Canada.
According to ARPA “every flag is a testament to a little boy or girl who was denied a welcome into our nation”. These dead pre-born human beings are an equivalent to about 5,000 classrooms across Canada, every single year. No wonder the government wants to keep this awful statistic secret from the public.
A similar demonstration of blue and pink flags was planted on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in October, 2014. They formed a colourful carpet on the grass, 400 meters long in front of the Parliament Buildings.
These demonstrations are hard to ignore. Expect other provincial capitals to have similar demonstrations, as Ontario is not alone in undemocratically denying information to the public on abortion. For example, British Columbia has a similar censorship provision.
These arrogant governments believe they know what is best for the public. Keeping the public in the dark on the abortion issue is their policy. This has to stop.