many other methods. Let us now look if we can, at consequences of such license to kill an individual too small to cry for
it’s own protection. Abortion by suction curettage is not just as simple as a pelvic examination performed in a doctor’s
office as Dr. Morgentaler and the television programe W5 who were doing a great disservice to young women in
Canada would have us believe. In Canada as reported in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (the Statistics from
Statistics Canada), the complication rate and this being for immediate complications of early abortion is 4.5%.
According to the Wyn report with statistics from 12 counties, women who have a previous induced abortion have their
ability to bear children in the future permanently impaired. There is a 5-10% increase in infertility. The chances of these
women having a pregnancy in the tube increases up to 4 times. Premature delivery increases up to 50% and when one
realizes that prematurity is the commonest cause for infants being mentally or physically defective, having cerebral palsy
or other difficulties, then one realizes that those doctors doing abortions in great numbers south of the border or across
the water, even in Canada may not be doing the women and her family a service. They will tell you that abortion has
almost no complications. What most of them will not tell you, is that once the abortion is done they may refuse to see
the women again and that she must take her post-abortal problems elsewhere. Those seeking repeal of the present
abortion law will rapidly point out that nevertheless, it is safer to have a legal abortion than illegal abortions, safer for the
women that is. This I don not dispute, but here is the real rub. Liberalized abortion laws do not eliminate illegal, back
street abortions and in some cases, the overall number of illegal abortions actually rise, usually stays stagnant, and rarely
falls. There are still people who would rather try it themselves or go somewhere they will be completely anonymous.
Another factor enters the total number of people seeking abortion, legal or illegal rises. The overall pregnancy rate
rockets and people become careless with contraception and a women can have 3 or 4 abortions during the time of one
full term pregnancy. Are doctors really being kind to the girl to allow her to choose life or death for her unborn child? In
aborting a 16 year old this year with so-called informed consent, we may be preventing her from having even 1 or 2
children 10 years later when happily married. No, repealing the abortion law does not make it possible for every
women to safely eliminate, what is for her, an unwanted pregnancy. Would limiting abortions to accredited hospitals
make it safer? Yes, safer for the women, not for the fetus and it would jeopardize the continued well being of all of the
members of the community with the gross misuse of the medical manpower, hospital facilities and money. With almost
31,739 abortions performed in Ontario in 1989, the cost to OHIP is about 9 million dollars. Yet to do as has been
done in the U.S.A and the United Kingdom – namely to make legal, abortions is to turn so-called ‘backstreet butchers’
into legal operators. Patients now go into the office through the front door instead of the rear. I have heard it said that is
abortions became available on request, many less children would be born and we could use the pleasant delivery suites
and postnatal beds for abortions. As I have pointed out, however, before today, liberalization of abortion does not
reduce the birth rate. There would be little increase in available facilities or indeed doctor’s time. By the very nature of
the operation and because the longer pregnancy lasts, the more difficult it is, patients for abortions are admitted as
urgent cases or emergencies so that all other members of the community must wait longer for their hospital bed or the
surgery they need. Who will pay for there abortions? With medicare, of course, it is you and I. I know one full tern pregnancy costs most
than an abortion, but not much more. And it does not cost more than 3 abortions and that is what happens when the climate or choice for
life or death of the unborn child changes. Let us use this money for constructive purposes, not destructive. It has been suggested that
abortions on request would enable the poor to secure abortion as easily as the rich but regrettably, it has been shown that
abortion-minded physicians in great demand will respond to the age-old commercial rules, as has already happened in the States and in
Britain. Abortion on demand a women’s right to choose not to continue an unplanned pregnancy would prevent there being unwanted
children in this country, so we are told. This is the final and desperate emotional plea of people anxious, at whatever price, to escape the
responsibility for their actions. Nobody here or in Canada, wants there to be unwanted children in this city, and in this country, and also in
this world. There is nothing more pitiable or heat rending that an unwanted fetus becoming an unwanted babe or an unwanted babe
becoming an unwanted child, or an unwanted child becoming an embittered adult. But few would think it right to kill or have killed an
unwanted baby to prevent it from becoming an unwanted child. Then how can they think it right to kill an unwanted fetus, even more
defenceless than a newborn babe just because it may grow into an unwanted child. Once a women has conceived, she already is a
parent, be it willing or otherwise. The only way she ceases it be a parents is by a natural death or an act of killing. Killing in any form is
not the solution to so-called unwanted human beings at any age. Hitler thought this was right. Canadians surely do not. It is a permissive
and frightened society that does not develop the expertise to control population, civil disorder, crime, poverty, even its own sexuality but
yet would mount an uncontrolled, repeat uncontrolled, destructive attack on the defenceless, very beginnings of life. Let us marshall all our
resources financial, educational, those of social agencies, but above all, of human concern and passion for our fellow humans. Let us by all
means, make available to all, knowledge of conception and methods of contraception. Let us offer ourselves as loving humans to those
already in this country who are unwanted by their natural parents. And incidentally, I am sure I don not need acquaint you with some of
the facts about so-called unwanted children. The Children’s Aid Societies in Toronto and in fact in every major city across our country
have many more potential parents anxious and willing to adopt infants and young children than they have such children available for
adoption. Let us marshall our technology and humanity in the service of the unfortunate. And in conclusion, I would like to read to you a
letter which a member of Birthright received. Dear Birthright: I heard about your work in Birthright and think you can help us. We’re in
our late 20’s and have been married 7 years. After 3 years of waiting, we became the happy adoptive parents of a precious baby girl last
fall. This is how you can help us. Please tell every unwed mother who places her baby for adoption how much we love her. We think
each of those girls are the most generous, charitable, kind devoted and loving mothers on this earth. We know she must have carried her
child out of love or in this day and age should have found some way to have an abortion. We can never thank her enough for the 9
months of time and energy she spent for us. Maybe if she knows that we think she’s the most loving person in this world we will never know, it will help us both. As
Jenny grows older, we are telling her she has two sets of parents. We’ll tell her how she came to be our child this way. Her first mommy didn’t have a home or a
daddy to help love and care for her. She loved her so much that she just couldn’t let her daughter grow up without love of two parents and all the things that make a
happy home. We’ll tell Jenny that her 1st mommy thinks of her often and wonders how she is. She will always love her baby. Maybe our thoughts will someday
reach Jenny’s 1st mommy. What she did was an act of faith in mankind, hope for her daughter’s future and love toward us. We think the strength of her love enabled
her to place her precious baby with us. We have faith that as Jenny grows up learning she was placed out of love and not abandoned by her 1st mommy, both Jenny
and she will be at peace. Thank you.