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More and Better Late-Term Abortion Data Called for by Canadian Federal Agency

Current abortion statistics are "utterly unreliable and...not at all an accurate reflection of reality," says health researcher.

By Patrick B. Craine

June 23, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Canadian federal group is advising provinces and territories to compile detailed data on late-term abortions for the sake of learning more about congenital abnormalities in the country.

The group, the Canadian Congenital Anomalies Surveillance Network, is an organization of the Public Health Agency dedicated to improving data relating to and understanding of congenital anomalies.

The Network released a document in April 2008, updated on their website May 27, 2009, recommending to the provinces a set of data categories for surveying congenital anomalies.

Included among the data they recommend is the gestational age of aborted fetuses and their diagnosed abnormalities, if any.

Referring also to two other documents they put out, the Network says, "We hope that these resources will be useful to improve the quality of surveillance activities for congenital anomalies, which are a major contributor to infant mortality, childhood morbidity and adult disability in Canada."

Current statistics relating to abortions in Canada are "unreliable" and inaccurate, health researcher and National Secretary for the Respect for Life Education Movement, Isabelle Bégin, told LifeSiteNews.com. Bégin has studied the problem of Canada's abortion statistics for over a decade.

Statistics Canada releases statistics annually on the number of abortions in the country, but according to Bégin, "it's utterly unreliable and it's not at all an accurate reflection of reality, those statistics." The numbers reported by StatsCan, she said, are based on a voluntary therapeutic abortion survey that has been distributed every year for the past forty years. Currently, she said, "No hospital, no clinic, in Canada is under any obligation to answer in any way, shape, or form."

Further information is even scarcer. "At least half of the ... organizations that actually do provide statistics, in no way provide information about ... the gestational age, nor ... complications, of course," Bégin said. "I mean, it's very rare that you'll have an organization that will actually detail the immediate complications of the procedure. So, it is very, very, very, unreliable."

At the same time, numerous forms of abortion, such as early induction, would not even be calculated in the statistics as abortions because they are categorized differently, Bégin said. "There are many … different words that they use for abortion so that you cannot possibly know that that is what it was," she said. "[There are] all kinds of fancy words.  We have hundreds of categories for abortion."

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