Wednesday July 14, 2010
Pro-Life Leader: Quebec’s Free IVF Plan Turns Children into Property
By Patrick B. Craine
QUEBEC, July 14, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Quebec’s Liberal government has announced a sweeping plan to publicly fund all in-vitro fertilization procedures in the province as of August 5th, offering up to three rounds per couple.
But the plan has been denounced by a Quebec pro-life leader who emphasizes that IVF kills unborn babies, and that the government is effectively making children out to be their parent’s “property.”
The initiative, announced Tuesday by Health Minister Yves Bolduc, makes Quebec the first jurisdiction in North America to publicly fund the procedure. “It’s good news for Quebec. We are the first, which means we are the best on this kind of program,” he said, according to CTV.
“It’s good for Quebec because it will increase the birth rate,” he said. “It’s good for health-care services because it will lower neonatal costs. And it’s good for parents.”
Bolduc says the plan will cost the province $25 million in the first year, and $63 million by 2013-2014; but critics warn that it could reach as high as $200 million per year.
Critics are also warning about the possibility that the plan will bring ‘procreation tourism’ to the province. Gaetan Barrette, head of the provincial federation of medical specialists, told the Toronto Star that the program will only require a health insurance card, which can be obtained after living in the province for three months.
The initiative goes further than a similar plan set to be instituted by Manitoba in October. That province will give a tax credit for up to 40% of the costs for IVF and other procedures, up to $8,000 per year.
Georges Buscemi, president of Campagne Quebec-Vie, the province’s branch of Campaign Life Coalition, criticized the plan for further inculcating the notion that there is a “right” to have a child. “By forcing all taxpayers to pay for fertility treatments, we are creating this de facto right to have a child,” he said, “and thus reinforcing the idea that a child is some-thing that can be given from one person to another – a piece of property.”
He explained that IVF is “actually an abortive process that kills human beings.” In order to find a viable embryo, the doctors must “create” many embryos, he said, the “excess” of which are eliminated or frozen.
During IVF the baby “results not from the total self-giving of two loving spouses but from a laboratory intervention in a clinical setting,” he added. “IVF reinforces the mentality that the child is your property, and that it is there to fulfill your needs.”
“A child isn’t just property, to be manufactured by the government at taxpayers’ expense and handed over to whomever feels they want a child,” he said. “A child isn’t there to fulfill your needs, you should be there for it.”
Buscemi praised Bolduc’s desire to improve the province’s birth rate, but insisted that the end “doesn’t justify the means.” “I think that he’s politically and philosophically unable to deal with the real reasons Quebec has a low birthrate: the breakup of the family, rampant nihilism, hedonism and egoism, lack of hope, lack of religion, lack of a moral compass,” he said.