(LifeSiteNews) – On January 23, 2013, three Canadian Members of Parliament sent a letter to Royal Canadian Mounted Police commissioner Bob Paulson, asking for a criminal investigation into the deaths of 491 babies who were born alive after abortion attempts between 2000 and 2009 – but left to die by the attending medical staff.
In late 2012, pro-life blogger Pat Maloney had revealed these deaths using data from Stats Canada on her Run with Life blog, with additional information that according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), an additional 199 babies met the same fate between 2010 and 2011.
The “born-alive abortions” made headline news at the time, and Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper cemented his position as defender of the abortion industry’s worst abuses by responding to the news by insisting that abortion was legal and that he did not intend to reopen the debate.
Of course, these children died after Canadian law afforded them protection, but the leaders of all major parties seemed content to consider these children collateral damage. The story lasted several news cycles and, when all relevant authorities refused to do anything, petered out.
READ: Pro-abortion activist indicted for attempted murder of Justice Kavanaugh
But born-alive abortions still happen in Canada, and year by year, Pat Maloney has been researching the stats, requesting information from government bodies, and publishing them on her blog.
With the release of her most recent report, I interviewed her on her findings.
When did you start researching the trend of live-birth and late-term abortions in Canada?
It was around 2012 I think, when I learned from a doctor that born-alive abortions were happening. She had been looking at the Statistics Canada vital statistics database on deaths, and came across a code that identified these live born abortions: code P96.4, defined as termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborns.
These were late-term abortions, 20 weeks or greater gestation, where the child is born alive. Statistics Canada was reporting these deaths, albeit in a cryptic way if you didn’t know what you were looking for.
When did you first discover they were happening?
I started looking at this data myself and realized this was pretty important information. Here was solid evidence that children who were being aborted were actually being born-alive and just left to die.
I knew CIHI was publishing Canada’s abortion statistics, once they took that over from Statistics Canada some years ago. So I contacted CIHI to see if they could give me numbers on these abortions. To my surprise, they did give me data on these abortions. As far as I know, CIHI didn’t, and still doesn’t publish those numbers anywhere. So I’ve been asking for, and getting those numbers from CIHI, every year since then.
One very confusing piece of the puzzle is that the numbers coming from Statistics Canada don’t match CIHI’s numbers. I’ve asked both organizations to explain this discrepancy. CIHI couldn’t explain it.
Here is what Statistics Canada told me in a long winded explanation, you can see here if you like, but here is the summary:
In summary, a termination of a pregnancy of at least 20 weeks gestation can feasibly be included in both the Therapeutic Abortion Database and the Vital Statistics Stillbirth database. On the very rare occasion that the outcome of an induced abortion is a live birth (and possible subsequent death), the abortion event is highly unlikely to be included in the Therapeutic Abortion Database, but will appear in the Vital Statistics Birth and Death databases.
What has the response to your work been?
The first thing that happened was that MP Maurice Vellacott sent a letter to the RCMP asking them to investigate these 491 children being born after failed abortions and left to die. He wanted them investigated as homicides. But of course, in our pro-abortion Canada, the RCMP wouldn’t investigate. If it’s remotely related to abortion in any way (even though this was actually about possible homicides), it’s a “no, no I can’t hear you, la, la, la, next subject.”
But sane people were stunned at this breathtakingly horrific fact. Even a pro-abort who commented on my blog was incredulous and didn’t believe it: “This data says nothing about babies being born alive. That is nothing but conjecture on the part of the author, who I don’t think even understands the data. The burden of proof is on her.”
READ: ‘Jane’s Revenge’ declares ‘open season’ on pro-life groups, promises to escalate violence
Well, actually the data very clearly did tell us this nightmare was really happening. Right here in Canada. And the knowledge was coming from two very reputable sources.
How does your research confirm what is taking place?
Year after year I have been contacting CIHI, and also regularly looking at Statistics Canada’s Vital statistics data. And year after year the numbers continue to be there.
The tragic thing is, that we don’t know the reasons these late-term born-alive abortions are happening. Late-term babies killed in utero are supposed to be injected with Digoxin to kill the baby before it exits the mother. Either this isn’t happening, or if it is, it doesn’t kill the child. It’s a horror story either way.
What does your latest research show?
CIHI shows an increase over last year’s number at 112 born alive abortions, while Stats Canada reports declining numbers. (If you drill down to termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborn [P96.4], you can see these numbers for yourself. These are born alive abortions.)
- 2016=123
- 2017=114
- 2018=94
- 2019=82
- 2020=74
Stats Canada’s numbers are apparently decreasing, while CIHI’s are increasing. So we will probably never know the real numbers. But what we do know categorically, is that every year in Canada, late-term pregnancies are being aborted; the abortion does not kill the child, and these poor children are born alive and left to die.
We do not know why this is happening, and probably never will.
