TORONTO, Ontario, March 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Abortions in Canada have continued unimpeded during the coronavirus outbreak, despite provincial health authorities across the nation restricting non-essential surgeries due to the virus’ strain on the health care system.
In a March 26 report, CTV News contacted every Canadian province and territory to inquire if plans have been implemented to restrict abortion access in light of the coronavirus epidemic.
According to the CTV report, all ten Canadian provinces and three territories responded that despite placing restrictions on elective surgeries, abortions will be carried out regardless.
Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) launched a petition demanding that abortion facilities be shut down.
The petition states: “Please do not be deceived by what some political activists are telling you. Despite their claims, abortion is not an essential service. Pregnancy is not a ‘disease’ that needs to be ‘cured’. Abortion is an elective ‘choice’ for ‘pro-choice’ women who decide they no longer wish to be pregnant. It is not medically necessary, nor is it a prescribed treatment for any ailment.”
“Please make the unpopular but necessary decision to shut down all elective abortions and all private abortion facilities immediately.”
In Canada, each province and territory have jurisdiction over health care services. According to CLC, approximately 100,000 abortions are executed every year in Canada.
LifeSiteNews reached out to government health authorities in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta (the most populous provinces in Canada) to ask why abortions have not being shut down due to the coronavirus. As of press time, there has been no response from any of the provinces contacted.
In speaking to LifeSiteNews about the CTV report, Josie Luetke, youth coordinator and researcher for CLC said that if abortion is a “choice,” then this would indeed make it an “elective procedure, not a non-elective one.”
Luetke said that it’s “insane” that abortions are still taking place, considering important surgeries are being postponed.
She added that it makes no sense that abortions are continuing to be allowed when non-essential surgeries are being postponed.
“When critical surgeries to remove cancer are being canceled amidst this pandemic, it is actually insane that Canada is insisting that access to abortion remain unfettered,” said Luetke.
“It is despicable that abortion facilities are wasting desperately-needed medical equipment like masks in continuing their business of killing innocent children, while genuine health care providers are running themselves ragged trying to save lives.”
Luetke added that abortion is not and “has never been” a necessary service.
CLC is urging all pro-lifer Canadians to sign the petition.
Recently, prominent U.S. organizations representing 30,000 pro-life doctors concluded that elective abortions are not “essential” or “urgent” at a time when resources are needed to combat the coronavirus. Some U.S. states such as Texas and Ohio have placed restrictions on abortion access because of the coronavirus.
A poll conducted earlier in the year showed that the majority of Canadians want to ban late-term and sex-selective abortions.
Abortion was legalized in Canada in 1969 when then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin Trudeau’s father) passed a heavily criticized Omnibus Bill which amended the criminal code to allow abortions to be done in hospitals under permissive circumstances.
This law remained in effect until the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the 1969 law as unconstitutional in the 1988 Morgentaler decision. The law was removed on a technicality. The court ruled that it violated a woman’s Charter right to security of the person since the law could not be applied equally across the country.
The court encouraged the Canadian Parliament to come up with replacement abortion legislation. This effort failed when then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s draft law was dismissed in a Senate tie vote. The result of this is that Canada has no abortion law at all, and thus abortion is permitted up through all nine months of pregnancy.