By Gudrun Schultz
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 14, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The National Abortion Federation has beefed up its assault on Canada’s pro-life movement with a new demand that all doctors in the country be forced to refer for abortions, whether or not they object morally or on religious grounds.
The Washington D.C.—based NAF issued the draconian demand May nineth to the Canadian Medical Association. Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the NAF, said physicians must put their patients’ interests ahead of “their own religious and moral convictions.”
Saporta acknowledged that despite the lack of any legal restrictions on abortion access in Canada, doctors’ reluctance to perform abortions is making it increasingly difficult for women to find someone who will do the procedure.
“We’re hearing from women across Canada and from our providers that this is a problem,” Saporta said. “It has reached a critical mass that many women are upset that they haven’t been able to get referrals from their physicians.”
Under the CMA’s conscientious objector policy, doctors are not required to perform abortions and do not have to refer women requesting an abortion to another provider.
CMA president Dr. Colin McMillan said the abortion policy has been reconfirmed every year since it was first passed in 1988, most recently in February.
“The CMA’s policy on induced abortion does not violate our Code of Ethics…Nor does it treat women unfairly or impede their access to critical health care,” he stated in a written response to NAF’s demand.
Dr. Willard Johnston, president of the Canadian Physicians for Life, said conscience protection for health care workers is increasingly important in the face of new medical technologies.
“Now is not the time for us to be weakening the conscience protection for health care workers with the huge changes we are facing with technological capabilities,” Dr. Johnston told the National Post May 10. “Now is the time to be strengthening conscience protections so that people who find themselves uncomfortable with procedures should have their rights protected.”
Dr. Johnston said individual doctors could not be held responsible for the increasing lack of interest in providing abortion services apparent throughout the country.
“It is not within the control of the physician who doesn’t want to participate, how much longer the delay will be. That is entirely the responsibility of the system at large.”
Teb Byfield, writing for WorldNetDaily, pointed out how the debate served to highlight the sharply drawn divide in Canada over abortion, despite the efforts of abortion supporters to portray the issue as closed.
“There are apparently two Canadas – “New Canada,” ultra-liberal, boundlessly tolerant and solidly built on the hallucinations of the 1960s, and “Real Canada,” which shares very few of these idyllic views, but usually goes unrepresented in the media. Evidently, a rather large percentage of Canadian doctors belong to the latter. How foolish of the CMA Journal to allow this fact to become known.”
A report released by abortion activists last month warned that abortion services in Canada were only available at 15.9 percent of Canadian hospitals, a voluntary reduction from 17.8 percent at last report.
Read WorldNetDaily commentary by Canada’s Ted Byfield:
https://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55656