BUILDING A CULTURE OF LIFE

By Mary Deutscher

The annual March for Life took place in Ottawa at the beginning of May. An estimated 10,000 people were in attendance, bringing the pro-life message to Parliament Hill. This rally was to raise awareness of the fact that Canada is one of only a handful of countries with no restrictions on abortion, pointing out that we have erroneously bought into the idea that abortion can be safe and consequence-free.

However, instead of focusing on the many concrete ways in which we can help women who want to have their children, many Canadian newspapers and media outlets used this opportunity to continue bemoaning the current government’s lack of funding for Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is seen as the champion of women’s rights, bringing abortions to women everywhere.

Now, this certainly isn’t the view of Planned Parenthood that I have received during my many years of being a Catholic, so I decided to investigate this self-professed women’s rights advocate on the Internet to find out what the average person would be able to learn if they hadn’t been raised in a pro-life bubble.

My search revealed a number of websites, either praising or condemning Planned Parenthood, and left me confused. Each side made impressive claims, cited “the research” as being on their side and had some rather scathing remarks for their opposition. I think that if I had been reading about this debate for the first time, I wouldn’t have known which side to support and would have given the tie-breaker to Planned Parenthood. After all, they have had government funding for many years, so surely the work of the Rosa Acuna project (a series of undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood workers who break state laws in the US) must be sensationalist.

Unfortunately, I believe that many people would end their investigation here. They would not go on to look at the Q & A portion of Planned Parenthood’s website, which claims that having an abortion is neither emotionally nor psychologically dangerous. Nor would they take the time to find the study by pro-choice researcher Dr. David M. Fergusson, which found an increase in mental health problems in women who had abortions and identified abortion as “an adverse life event” (Reaction to Abortion and Subsequent Mental Health, volume 195 of the British Journal of Psychiatry, pages 420 - 426, in case anyone wants to look it up).

Abortion may not constitute a severe trauma for every woman, but it seems worth at least mentioning the possibility of psychological distress to a woman who is trying to make an informed decision.

Another point of contention for the polarized sites is the Abortion Breast Cancer (ABC) link. Pro-life websites provide gales of information detailing the science behind this link and giving statistics to back it up. The Planned Parenthood website replies to a question concerning the ABC link, saying “No. No. No. No. No. There is no truth to this at all. It is one of those nasty myths invented by anti-choice organizations to frighten women away from having an abortion.”

What’s really frightening is just how often Planned Parenthood overstates its version of the truth and how little real information they provide to women who visit their website expecting to hear balanced information. I wonder how women who were told that they were carrying a blob of cells feel when they go in for their first ultrasound of a wanted pregnancy. Are they grateful for the lie that eased their conscience, or angry at being tricked into destroying their own child?

Given that the science on these topics appears to have arrived at a stalemate, all the average Internet user has to rely on is anecdotal evidence. Amidst all the right-to-life and right-to-abortion groups jockeying for public opinion are a few quiet websites, filled with message boards from women who have experienced abortion first-hand.

These women tell heart-breaking stories about how psychologically devastating abortion was for them and warn others that it is not consequence-free. The testimonies are often graphic and gut-wrenching, but the women on these sites courageously give them because they know that abortion is about more than competing ideologies.

In the end this is all the proof I need. These women tell more than any survey or doctor ever could. I believe that Planned Parenthood is motivated by its own ideology, not by undisputed scientific fact. I don’t expect the government to close it down, but such an organization does not deserve public funding because Planned Parenthood is not, nor has it ever been, the voice of the people.

Deutscher has recently returned to Saskatchewan from Ottawa after completing a master of arts in public ethics at St. Paul University and working with the Catholic Organization for Life and Family.