I just read this tragic story that was reported by Jill Stanek:

Late last week came the news that Planned Parenthood of Illinois, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation have agreed to pay $2 million in a wrongful death settlement to the surviving young son of a woman who died after an abortion at a Chicago Planned Parenthood in 2012.

On July 20, 2012, 24-year-old Tonya Reaves, pictured right, died after a late-term abortion at Planned Parenthood’s Loop Health Center from uncontrolled bleeding, according to court documents.

When I read American stories like this, I always wonder about the abortion complication rates in Canada. I just assumed we didn’t have access to that data because accessing any kind of accurate abortion data in Canada is incredibly difficult. Next to impossible. Immensely frustrating.

So I found myself quite surprised yesterday when trolling Pat Maloney’s Run with Life blog. It turns out we do have some data on complication rates. This is probably old news for some of you, but I had no idea there was any data available.  According to Pat’s analysis:

We already know that–contrary to what abortion advocates like to tell us–abortion is already not safe. Many say that abortion complication rates are less than 1%. Yet Echo, an Ontario government “pro-choice” agency, informs us that complication rates for abortions are actually between 6.95% and7.70%.

The breakdown is available here:

On page 14, I refer the reader to: Table 7. Hospital Abortion Outcomes (2002/03 to 2008/09) for 98,483 abortions

The chart reveals short-term complication percentages (1), and they are not less than 1%.

In fact, 6.95% of the 96,859 women who had “same day” hospital abortions had complications (and were readmitted as inpatients: .91%; to same day surgery: .59% ; to the emergency department: 5.45%)

and

7.70% of 1,624 women who had “in patient” hospital abortions had complications (and were readmitted as inpatients: 1.91%; to same day surgery 1.05%; to the emergency department 4.74%).

To file away in your records.

The National Post ed board has a very funny set of videos up on the right hand column here. The writers read the comments people send them. This is very cathartic, considering I just got mail calling me a “she-man” (among other words I won’t repeat here).

SO funny.

This is what I hope for. That abortion rates would go down because women stop choosing abortion. Of course, here in Canada, thanks to our shoddy abortion statistics, we will never know whether the abortion rate is going up or down, for realsies.

In the states, the pro-choice Guttmacher has said recently that the abortion rate is going down. They say it is because of increased contraception use, among other reasons I disagree with, but here we have a piece that asks whether maybe it’s simply because women don’t want ’em.

I dream of a day when every woman has the reaction that I would have to someone suggesting I get an abortion, which is the banality of evil in action. (While what I am about to write remains purely theoretical for this instance my responses might include anything from lawsuits to swearing to an interrogation the likes of which the MD would never have seen before. An interrogation that would rise above the zeal of one Ezra Levant in the Human Rights Commission office. Ah yes, happy times, for the unsuspecting MD who makes that suggestion to me.)

Interestingly, none of these analysts is willing to consider that shifts in public opinion on abortion may be playing a role. May of 2009 was the first time that a majority of Americans identified themselves as “pro-life” in a Gallup survey. “Pro-life” has outpolled “pro-choice” six out of nine times since the spring of 2009. The relationship between public opinion toward abortion and abortion rates is not well-researched, but it’s a theory that merits more attention from analysts.

Media outlets have paid considerable attention to the abortion decline the occurred between 2008 and 2011, but have generally given less attention to the fact that the abortion rate has declined by 35 percent since the early 1990s. This suggests the debate has shifted toward pro-lifers: It’s true that contraceptive use has increased since the early 1990s, but that was increasing well before the abortion rate started to decline. More important, data from both Guttmacher and the National Center for Health Statistics shows that the unintended-pregnancy rate has remained fairly stable since the mid 1990s.

Since the abortion rate is falling while the unintended-pregnancy rate is stable, a higher percentage of women facing unintended pregnancies are choosing to carry their children to term. Data from the Department of Health and Human Services support this, pro-lifers should take heart in it.

Regardless of what mainstream-media analysts may say, declining abortion numbers provide evidence that pro-life efforts to change the hearts and minds of women facing unplanned pregnancies are bearing fruit — and, more important, saving lives.

Amazingly happy and tragic story at the same time.

He’s really, really small, but he looks perfect,” said Benson. “He’s just the most adorable little person I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’m so proud that he’s my son, and how hard he fought to be here and how hard my wife fought to give us this beautiful little boy.”

Robyn Benson was taken off life support the day her son was born.

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” (2 Peter 3:8)

This little guy got ten thousand years.

The couple, along with their four other young sons, documented the ten precious days they got to spend with baby Zion at their home in Lake Zurich, Illinois before he passed away on January 21.“

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyFjPHwF6To&feature=youtu.be&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvyFjPHwF6To%26feature%3Dyoutu.be&app=desktop]

“Marriage is better for everyone, not just French presidents.” A piece in the Globe and Mail.

Liked this. A lot. I cried at least in part because I think we all know why they need to make this kind of short film.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZdeZNawppk#t=90]

How times change. All the news that’s fit to print…

Name the major American newspaper that ran an expose on what goes on in abortion mills entitled “The Evil of the Age.” Give up? The answer is the New York Times. No, you haven’t missed anything: the expose ran in the paper’s August 23, 1871 edition. …

“Evil.” “Wholesale murder.” To see how much has changed in 143 years, just consider what the Times had to say about Kermit Gosnell, who last year was convicted of three counts of murder in connection with late-term abortions at his Philadelphia clinic.

While conceding that the “details of the crimes are horrific,” the Times insisted that “the Gosnell case does not really speak to the broader abortion debate.”

On the contrary, the Times regarded attempts to push back the “commonly defined date of viability from 24 weeks to 20 weeks or even earlier,” to be a “part of a larger push to prevent women from exercising their reproductive rights.”

I look forward to the Times’ next about-face.

Abortion is indeed backup birth control. Thanks, Ann Furedi, of British Pregnancy Advisory Services:

Ultimately women cannot control their fertility through contraception alone, and need accessible abortion services as a back-up for when their contraception lets them down,” said Ann Furedi, BPAS’ chief executive, in a press release.

Ann Furedi reminds me of a character from Animal Farm. (I’ll have to re-read and pick which one.)