So, 'choice' makes it all right?
By Andrea Mrozek

In rhetorical battles over abortion, "choice" is the weapon preferred to cut down anyone who doesn't agree with a "pro-choice" agenda.

And so the federal government wants New Brunswick to pay for abortions performed in private health clinics. Carolyn Bennett, minister of state for public health, told newspapers that was of "huge importance" to her.

Even more important than avoiding a two-tier health-care system, we can suppose. The justification for two-tier abortion services is of course, to ensure "choice."

And now, choice-rhetoric is used to justify Henry Morgentaler's honorary doctorate Thursday from the University of Western Ontario. The doctorate was awarded "for his committed campaign in support of a woman's right to choose," says Paul Davenport, president of the university.

The UWO is celebrating the perceived social and political implications of abortion. It's as if Banting and Best received an award, not for the discovery of insulin, but for reducing diabetics' consumption of sugary foods.

But what Morgentaler's doctorate really amounts to is a grand celebration of silence and concealed information, an anti-choice agenda if there ever was one. In most public health issues, more information, not less, is preferred. Not so when it comes to abortion.

Have you heard about the French study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in April that showed induced abortions resulted in a 50 per cent increased chance of having a premature baby born before 33 weeks gestation, and 70 per cent higher odds of having a baby before 28 weeks gestation?

Babies born before 28 weeks have a higher incidence of cerebral palsy and generally are at higher risk of having disabilities. The results of the French study confirm an earlier study by an Australian, Judith Lumley. You probably heard about that one, too.

No? Perhaps, then, you've heard about the study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in March showing a link between repeat abortions and physical or sexual abuse of women. No luck yet? OK, what about the fact that having an abortion increases overall risk of breast cancer later in life by 30 per cent, as shown by 23 of 37 studies conducted worldwide and written about extensively in the 2003 book Women's Health After Abortion?

If you did hear any of this, you also heard pro-choicers working to discredit the data as the unscientific meanderings of desperate pro-lifers who harbour a secret anti-women's rights agenda.

Sure, you say, for every study there is a counterstudy and they can't all be publicized. But that doesn't mean the battling studies should be cast away as irrelevant.

In other health matters, we assume caveat emptor. Newspaper readers must wade through conflicting health reports on any number of subjects: obesity, pharmaceutical debates and other medical cause celebres of the hour.

With abortion, information is often not publicized. It's awfully hard to inform oneself on a topic that in the eyes of many in the media does not exist.

Abortion lies in the shadowlands of Canadian culture. It's too controversial, no matter how scientific and non-political. And then perhaps it is simply too private.

We don't discuss prostate cancer day in, day out either. But we do discuss the causes of prostate cancer without hesitation. A growing focus on women's health broadly defined to include a range from breast cancer to dealing with violence against women -- would lead one to believe the privacy factor is not really the issue.

Morgentaler is being lauded as the hero of a movement, which closed the door on the abortion debate, ensuring that Canadians are not comfortable thinking about, let alone talking or writing about abortion.

Too bad, as that ensures that negative information on abortion rarely hits the media, even when the issue is purely a matter of physical health.

The sad irony is that in these developments, choice is a casualty. Many would like to know about associated health risks from having an abortion -- and maybe gain that knowledge more than, oh say, five minutes before the wrenching anxiety of finding out they are unexpectedly pregnant.

There are an awful lot of people out there who have decided few should access that information.

That's their choice. Is it yours?

Andrea Mrozek is associate editor at the Western Standard.  This article first appeared in the Calgary Herald on June 17, 2005.  Reprinted with permission of the author.