PRO LIFE REPORTS NEW BRUNSWICK R

Canadian women obtained fewer induced abortions in 2004 compared with the previous year, and the decline occurred mostly among women in their 20s.

A total of 100,039 induced abortions were performed on Canadian women in 2004, down 2.9% from 103,001 in 2003. As a result, the induced abortion rate edged down from 15.1 abortions for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 in 2003 to 14.6 in 2004.

Induced abortion rates fell in every age group, except among women aged 40 and over, where it remained the same. Women in their 20s experienced the largest decline in rates, from 25.8 for every 1000 women in 2003 to 24.7 in 2004.

The number of induced abortions for every 100 live births fell to 29.7 in 2004 from 30.8 in 2003.

Among teenage women under the age of 20, the induced abortion rate in 2004 was 13.8 for every 1,000 women, down from 14.4 the year before. The induced abortion rate for these women has declined gradually since 1996 when it peaked at 18.9.

The crude birth rate for teenaged women has also continued to decline. In 1996, there were 18.6 live births for every 1,000 women under 20. By 2004, this had dropped to 11.4.

Induced abortions continue to be most common among women in their 20s. They accounted for 53% of all women who obtained an induced abortion in 2004. On average, 25 women out of every 1,000 in their 20s obtained an induced abortion.

Induced abortion rates remained the same, or increased, among women in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

They declined in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia.

Editor’s Note: Abortions on NB residents declined 2.4%, from 943 in 2003 to 920 in 2004.

Amnesty International Takes Heat for Abortion Advocacy
From “Amnesty betrayed its mission of supporting rights,” Catholic News Service 25 June/07

Amnesty International "has betrayed its mission" by supporting the legalization of abortion around the world, said the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

"I believe that, if in fact Amnesty International persists in this course of action, individuals and Catholic organizations must withdraw their support because, in deciding to promote abortion rights, AI has betrayed its mission," Cardinal Renato Martino said.

Amnesty International, a widely respected human rights organization, had been officially neutral on abortion until this April, when its executive committee adopted a new position calling for the decriminalization of abortion around the world.

In spelling out its new policy Amnesty claimed it supports a right to abortion only for women impregnated by rape or incest or in cases of grave risks to the mother's health or life.

The cardinal said "it is never justifiable to kill an innocent human life. To selectively justify abortion, even in the cases of rape, is to define the innocent child within the womb as an enemy, a 'thing' that must be destroyed," he wrote. "How can we say that killing a child in some cases is good and in other cases it is evil?"

Amnesty International, founded in 1961 by a British convert to Catholicism, Peter Benenson, is noted for its defence of innocent victims of violence.

From “Amnesty International Responds to Catholic Church's Abortion Condemnation,” by Steven Ertelt LifeNews.com Editor 23 Aug. /07

Amnesty International has released a statement responding to the Catholic Church's condemnation of its new position supporting abortion.

“Amnesty International stands by its policy, adopted in April this year, that aims to support the decriminalization of abortion, to ensure women have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion --within reasonable gestational limits -- when their health or life are in danger."

Recently, Father Frank Pavone, the founder and director of Priests for Life, told LifeNews.com about his concern over the decision.

"Amnesty International was founded to protect human rights, yet it now treads upon the most fundamental human right, the right to life," said Fr. Pavone. "To fail to protect the right to life renders suspect one’’s advocacy of any other human right."

TAKE ACTION: Tell Amnesty Intl. that you want it to reverse its decision to support abortion. Go to http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/engindex to contact them.

Benefit Dinner Held. Over 225 attended Fredericton Right to Life’s 7^th Benefit Dinner May 29. Campaign Life Coalition national president Jim Hughes (center) was main speaker. Laurie Connors (left) and Donna Mazerolle (right) shared personal testimonies. Also shown are acting president Thaddée Renault (left) and NBRL executive director Peter Ryan (right) who created the illustrated sign in order to bypass media failure to report the truth about the city’s abortion facility. Photo: Michael Nowlan

Charges Dropped Against NB Pro-Life Protester

In April charges were finally dropped against a Fredericton woman who had been arrested several months before for displaying an image of an aborted baby outside the Morgentaler facility.

Suzie Ryan, wife of NBRL executive director Peter Ryan, was arrested without warning last September. The Fredericton Police Department initially charged her with violating Criminal Code laws against obscenity (see March/07 Pro-Life Reports).

After seven months of anxiously wondering if she’d be tried as a criminal, Mrs. Ryan was informed the Crown was dropping charges.

NBRL speculates that the lack of case law to support such charges (i.e. the fact courts have not upheld similar charges elsewhere) may have been a big factor.

The story illustrates the dramatic irony of how a crime against humanity - killing the innocent unborn - goes unchecked by authorities while peacefully protesting the violence may be treated as a crime.

Mr. and Mrs. Ryan wish to thank all who prayed or wrote letters of support.

"Do They Deserve to Be Born?"

Birth of BC Twins Sparks Debate

The birth of conjoined ("Siamese") twins in British Columbia has sparked a lively debate in recent months on whether such children should be aborted before birth or euthanized after.

Tatian and Kristin Hogan-Simms were born joined at the head on Oct. 25, 2006, to a Vernon BC couple. During the pregnancy their mother, Felicia Simms, was advised to have an abortion but refused. She was quoted as saying her daughters "were born for a reason to teach people tolerance; that it’s okay to be different."

In May, as doctors studied whether the girls could be surgically separated, two media commentators offered opposing views in a Toronto Sun feature entitled, "Do they deserve to be born?"

Michael Coren said yes. He argued that even if it proves expensive and difficult to care for such children. "No civilized society considers expense and practicality to be more important than goodness and humanity. If it did, it would immediately wipe out, for example, drug addicts, the homeless and people with AIDS."

Dr. Gifford-Jones begged to differ. "This should be a wakeup call for us to prevent unimaginable future cruelty of this kind," he stated. "It's hard to comprehend a parent who would want such a tragic pregnancy to continue. Nature in this case has created a catastrophe. Why compound the mistake by subjecting these twins to this fate?"

Gifford-Jones said the mother should not even have been allowed to make the decision on whether to abort or not. An ethics committee should have decided. He predicted that the twins’ lives will now be "a living hell."

Coren replied that "Tatiana and Krista will be loved and, important this, will love back. They will smile, laugh, cry, be sad and happy, sometimes frightened, sometimes excited. Just be. Which is quite enough. And God forgive anyone who awards themselves the right to decide who may be and who may not."

According to a CTV news report Aug. 3, the twins will not undergo separation surgery after all, due to the risk of serious brain damage. She said the girls were currently doing well.

Editor’s Note: Two Canadian doctors recently debated the issue of using human embryos for medical research in the pages of The Hamilton Spectator.

Stem cell research doesn't cost life

By Dr. John G. Kelton, Dean, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton Spectator 19 Jul 2007

Recent letters in The Spectator have indicated opposition to human embryonic stem cell research, such as that being done at McMaster University. These need factual clarification.

McMaster University prides itself, as one of Canada's most research intensive universities, in performing the highest quality biomedical research with the highest ethical standards. Hence, human embryonic stem cell research at McMaster is fully compliant with Canadian law and the regulations and guidelines of national boards and agencies, as well as local research ethics review boards.

By law, every human embryonic stem cell used in scientific research in Canada is acquired at a defined point in the in vitro fertilization process. Embryonic cell clusters are derived from donors who seek to have children by in vitro fertilization, a complex process requiring hormonal therapy, treatment of the potential mother and ultimately implantation of the egg cluster. Most fertilized egg clusters (embryonic stem cells), several of which could sit on the head of a pin, are not used. These unused cell clusters have only two possible outcomes: destruction or use in scientific experiments designed to literally cure cancer or save lives. This decision is made by the donors. But it must be emphasized that no viable human life is destroyed.

McMaster University and its Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine are able to pursue stem cell research through visionary gifts from both Michael G. DeGroote and David Braley, as well as research support from such agencies as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the National Cancer Institute of Canada.

Half of the stem cell research done at McMaster uses adult stem cells. However, embryonic stem cells have a much greater potential for cure. Human embryonic stem cell therapy offers the potential to help people suffering from catastrophic illnesses such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, scleroderma, ALS, and cancer, to name a few. These are our patients for whom there is now neither a surgical nor medicinal solution.

As a physician, I know that stem cell research is important as I have had personal experience of the benefit to my patients. It was controversial when, almost two decades ago, two of my McMaster colleagues successfully performed Canada's first unrelated bone marrow transplant using stem cells. Since that wonderful day, thousands of lives have been saved with that knowledge and procedure, many of them right here in Hamilton.

Most Canadians support human embryonic stem cell research. We are proud to have this important work being done here at McMaster.

Questioning embryonic stem cell research
By Paul Ranalli, MD FRCPC, lecturer in neurology, University of Toronto. The Hamilton Spectator - 25 July 2007Re: 'Stem cell research doesn't cost life' (letters, July 19)
Dr. John Kelton describes his letter to defend embryonic stem cell research as a "factual clarification." It is therefore disappointing to see him employ a bait-and-switch tactic, cloaking the ethically-suspect-- and, so far, futile -- research on embryos with the respectability earned by adult source stem cells, which have been an undeniable and evolving success. When Dr. Kelton takes justifiable pride in his "personal experience of the benefit to my patients" he is, of course, speaking of the established triumph of adult stem cells, including the now-standard use of adult stem cells in bone marrow transplants. Everyone supports adult stem cell research. On the other hand, there is simply no basis for his claim that "embryonic stem cells have a much greater potential for cure." We have been waiting on this promised "potential" for years now, with little to show for it. Meanwhile, adult stem cells have steamed ahead to achieve published success in over 70 diseases to date. How many published successes in human application are there for embryonic stem cells? Exactly zero. Furthermore, there is as yet no answer to the frightening tendency of embryonic cells to turn into malignant tumours.

An ethical defence from Dr. Kelton is also found wanting, as a reader could easily be misled by his claim that "no viable human life is destroyed." In fact, a healthy embryo, allowed to implant in a mother's womb, is quite viable. It is the researcher's destruction of the embryo -- to strip-mine its stem cells -- that renders it non-viable. Scientific progress has rewarded humankind, time and again, with ethically honourable therapeutic breakthroughs that obviate the need to compromise our morality in the short term. With adult stem cells no patience is required.

The successes are real, and their further refinement by ongoing research is far more worthy of the visionary funding gifts provided by Michael deGroote and David Braley.

Does Aborting the Unwanted Lead to
Fewer Criminals - or More?

Editor’s Note: A few years ago Henry Morgentaler boasted that abortion reduces the crime rate by eliminating unwanted children more apt than others to commit crime. A new study challenges that view.

From “Study Says Abortion Lead to Higher Crime, Increased Murder Rates” by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com Editor, August 9, 2007

Washington, DC -- A study conducted by a researcher at the University of Maryland shows that legalized abortion has led to higher rates of crime and increased murder rates. These occurred because a higher percentage of children grew up in single-parent homes during the years following Roe v. Wade.

The findings have been published in the April 2007 issue of the academic journal Economic Inquiry and are part of a new book written by researcher John R. Lott.

According to Lott, the high court's decision ultimately resulted in more out-of-wedlock births, a reduction in the number of children adopted and fewer married parents.

"Those are contradictory directions," the economist told the Cybercast News Service in an interview. "What ties them together is liberalized abortion rules."

Lott said those results produced by Roe "affected decisions on premarital sex and careful contraception. It's a matter of economics. When something seems less costly, there's more of it."

Lott and John Whitley, affiliated with the University of Chicago, wrote a paper in August 2006 challenging claims that abortion led to less crime.That paper led to the journal article and subsequent book by Lott. Because Roe resulted in more children growing up in single-parent homes and because such children are more likely to become criminals than those in two-parent homes, the researchers say abortion led to higher rates of crime.

They point out that 5 percent of white children were born out of wedlock from 1965 to 1969, compared to 16 percent in the 1980's. Black children born out of wedlock increased from 35 percent to 62 percent in the same period.

These children of unwed mothers, statistically more at risk of becoming criminals, are responsible for the increase of murders by 700 cases in 1998 alone, they say. Such a dramatic increase carried a financial price tag of $3.3 billion in "victimization costs," according to their paper.

Ultimately, Lott says murder rates rose anywhere from half a percent to 7 percent as a result of legalized abortion.

The new study is another among other recent analysis showing the finding of the authors of the 2001 book "Freakonomics" were wrong in contending that abortion led to a decrease in crime.

John Donohue of Stanford Law School and Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago published a study linking a de-cline in the U.S. violent crime in the 1990s with abortion.

“If the estimates are correct, legalized abortion can explain about half of the recent fall in crime," Donohue and Levitt wrote.

The authors argue that the ready availability of abortion since its legalization in 1973 resulted in fewer unwanted children and therefore less crime in later generations. They cited arrest records to claim that abortion would account for a 1% reduction in crime each year over the next two decades.

In November 2005, Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and research assistant Christopher Goetz, told the Wall St. Journal the data Levitt used was faulty.

Foote said there was a "missing formula" in Levitt's original research that allowed him to ignore certain factors that may have contributed to the lowering of crime rates during the 1980s and 1990s.

The Decline of Motherhood
We should consider the social factors that keep more and more women from having children

By Margret Kopala, The Ottawa Citizen, May 12, 2007

Editor’s Note: This article, slightly abridged, was written just before Mother’s Day 2007. Opinions expressed are the author’s and may not always represent NBRL views.

Hiking along the northern reaches of British Columbia's Sunshine Coast last week, my sister and I passed by the home of a woman recently taken by cancer. As dignified deaths go, it was exemplary. Predeceased by her husband, her care was assumed in turns by her four grown children. She died peacefully, surrounded by them and her beloved ocean views.

For the generation that's brought Canada's fertility rate to below replacement levels, such idylls can only become increasingly rare. With 1.5 children per couple, our best hope is a quiet death in a clean facility where the immigrant workers speak our lan-guage. And that's only the human face of demographic decline. The economic face is hardly more appealing: unfilled labour markets, reduced GDP and no tax revenues to pay for health care -- to name a few.

Canada isn't the only country in this predicament. According to America Alone, Mark Steyn's self-described and penetrating rant on "demography, Islam and civilizational exhaustion," the developed world has gone from 30 per cent to 20 per cent of global population. Greece has 1.3 births per couple -- the "lowest low" from which no society has ever recovered; Russia, where 60 per cent of pregnancies are terminated, has the fastest-growing rate of HIV in the world and, by 2050, 60 per cent of Italians will have no brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts or uncles. In the developed world, only the United States, with a 2.1 birth rate, is replacing itself.

How did it come to this? In Canada, one answer is infertility. This affects one in every 15 Canadian couples who spend some $30 million a year on in-vitro fertilization alone. Defined as failure to conceive after one year of trying, infertility can result from many factors affecting both males and females, but according to the government of Canada's Biobasics website, the two biggest factors are delayed childbearing and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Today, mothers giving birth average 29.5 years of age. Since women are born with a given number of eggs that decline in quality and quantity from the age of 30, it is no surprise that for the growing proportion of 30-plus women attempting pregnancy, it is much more difficult to conceive and carry a child.

Compounding the problem, earlier and increased sexual activity means a greater likelihood for contracting gonorrhea or chlamydia. In women, pelvic inflammatory disease and, in turn, blocked fallopian tubes or ectopic pregnancy may result. In men, sterility is possible. According to healthyontario.com, rates of STD infection are up 60 per cent since 1997, with girls between the ages of 15 and 19 incurring the highest rates. In 2003, 20,000 new cases of chlamydia were reported in Canada.

Some infertility problems are preventable, but larger social and economic forces make it difficult. Industrialized food production and environmental degradation are taking their tolls. Most recently, a Harvard School of Public Health study implicated trans fats while another from the University of Rochester has raised yet more questions about hormone-treated beef. Clear connections exist between obesity and ovulatory cysts. Combined with the genetic complications already associated with delayed pregnancies, concerns about the ability of future generations to reproduce are valid. Ominously, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is calling for genetic testing of all pregnant women, not just those over 35.

Nor do infertility statistics take into account those deciding not to have children or those resigned to missing the boat. On this front, Mark Steyn blames the "progressive agenda" -- abortion, gay marriage, end-lessly deferred adulthood -- and he's right. He doesn't get into many specifics but they are easily identified. In the U.S., 48.5 million abortions since Roe v. Wade only slightly exceeds the estimated 47 million civilians lost in the Second World War. And, as the University of Calgary's Rainer Knopf predicted, gay marriage means any public distinction between procreative and non-procreative sexuality is now totally abandoned.

So we pump our young with pills, wrap them in condoms and, coming soon, jab them with vaccines hoping to prevent unwanted pregnancies, STDs and, now, cervical cancer. This in the name of denying their capacity for personal responsibility by advocates who wouldn't shake hands with each other if they had a cold.

In other words, the infantilization continues and the price tag increases. Fertility clinics offer hope, but a growing number of ethicists confirm that any rearguard action by science produces as many problems as it solves. Will Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, newly opened in Vancouver to deal with such problems, also address infertility prevention? Who will?

Parents need meaningful support from civil society as well as government. Housing prices that require two incomes make starting a family untenable -- a problem exacerbated by immigration policies that raise real estate prices while ostensibly compensating for the children we aren't producing. But within one generation, immigrants adopt our reproductive habits.

Oh, and have an especially happy Mother's Day. Soon, there may be few mothers left to celebrate..

Children Cramp Our Style
By George Jonas, The National Post, May 19, 2007

Editor’s Note: A non pro-life writer offers keen insights into contemporary attitudes on abortion.

The abortion debate is back. The indomitable Ms. Choice is being hectored and picketed by Ms. Right-To-Life. Each side follows a Greek model: it's Hippocrates (do no harm) versus Taigetos (the name of the mountain from which Spartans threw off their unwanted children). The difference between Spartan society and ours is that for Spartans "unwanted" meant "substandard," whereas for us it means "inconvenient." We don't want standard or even superstandard children if they cramp our style.

Style is important to us. We're all set to march to our extinction in style. We've become the only species that diminishes with success: the first in natural history to experience population decline whenever we do well. The wealthier and more secure our post-Darwinian societies become, the more we fail to reproduce.

Living in an epoch that is selfish as well as matriarchal, of all the styles that we shield from being cramped, we put women's style first. We invent euphemisms, such as "choice" for killing, and sophomoric dilemmas, such as pretending not to know when life begins, to ensure that nothing hinders Virginia's quest for Santa Claus. No obstacle must interfere with her goal of self-fulfillment -- least of all an issue (as it were) of her healthy sexual appetite. There's plenty of babies where this one came from, eh, Ginny? And if not, we can always import some from Somalia.

As I've written before, I'm not necessarily opposed to abortion, but then I'm not necessarily opposed to killing. Doing away with children can be a salutary act under a variety of circumstances, as anyone who has had experience with children can attest.

I could even be persuaded that we should let the mother be the arbiter of when to kill a child. King Solomon thought so; in fact, his reputation for wisdom rests upon this belief. True, Solomon also thought that no mother would lightly kill her child. He had the fixed idea that an authentic mother would rather give up her child than kill it, in which the good king might have been a trifle too optimistic.

Giving parents full discretion in the matter rests on venerable historical precedents: see Taigetos, above. Despite the sport offered by tossing babies off a cliff, it's likely that progressive parents would have preferred pre-natal vacuum suction, had the technology been available in Sparta at the time.Spartan authorities saw no reason to question a parent's own definition of "substandard." It probably meant physically deformed to most Spartans, but it may not be a huge leap to extend it to a fetus that's simply inconvenient. After all, a deformed child is a great inconvenience, so an inconvenient child might as well be deemed deformed.

The Spartan model has had a mixed press. Some people have used the word "brutal" to describe it. I'm not pushing it myself, but then I push nothing except an abstinence from fuzzy thinking. I don't particu-larly mind abortion on demand; I mind only the arguments used to support it.

My quarrel is with those who would oppose abortion if they thought it amounted to killing. I've no problem with abortion, but they do. They've a whacking big problem. First (as I pointed out nearly 20 years ago) they must pretend not to know when life begins. They must pretend not to realize that life is an autonomous process, a continuum from zygote to old-age pension, a self-elaborating force that begins when it begins and keeps growing unless it's vacuumed out first. They must pretend not to recognize something that a cat recognizes: the difference between things alive and dead, animate and inanimate. They must pretend not to see that if a fetus were not alive, it wouldn't have to be killed.

They must cling to the illusion that a court can actually choose for life to "begin" at some arbitrary point: first trimester, second trimester, whatever. I think legal fiction should adopt the notion that life begins at 40 for the comfort of those who cherish their convenience but have no stomach for killing.

Some put the question in terms of a woman's right to control her own body. That would be valid enough in the realm of smoking, diet, liposuction, or sex -- but abortion? Abortion means controlling someone else's body. (As a man, I have no authority to speak on the matter, I know, but I'm not speaking as a man. I'm speaking as an ex-fetus.)

Finally, there are those who rely on the fetus's dependence on its mother to deny it the life, oblivious to the fact that if self-sufficiency were the test, only a tadpole could pass it. Lack of self-sufficiency is common to many life forms, including passengers on a jet plane. Next we'll see a captain abandon ship in mid-flight: "Too bad, dear geese, but you can't really fly on your own, can you? You've no right to life.

You're dependent on me, and I'm entitled to control my own body."

Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Ms. Choice on appeal from King Solomon's judgment. Rather than let some other woman have her baby, she pleads to have it cut in half. The ball is in our honourable court.

At Issue: What to do with the Remains of Miscarried, Stillborn or Aborted Babies?

Burying the Unborn
By Carolyn Abraham. Abridged from The Globe and Mail May 26, 2007

On the afternoon of Feb. 3, 25 people gathered in the chapel of Smiths Funeral Home in Sarnia, Ont., to honour the passing of Angel Lynzey Burden. The community sent flowers and cards of condolence. Angel's ashes sat on a table up front, in a decorative urn half the size of a coffee cup. It was a teary farewell, considering no one actually had known the deceased, so Pastor Jay Black could not offer the comfort of memories to be cherished. Instead, he described a future that would never be. His mother, Tina Burden, and her husband, Allan, picked a unisex name. [not knowing until later that Angel was male] “But ¼ even at 13 weeks he had fingers, he had long feet, a mouth, ears, eyes, toes. To me, he was my baby and shouldn't be tossed aside like he was nothing.” At the hospital, nurses told her about the hospital's group-burial service for early-pregnancy losses. But Ms. Burden said no: “I wanted my own personal funeral, to grieve my child in my own way.” It's a sentiment shared by an increasing number of would-be parents. Miscarriages end roughly 15 per cent of pregnancies for women in their 20s and as many as one in four for women over 35. Most happen at home, behind a bathroom door, and couples grieve privately. Hospitals traditionally treat the “early products of conception” as medical waste, bundling them in biohazard bags to off-site incinerators. Under vital-statistics laws in most provinces, any pregnancy that ends before 20 weeks is a non-event – no birth or death certificate, medical investigation or formal burial necessary. A growing number of women and their advocates, many of them staunchly pro-choice, are pushing for the formal recognition of the miscarried fetus as a symbol of their grief and loss. In some cases, they're seeking out these rites even when, for medical reasons, they have chosen to terminate the pregnancy.

Some graveyards and funeral-home staff have been reluctant to bury remains for which no burial permit can be issued. More profoundly, holding funerals for fetuses raises implicit, uncomfortable questions about when life begins. Can society simultaneously agree to mourn the early fetus and still sanction its destruction? “This trend of ritualizing grief ¼ will be watched with enthusiasm and pleasure by those who want to restrict women's reproductive choices, and watched with concern by those interested in preserving women's reproductive liberty,” predicted Arthur Schafer, director of Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. “Anything that encourages us to view early-stage pregnancy as personhood could impact the law on the choice to terminate pregnancy and on embryonic stem-cell research.” Indeed, the Campaign Life Coalition, the political wing of Canada's anti-abortion movement, considers the trend a sign of “society's progression.” Jim Hughes, Campaign Life's national president, recently attended two funerals for fetuses miscarried before 20 weeks. He applauds the trend, regardless of whether those involved consider themselves pro-choice. “This is their little shot at recognizing this was a human being that was a part of their family.” The people supporting fetal funerals feel their efforts should have no impact whatsoever on the legal status of life before birth. Tina Burden, for example, says that she is generally pro-choice. They say that being pro-choice should include allowing women to choose how they view the potential life growing within them and how to treat its loss. “It is not a mourning of the entity, per se, but the emotional investment already made in the idea of that child and planning for that potential life and the future,” said Lise Ferguson, executive director of Perinatal Bereavement Services Ontario (PBSO), a non-profit charity that has taken a lead role in educating health and funeral staff on the issue. Maureen Colford, a Toronto woman who has suffered several miscarriages and become a champion of the cause, wants society to get over its political squeamishness. Colford said, “Yes, it touches on the political question of when life begins, but women deserve to be treated with kindness. ¼ If I want to think of it as a baby, name my baby and have a burial, I should be able to do that.”

Law is silent.

In the past four years, perinatal grief counsellors have trained nurses, hospital staff and more than 1,000 funeral home directors in Ontario alone. “It went from not being on the radar to being an issue,” said Joseph Richer, registrar of the Board of Funeral Services of Ontario, the industry's licensing body. It never used to be this way. Back when James Cardinal started in the bereavement business 25 years ago, not even stillbirths prompted traditional funerals. Joanne Bunton, a community-outreach co-ordinator for Jerrett Funeral Homes, part of the Dignity Memorial Service Providers chain, recalls that she began to see these couples some time in the late 1990s. One in particular stands out. The couple came to her when she was apprenticing as a funeral director, cradling the body of their stillborn baby, which they had retrieved from the depths of a hospital pathology department. “Isn't there something you could do for us?” they pleaded. Ms. Bunton made a plaster cast of the infant's footprints. Soon, word spread that she was the person to see for a keepsake after a miscarriage. She eventually joined the board of PBSO, which started in 1993 to support people who lose pregnancies or infants. PBSO counsels about 800 couples a year for free. Most provinces do not recognize the fetus as a person until after 20 weeks gestation or 500 grams in weight. Officials often feel that they are not supposed to treat pregnancy losses before 20 weeks as deaths. “But the legislation doesn't say you can't do this or that with a baby under that age – the law is silent on this issue,” Ms. Ferguson said. Typically, the prospective parents never see what happens to the fetus. When Valerie Diren-Lear lost her pregnancy at 19 weeks on Christmas Day, 2001, she was able to hold “a fully formed little girl” in her arms. She and her husband, Peter, were so devastated that when the nurses said they would take care of everything, she thought, “Yes, that's what I want – someone else to take care of everything,” she said. “You don't think that means, ‘We are going to burn your baby along with the trash.' ”

But a few weeks later she learned the remains of the daughter she named Sophie Rose were incinerated with general hospital refuse, “¼and the ashes were sent somewhere up in Northern Ontario. I felt awfully guilty. ¼ I let them do this thing to my baby.” A PBSO volunteer, Ms. Diren-Lear often describes her experience to hospital staff in the hopes others will be spared the same fate. “ In 2001 one of Canada's most elaborate policies on handling hospital miscarriages was introduced at Bluewater Health, which encompasses three community hospitals in Sarnia and Petrolia, Ont.

Bluewater now offers women who've miscarried three options in writing, They can have the hospital arrange the burial, take care of funeral arrangements themselves or take the traditional option of having the pathology department discard the remains (which doctors insisted remain an alternative). When patients elect to have the hospital arrange burial, Bluewater transports the fetal remains to the cemetery once a month and, twice a year, the hospital holds a graveside memorial service. Sometimes, Ms. Lau said, couples who suffered miscarriages 20 or more years ago have turned up, saying they're grateful to have a place to remember their loss.

With the growing sense that scientific reason cannot give meaning to many life experiences, and in the absence of religion, personalized rituals have gained increasing prominence.

These trends also mirror the shift in the modern demographics of childbirth. The number of women having their first child over the age of 30 has jumped nearly 50 per cent in a decade, according to 2004 numbers from Statistics Canada. And for women over 40, the miscarriage rate can climb higher than 50 percent. The national birth rate, meanwhile, hovers below 1.5 children.

Memorializing abortion Perceptions of pregnancy, Prof. Schafer pointed out, are particularly prone to shifting: “Basically, when the pregnancy is wanted, it's a baby; but when it is unwanted, it's fetal tissue. “We're complex creatures,” he said. “We manage to simultaneously occupy contradictory positions.” This is especially true when pregnancies are terminated by choice. According to the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System, the rate of stillbirths in the country dropped nearly 40 per cent from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s largely because of elective, medical terminations.

Embryo funerals? As the fetal funeral makes its way to becoming an established rite of the 21st century, advocates in the field also predict the rise of ceremonies to mark pregnancy losses even before a woman is actually pregnant. Ms. Ferguson said PBSO anticipates women and couples will soon be commemorating the loss of unused embryos created at fertility clinics. “Our technology is advancing faster than our ethical and moral abilities to deal with all the implications,” Ms. Ferguson said.

Editor’s Note: Some concerned citizens of New Brunswick are working to promote the proper burial of the unborn. If you are interested, please call NB Right to Life at (506) 459-8990.