CLC Blog

June 5, 2023 (Campaign Life Coalition) – When a baby is newly born, it’s natural for parents to respond by immediately giving their baby love, warmth, and protection. Sometimes they shed tears of happiness as they embrace and cuddle the precious new life. Sadly, over 1,500 babies born in Canada over the past 23 years have had the opposite experience. They have been born alive after a failed abortion, and then allegedly been left to die, cold, alone, and unloved, being denied their legal right to life-saving medical care.

Reliable data from Statistics Canada and from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, a government-controlled reporting body, show that abortion attempts were made against the lives of these babies in regulated Canadian medical facilities. The data shows that these babies survived these assaults, that they were born alive, and then they died. Canadian pro-life researcher Patricia Maloney has been using the above government databases to track these numbers since 2012. She has compiled all the evidence on her website.

Sign our petition: RCMP: investigate deaths of babies born alive after failed abortions

Recent data reveals that there has been a significant rise in the number of Canadian babies born alive after failed late-term abortions, with the figure increasing from 127 in the previous year to 149 in the current year, an increase of 22 cases. The data indicates that out of the 149 abortions that resulted in live births, six were born at a gestational age greater than 29 weeks. Many were older than 24 weeks, the age when it is generally considered by medical experts that a baby is “viable” and can survive outside the womb with medical intervention.

The details of exactly what happened to these babies after they were born following a failed abortion and how they died remain unknown. The only evidence of their short existence in this world is known through health-system codes such as “P96.4” and the words “Termination of pregnancy, affecting fetus and newborns.” Did these babies enter the world after surviving abortion only to be abandoned without proper medical care? Were some of them hastened to their deaths by the abortionist on hand, as in the case of convicted U.S. abortionist Kermit Gosnell who used scissors to sever the spinal cords of babies born alive after a failed abortion?

Canadian law states that a “child becomes a human being…when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.” Babies born alive after a failed abortion are “human beings” according to section 223(1) of the Criminal Code and are therefore owed certain legal rights, including the “right to life, liberty, and security of the person” as guaranteed by the Charter of rights and freedoms. Furthermore, the Criminal Code continues that a “person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.” If these children who are born alive after a failed abortion are in any way intentionally hastened to their deaths by the attending abortionist, it could be a clear case of first-degree murder.

Canadians deserve answers regarding what is happening to these babies born alive after a failed abortion. At the heart of this is not the issue of abortion, but the issue of human rights.

The authority with the power to run an investigation into these suspicious deaths is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the federal and national police service of Canada. In 2013, three Conservative Members of Parliament urged a criminal investigation into the deaths of these babies born alive after abortions. Then Commissioner Rob Paulson, failing to acknowledge the severity of the claims, responded in an April 4, 2013 letter that the “RCMP will not initiate a national criminal investigation” citing a lack of “relevant information or substantive facts about a specific suspected crime.”

These babies born alive after abortion are Canadian citizens with the same rights and protections as every other citizen. The attending medical staff are legally and ethically required to provide life-saving medical treatment to the infant the moment, as the criminal code states, he or she “has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.” It is at this moment, that, according to current law, these babies “become” a “human being” and are therefore owed every right and protection given to every other Canadian. Leaving newly-born babies to die is another word for infanticide. Babies who are born alive must be given every care for their comfort if they are unable to survive and every medical intervention if they have a chance at surviving. What is considered to be the “age of viability” continues to drop with medical advances in neonatal care. New studies have shown that premature babies can survive at 22 weeks if given proper care.

There are many born-alive abortion survivors today who are grateful to be alive. One of them is Gianna Jessen. She was two months shy of being born when her mother underwent a late-term saline abortion. A caustic solution was injected into her mother’s uterus and into her tiny fetal body, poisoning and burning her inside and outside. Jessen survived the attempt and was delivered alive in the abortion centre. She was transferred to a hospital where she received the medical care needed to live. Other born-alive abortion survivors include Melissa Ohden, Claire Culwell, Josiah Presley, and Nik Hoot. The Abortion Survivors Network, a U.S.-based organization, estimates that there are over 85,000 babies who have survived abortion in the U.S. alone since 1973. The organization strongly supports born-alive legislation to help ensure babies born alive after failed abortions have a chance at survival.

“Unfortunately, the fate of an infant born alive after an abortion is not always predictable. Ideally, the baby should be treated as a preterm birth and receive medical attention in a hospital to improve its chances of survival,” the group states on its website.

Are babies born alive after a failed abortion in Canada being treated as if this were a case of preterm birth? Are they receiving care? Or, are these helpless infants being neglected and left to perish in what amounts to an act of homicide? We simply don’t know. That’s why this matter urgently needs to be investigated by the RCMP.

It is essential for a functioning society that law enforcement agencies uphold the principles of justice for all, ensuring that the rights of all citizens are protected and that if crimes have been committed, the criminals are held accountable for their actions. When police fail to pursue matters of justice, it undermines public trust in the justice system and erodes the very foundation of a fair and equitable society. The police must not let our country’s pro-abortion ideology impede such a necessary investigation. Justice demands that a thorough and impartial investigation be conducted to address what is happening to these smallest and most vulnerable of Canadians among us. It is crucial for the RCMP to address this matter promptly and take appropriate action to ensure that the rights and well-being of all Canadians, especially those newly born, are protected. Our country must take steps to safeguard the lives of these infants who continue to be born alive after failed abortions.

Please sign our petition demanding that the RCMP investigate deaths of babies born alive after failed abortions.

Sign our petition: RCMP: investigate deaths of babies born alive after failed abortions

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