We offer these highlights of an interview with Jakki Jeffs of Alliance for Life Ontario (AFLO) and The Interim, Canada’s national pro-life newspaper regarding AFLO’s website, www.abortionpillreversal.ca.
What made you start this project?
Towards the end of 2017 the abortion pill procedure – Mifegymiso, was being offered alongside surgical abortion, to women across Canada and for the most part covered by provincial health insurance. Surprisingly, Health Canada originally put in place stringent guidelines to prescribe and dispense these lethal abortion drugs, but these were very quickly set aside due to pressure by abortion advocates in the Canadian medical profession.
The abortion pill was touted to be the “gold standard” of abortion procedures, yet a Finnish Study had already found that chemical, or medical abortion as some refer to it, posed a four times higher risk factor of the most serious side effects of surgical abortion. AFLO considered this outrageous and together with the fact that the amazing abortion pill rescue procedure, which has saved over 3,000 babies to date – was being ridiculed and banned by medical bodies, spurred me to suggest to our board that we build a website in Canada dedicated to assisting women understand how the abortion pill works, its inherent dangers, the alternatives and the amazing news that if they regretted taking that first pill – there was indeed a second chance at choice which would save their pre-born child!
How is the project going?
We have been thrilled at the response to our website by individuals and groups who hold pro-life world views as they have seen it as a great resource. Our chat line has been successful in connecting with women who really do not know what to do in the tough circumstances in which they often find themselves. It has surprised me that many women treat medical abortion as if they had a headache and just want the “pill” to make it go away – there seems to be no real sense that they will be killing their own child via a chemical process that may also have adverse effects on their future health as well. There is still a lot to do since the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in Canada do not support the abortion pill reversal procedure – which is bemusing actually given that they recognize a duty of care to both patients (mother and child) in a so-called “wanted” pregnancy!
Any idea how many lives your website has saved thus far?
We are very pleased to say that Heartbeat International reports over 3,000 baby’s lives have been saved by abortion pill reversal, , we know of about 15 mothers from Canada who have started the procedure to save their child’s life. Of course, we do not always know how the story ends, but we offer a pregnancy support line and a line directly to the medical team, on our website, the team will initiate the abortion reversal if the woman decides to follow that route. The mothers may not always continue follow up because they often feel guilty about the fact that they had tried to end their child’s life. In all my years as a pro-life advocate, I have learnt to listen to the mothers, find out what the real problems are and offer them hope for the future. Abortion pill reversal has a success rate of between 64% and 68% which will only increase as the process is refined.
Is there any data on how many chemical abortions take place each year in Canada?
Sadly, the collection of abortion statistics in Canada at the Federal level by the Canadian Institute for Health Information is abysmal, but I can provide our Ontario statistics which were received from the Ontario Ministry of health at our office after a request from me for them. I have made a request for the latest prescription claims for medical abortion and am still awaiting a response, but here are the numbers we have so far;
“From the start of the program on August 10, 2017, to December 31, 2020, the ministry received 45,363 prescription claims for Mifegymiso from participating pharmacies in Ontario[1].
- For fiscal year 2017/18, the total claim count was 3,783
- For fiscal year 2018/19, the total claim count was 11,690
- For fiscal year 2019/20, the total claim is 15,538
- For fiscal year (year to date) 2020/21, the total claim is 14,352
[1] These data do not account for any patients in Ontario who may have received Mifegymiso by other means, such as private insurance and cash payment. A “prescription” refers to a prescription written by a patient’s prescriber to the patient. A “prescription claim” refers to a patient’s prescription filled at a pharmacy, which then has been sent to the ministry for pharmacy reimbursement for that claim.”
As you can see from this response, even these do not show the total numbers. We have since acquired the number of medical abortion visits at hospitals and I hope these figures highlight for you the absolute inadequacy Canada has in collecting the actual data. For instance, for the last year that I have complete data in my hands for our province of Ontario for 2019;
- The Canadian Institute for Health reported Ontario in 2019 as having 27,911 induced abortions in clinics and hospitals combined.
- The Ontario Ministry of Health reported for that same year 45,177 abortions for Ontario.
- The Ontario Ministry of Health also reported 14,576 Mifegymiso Prescription Claims ( meaning the pharmacist had filled the prescription and then claimed from OHIP). It also reported 4,587 medical abortion visits to Ontario hospitals for a total of surgical and medical abortions in Ontario hospitals and clinics of 64,340 abortions . Now compare that to the 27,911 reported by CIH which also, only reported a total of 3,649 “Medical Procedure” or “Surgical & Medical Procedure” combined ,for the whole of the country in 2019 – Even as Ontario reported 4,587 in our provincial hospitals alone.
If these kinds of differences are to be found in every provincial number reported, then the total number of abortions in Canada as reported by CIHI for 2019 may represent only 43.4% of all abortions procured in 2019 and the actual figure may be as high as 170, 940.
We must insist that our Federal and Provincial governments change the ways these statistics are reported and collected – possibly by mandating that “clinics” which now procure almost 80% of all abortions – are required to submit demographic statistics prior to claiming provincial insurance recompense.so that we may properly gauge surgical and medical abortion’s adverse effects on women’s health and the public and our representatives be made aware of the outrageous number of lives lost to abortion in our country!
Republished with permission of Jakki Jeffs, Executive Director of AFLO. Help is available at 1-888-612-3960.
