By Andrea Mrozek , Manager of Research and Communications, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada

Today in Canada, we have no clear picture of how many abortions women have. Neither do we know the gestational age at which abortions occur. Now a recently released chapter of publicly funded research suggests the abortion rate of Canada’s most populous province, Ontario, is higher than we think.

 Data released at the end of February by POWER, the Project for an Ontario Women’s Health Evidence-Based Report, show the number of abortions might be substantially higher than previously reported.  For their chapter on reproductive health, POWER plumbed the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) fee codes among other sources to quantify abortions conducted outside hospitals. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), currently responsible for abortion statistics, reports that in 2007 there were 32,351 abortions in Ontario. But the POWER report reveals a ratio of 37 abortions to every 100 live births. Taking the publicly available number of Ontario’s live births at 138,000, Life Canada, a national pro-life organization, calculates that there are 51,060 abortions in Ontario in 2007. This marks a big discrepancy from CIHI numbers.

The POWER report does not include absolute numbers. But POWER did use more robust methods of gathering the data. They likewise acknowledge the flaws in the CIHI data.

“[T]he data likely underestimate the number of Ontario abortions because procedures performed in Ontario clinics which are not directly funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care or in private doctors’ offices, and procedures that are paid for by women themselves are not reported…,” reads the report. CIHI states openly that “undercoverage” is indeed a problem. Therefore, it stands to reason that the POWER report’s higher numbers are more accurate because they did not have to rely on voluntary reporting.

 The bottom line is that Canadians can’t conclusively know.

 Why don’t we know? National records are incomplete because private abortion clinics, unlike hospitals, are not required to report. In 2007 and 2008, three provinces (Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan) and all three territories didn’t report abortions in private clinics. In British Columbia and Manitoba, in 2008, the number of clinic abortions was given with the qualifying statement that “no data were received from clinics in British Columbia that traditionally reported to CIHI.” In short, there is no consistency around which private abortion clinics are actually reporting data from year to year.

The result is that the total number of abortions in private clinics are unknown. With so many clinics failing to provide data, Canada’s abortion statistics have large holes.

The Canadian Institute for Health Information is newly responsible for publishing the abortion-related data. They took over from Statistics Canada in 2010 and are currently grappling with the question of data quality. “The approach that CIHI took was to release what has been traditionally been released and continue our work to effectively document the quality issues,” says Jean-Marie Berthelot, CIHI’s vice-president of programs. In a way, however, the agency’s hands are tied. “Is CIHI committed to improving the data? Yes, we are,” says Berthelot. “Are we limited in what we can do? Yes, we are.”

It goes without saying that these statistics are important. For example, declining abortion rates may be used to evaluate sex education or contraceptive use. Increasing abortion rates in a particular area may point to other social problems. Knowing gestational age is important for a women’s health since later abortions are more difficult and dangerous.

It’s hard to understand why abortion data is so hard to come by. In British Columbia, for example, there is a law on the books that puts abortion-related information outside the access to information act. No citizen can access information about abortion in British Columbia beyond the absolute number, thanks to Bill 21, passed in 2001. Ted Gerk, research manager for Campaign Life Coalition British Columbia, also runs the web site Stop Abortion Censorship. He’s not aware of any other jurisdiction in North America that censors information about abortion.

Seeking out these statistics is, or rather should be, a consensus point between the pro-life and pro-choice camps. Knowing what the numbers are is a neutral concern in the ongoing abortion debate.

It should not be so difficult to get good numbers. Private clinics, whose abortions are still paid for by public funds, should be forced to report. Failing that, each province will need to examine doctors’ billing records to get the real numbers. Accurate statistics are important, especially when the topic being studied is politically contentious.

Published courtesy of: Institute of Marriage and Family Canada.

See also:  http://www.haltonprolife.com/canadian-abortion-statistics-greatly-underestimated