Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on the motion presented by the hon. member for Yorkton-Melville which reads:
That, in the opinion of this House, the government should enact legislation which would require that a binding, national referendum be held at the time of the next election to ask Canadians whether or not they are in favour of federal government funding for abortions on demand.
I will generally debate the basis of what services our public health care system should be required to pay for. I will also speak on the issue of allowing Canadians to decide how their tax dollars should be spent.
This is a federal and provincial issue. The federal government has the power to set national standards for health care and provide federal funding in accordance with these standards. It is clearly within the power of the federal government to say which medical procedures it will or will not fund. Performing abortions is a provincial jurisdiction. Paying for abortions is a decision that provincial and federal governments make independent of one another because they each pay a portion of the costs.
As an aside I will talk about the federal government portion relative to that of the provincial government. When the Canada Health Act was set up, funding for health care was 50:50. Now approximately 22 per cent is paid by the federal government and the rest by the provincial government. By the time the recent budget of the finance minister is implemented, the federal portion of funding will be reduced to approximately 17 per cent. It is an ever decreasing amount.
Getting back to the motion, it really does not matter which government is involved, in the end the same taxpayers are paying. One would think that federal and provincial governments would target spending of taxpayers' money based on the good it will do or the need for the service. In this case where health care spending is involved the main consideration should be the impact of making people healthier or preventing disease or injury.
How are decisions regarding health care set out in the Canada Health Act? The Canada Health Act requires the provinces to provide and pay for medically necessary procedures. In most cases abortion is not medically necessary. It is a service which does not make people healthier or prevent injury or disease. In fact, it does the opposite. It disrupts a normal physiological process and poses a risk to the woman undergoing the procedure.
Surveys demonstrate that the vast majority of women seeking abortions do so for reasons other than the treatment of a medical or mental health problem. The member who proposed the motion has already mentioned a study by Health Canada which I believe is well worth repeating.
It was a study of 554 women who received abortions in Canadian hospitals. Here are the responses given to the question "what is your main reason for the decision to have an abortion". Thirty-eight per cent said they did not want children at this time, did not want children at all or that their family size was complete. Eighteen per cent said they could not afford a child or that they did not have money to move to larger accommodations.
Eighteen per cent said they were too old or too young to have a child, that they were afraid the child would be abnormal or they feared that pregnancy would pose a risk to their health. Twelve per cent said they were not married, did not want their friends to find out about the pregnancy, that the child was not their partner's, that the partner did not want a child, or that they believed the pregnancy threatened their mental health. Fourteen per cent said they were alone and did not want to raise a child, would have to quit school or a job, or that it would interfere with their career plans.
Even abortion providers admit abortions are generally not medically necessary. For example, Henry Morgentaler told a Vancouver radio audience in 1988 that fewer than one-tenth of one per cent of abortions are necessary to save the woman's life.
Irvin Cushner of Planned Parenthood Federation of America testified before a Senate hearing that more than 98 per cent of abortions are done for non-medical reasons.
Notice that none of these studies was done by pro life groups or was even commissioned by pro life groups. It is exactly the opposite.
Through two decades of widespread abortion experience, doctors have increasingly described it as a surgery that carries risks to the woman's fertility, risks of chronic pelvic pain, breast cancer and in subsequent pregnancies premature labour or miscarriage. Studies show that even abortions performed for psychiatric reasons worsen women's mental health.
Motion No. 91 is not just about the funding of abortion. It is also about democracy. Politics has clearly become increasingly further removed from the people. This clearly shows a need to give voters a real say in how they want their scarce health care dollars spent.
Decisions regarding important social issues should be made by voters, not politicians and bureaucrats. The Reform Party is clear in its policy. It was presented during the last election campaign and it will be presented in the next election campaign. The Reform Party clearly says the role of a politician is first to tell their constituents during an election campaign what their view is on an issue such as this, providing public funding for abortion, of which I am not in favour.
We should hold a national referendum. That is exactly what this motion requests. It would give the public a direct say rather than leaving the issue in the hands of politicians and, in many cases, in the hands of bureaucrats. This will give people a direct say.
Barring a referendum, the opportunity for people to vote directly, Reform MPs are committed to ensuring public debate takes place across the country. Reform MPs will ensure the media is involved in these discussions. The media plays a very important role in the debate. Through some formal mechanism such as a public poll or a householder survey we will determine the will of the majority of constituents. In all cases Reform MPs will vote with the majority view in their constituencies.
Old style politics and the style of politics being done in the House by the governing party are anything but democratic. What the government feels is a free vote is really, rather than MPs voting the will of their constituents, voting their own consciences in most cases.
I seek the unanimous consent of the House to have this motion referred to the Standing Committee on Health.