Mr. Speaker, the government has chosen to cherry-pick quotations and statistics in a desperate attempt to justify an initiative that has been criticized by both Canadian and international aid experts. What is clear from the conduct of the government is that it is choosing votes from its base as opposed to the health and lives of women.
We saw the same thing from the Bush administration in the U.S. What we learned from the Bush gag rule was that refusing to fund abortion does not reduce the number of abortions that occur. It simply increases the number of unsafe abortions, thus increasing the maternal mortality rate. The only way to reduce mortality is to provide women with access to contraception and family planning, which includes abortion when necessary.
Today on Parliament Hill a demonstration was held in memory of the thousands of women who have died from botched abortions. The people present, and so many other Canadians and citizens around the world, realize that because of the government's idealized and ridiculous decision women will die.