There's only one way to find out if hospital abortionists have broken the law

The national story we broke two weeks ago on eugenic abortion and infanticide in our public hospitals will have subsided by the time you read this, at least for now. Or so I hope, for our magazine has been in the middle of it and it is a difficult beast to ride. It wears you out; but it also teaches you lessons.

It certainly teaches you a thing or two about the medical establishment. One doesn't like to descend to unparliamentary language, but some of these people seem to be, how shall I say, less than trenchant.

Take for example Dr. Ian Lange, obstetrics boss of the Calgary Regional Health Authority (CRHA). On April 22, in answer to a question from Calgary MP Jason Kenney, he wrote, "Therapeutic abortions are not carried out at the [Foothills] hospital...Genetic terminations are performed at the Foothills." However, as the hideous (and possibly criminal) nature of these eugenic operations became publicly known, Dr. Lange changed his mind, or in any case his euphemisms. "We don't use the term 'genetic terminations,'" he told the Calgary Herald in an interview published May 7. "We use 'induction of labour for infants with a lethal abnormality.'"

It is now the official line that all such late-term abortions are performed on children with "lethal abnormalities." Doctors all over the place now insist "these are babies with no brains, with hearts and kidneys growing outside their bodies." Even those who emerge alive from their chemically-induced birth soon die, say the docs with a long, straight face, and would have died even if they had been allowed a natural delivery. Until then they get all the "care" merciful modern medicine deems "appropriate." That's the official line.

However, this is not at all what we are being told by unauthorized sources at the Foothills Hospital. Their testimony-of which we had room for only a small amount in our April 12 and May 3 stories on the subject-has been suppressed by a court order secured by the CRHA. In due course we will try to enter all their testimony in court. But until then, neither our sources nor any news media may print it, and the doctors can say as they please. In the meantime, their prevarications, glosses and flat-out falsehoods have roused our sources and many of their co-workers to cold rage. I understand they have been quite busy faxing, but the court order precludes me from saying more.

However, neither our own court process-nor an inquiry announced last week by the Alberta College of Physicians and Surgeons-nor a criminal homicide investigation promised last week by the Calgary police-will shed much light on what has been going on at the Treblinka General in Calgary, and at places like the Royal Alexandra in Edmonton.

In our own case, all we have are allegations by sources we cannot in conscience name. We assured them of confidentiality, and it serves the interests of both medicine and a free media that we never disclose who they are. If they choose to step forward, that's their decision, but I hope they don't. To speak openly at this stage is to get fired, and they're more useful where they are. The role of the press is to foster public discussion, not conduct criminal investigations of the medical establishment.

As for the college "investigation," that is frankly a farce. Registrar Larry Ohlhauser has stated repeatedly he doesn't feel the college's guidelines have been breached, and now he's going to prove it. No doubt he will, because his guidelines don't say anything for which a doctor could be held to account. (For instance, contrary to every news report I have read for two weeks, they do not require that any abortion, even after 24 weeks, is allowed only in cases of a known fatal abnormality.) Besides, the guidelines themselves are not the issue. The Criminal Code is the issue, and the college is not interested in criminal law. Nor, apparently, do its members obey it.

So what about the police probe? That's criminal. Well, we'll see. Are detectives competent to assess whether an induced delivery (for any reason) contravenes Section 223(2)? In which circumstances did failure to give an abortion survivor milk contravene Section 222(5) and 224? These are medical questions, and policemen aren't doctors.

There is only one way to get to the bottom of it. CRHA chairman Jim Dinning, the former treasurer who balanced Alberta's budget, should appoint an inquiry. It should have two pro-abortion doctors and two chosen by Canadian Physicians for Life, all preferably from outside Alberta. It should also have pro-abortion and pro-life legal counsel. It should go through the CRHA patient files one by one, scrutinizing and questioning the abortionists, the nurses and the women themselves. And then it should issue a public report whether it thinks specific doctors have broken the law.

This would require of Mr. Dinning considerable political courage. However, he has shown before that he is a natural leader, and maybe he has the guts. For nothing else will be believed.