Is the BCTF Aborting Itself?

We have all heard of schools closing around BC (176 in the past 9 years according to the BC Teachers’ Federation) and school districts having to slash jobs and services in order to meet their budgets. Most recently, our own SD 23 announced that as many as 45 jobs will need to be trimmed in order to balance the books. The blame has been pinned on various things including insufficient budgets, rising costs, and even the 2010 Olympic Games. But few dare speak of the even more fundamental, politically incorrect dynamic at work here: BC’s dramatically low birth rate.

As is the case in most of the Western world, BC’s birth rate has been declining steadily over the past several decades. Today, the birth rate in the province is a dangerously low 1.4 births per woman, far below the 2.1 needed to sustain the population. At the same time, about 15,000 future students are aborted each year in BC abortion “clinics.”

According to Reg Rawa at the Ministry of Education, there are 541,000 students in BC this year, down from 597,000 in 1999. Rawa also confirmed that budgets are based on the number of students in the district, and that the amount provided per student has risen quite dramatically over the past 10 years (nearly $1 billion in total).

So simply put, the more students in a particular district, the greater the budget for that district; conversely, the fewer students, the smaller the budget. Thus, it can be logically concluded that a low birth rate (along with a high abortion rate) has a direct and devastating impact on education budgets across BC. It is a mystery, then, that the BCTF would advocate for causes, in particular abortion, that drive birth rates down.

The BCTF website reads like an advocacy portal for all things left-wing, including abortion and other radical feminist causes that always seem to discourage children and parenting. One wonders if they have any clue that they are encouraging the killing of their future students and, by extension, their own livelihood.

A teacher’s union advocating for abortion is like a forestry union promoting zero replanting, or a daycare centre promoting childless marriages. The difference is that the latter have the sense to know they would be killing their own future in the process.

FAS and Abortion: Hello!

While in the Government Liquor Store at Mission Park, Kelowna I came across the publication entitled Pregnant? Did you know that alcohol can hurt your baby? With interest, I helped myself to a copy. I took note that the pamphlet is endorsed by “[t]he doctors, nurses, and midwives of BC”; more specifically, the BC Women’s Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children. After reading through the information, I am compelled to express my thoughts to all of these individuals and groups.

I have a heavy heart for those living with FAS, largely because the condition is so easily preventable. We know its exact cause and how to prevent it. It is a debilitating yet completely avoidable condition that so many are so needlessly afflicted with their entire lives.

Your publication demonstrates that you have an understanding and empathy for those at risk of FAS. Further, you are willing to take action and invest tax-payer money to produce and distribute educational materials, conduct research, set up hotlines, and create bureaucratic agencies to confront the problem. This initiative is consistent with the core purpose of government: to protect the rights and physical well-being of all citizens, particularly the most vulnerable and defenseless among us.

Back to the brochure; in just the first 100 words of your publication, you very correctly refer to the child in the womb as a “baby” or “child” no less than 7 times, including in the title and sub-section headlines. Further, on both the front and back panels you display drawings of a pregnant woman clearly depicting the child in her womb as a baby. On the first drawing, the child is speaking, refusing an alcoholic beverage on behalf of his/her mother, and on the second the child is consuming the same foods as his/her mother.

It is abundantly clear that the makers and supporters of this publication possess an a priori understanding that the unborn baby is indeed a small person vulnerable to the effects of the alcohol, food, tobacco, and drugs his/her mother ingests. Which leads me to ask the “elephant in the room” question: if you recognize that the health of an unborn baby is at risk when a pregnant woman chooses alcohol, why do you fail to see that the very life of an unborn baby is at risk when a pregnant woman chooses abortion?

According to your 1998 publication , Community Action Guide: Working together for the prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome there is no “safe” time to drink during pregnancy, but the unborn baby does appear to be most susceptible to alcohol and other teratogens between 7 and 12 weeks gestation. Interestingly, this is the same time period during which 90% of all abortions take place (Stats Canada, 2003).

Why does our government invest valuable resources to persuade women not to drink during pregnancy because it “hurt[s] the unborn baby” (your words in the pamphlet), but at the same time funds women to hire abortionists who use sharp instruments and powerful suction machines to slice that exact same unborn baby into little pieces? Why does the government claim that “women have the right to do want they want with their bodies without government interference” when it comes to the killing of unborn babies, but then takes quite a different position when it comes to harming them with alcohol?

I can only speculate as to the answer to these questions, and I have deduced that there are 4 possibilities: First, you have bought the dehumanizing rhetoric of the pro-abortion movement and are in denial of the truth that abortion kills a baby. This has resulted in the paradoxical situation wherein when speaking of FAS you have full awareness that the unborn baby being subjected to alcohol is a person at risk, while when speaking of abortion you believe that same baby is only a simple mass of tissue that is a part of the woman’s body and can therefore be amorally extracted and disposed of for any or no reason at all.

Second, you look at the two circumstances strictly from a cost analysis point of view. FAS children are expensive. They are a drain on an already strained health budget and therefore it is worth investing in the prevention of the condition. At the same time, “unwanted” children born to single mothers are expensive as well. They too are a drain on the system and therefore it is worth investing in their elimination. It is a wonder why you don't pursue killing two birds with one stone and develop a prenatal test for FAS with the intent of encouraging abortion whenever it is detected.

Third, you think and act according to the political currents of the day, with little regard for logic or morality. You are aware that actively opposing the infliction of alcohol onto unborn babies is not going to elicit public backlash or controversy nor hurt your chances of winning the next election. On the other hand, you believe that opposing the infliction of death onto unborn babies will do those things, so you refuse to act.

Fourth, all of the above scenarios are true to some extent. They all play out to some degree as you rightfully stand up for the unborn in the case of FAS and woefully turn your backs on them in the case of abortion.

I will end by pleading you to consider this: If you know that alcohol consumption during pregnancy hurts unborn babies, surely you must know that obtaining an abortion during pregnancy kills unborn babies. Please, set aside the language and the deception of the pro-abortion mentality for a few moments, face the truth of abortion, and take action to protect fully the most vulnerable and defenseless among us: the unborn baby in the womb.