Health minister ‘deeply disturbed’ by abortion report

Hoskins reminds doctors they must not perform procedure so parents can select gender

Ontario’s health minister is speaking out strongly against “sex-selective” abortions of female fetuses by parents who want males.

And he is reminding doctors that they should not be doing such procedures.

Dr. Eric Hoskins said Tuesday he was “deeply disturbed” to see a study of more than six million Canadians births revealing a greater presence of boys among Indian-born mothers may be linked in part to second-trimester abortions after parents can learn the baby’s gender.

“No health-care provider, including physicians, should, in any circumstances, be providing or supporting individuals or families that are attempting to determine the sex of their child in order to secure a sexselective abortion,” Hoskins told reporters.

“This is an issue of gender equality and equity and (the behaviour) has no place in Canada, let alone in Ontario.”

Hoskins, a family doctor and public health expert, said the College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario has restrictions on sex-selective abortions.

“It’s important that doctors and other front-line health care providers understand that there are guidelines . . . by the CPSO that restrict them from engaging or being complicit in this practice.”

Hoskins has asked the self-regula- tory body for doctors to determine whether “any further measures need to be taken to review the guidelines that are currently in place . . . or if other measures need to be taken.”

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and its online CMAJ Open publication found that a preference for boys among Indian-born parents may have contributed to a deficit of more than 4,400 girls over two decades.

Researchers, who used information from Statistics Canada and the Toronto-based Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, refer to the phenomenon as Canada’s “missing girls.”

Hoskins said any additional steps taken to curb sex-selective abortions must “strike the right balance” and said Ontario, unlike some other jurisdictions, would not restrict par- ents from learning the gender of fetuses.

“I certainly wouldn’t want the choice that women have to seek therapeutic abortion. However, there is a right of an individual to have access to personal health information” about an unborn child, he added.

Education is a key element of spreading the message that sex-selective abortions are morally unacceptable, Hoskins said.

“Absent that education, there likely would continue to be circumstances where an individual woman, for example, may choose to return to their place of origin, if they’re a new immigrant . . . to undergo that procedure.”

“So it’s critically important, I think, that we educate our health-care professionals and help them understand the consequences, but also educate, particularly, new immigrants in certain communities that this is an issue of gender equality and equity, and it’s a practice which has no place in Canada, let alone in Ontario.”

The study found that while the natural odds of having a boy are slighter higher than having a girl, at 107 boys for every 100 girls, Indian-born mothers living in Canada with two children had 138 boys for every 100 girls.

In Ontario, Indian-born women with two daughters gave birth to 196 boys for every 100 girls.

The study implied that the disproportionate ratios are a result of “sex discrimination fuelled by son-preference” among people from Asian countries, particularly India.

It said Indian immigrants have the highest documented male-to-female birth ratio in the world.