Alberta's pro-life organization has graded Alberta's Premier Danielle Smith on some of her abortion-related policies — and the results are in.Prolife Alberta summarizes Smith's policies on abortion as "Safe, legal, and rare," something Smith stated previously on the matter back in 2022 at a leadership race.Now they are grading Smith's abortion-related policies, including her stance on "abortion bubble zone" laws based on the Protecting Choice for Women Accessing Health Care Act, giving her a failing grade in this regard.The law that was enacted in 2018 under Alberta's NDP created bubble zones, spaces of 50 meters around designated abortion facilities where protests, interference, recording, and interference are illegal. .Prolife Alberta claims the laws are anti-free speech.As Richard Dur, the executive director of Prolife Alberta, told the Western Standard, this is also against the free speech Smith claims to value."It's sort of surprising that Smith, who has been openly an open proponent for free speech, wouldn't do anything when it comes to allowing or eliminating the the laws that prohibit free speech outside an abortion facilities," stated Dur.As the only good grade Smith did receive on the report was for adoption, where the premier got a B, after creating an adoption incentive for adopting families..A private adoption subsidy which was introduced back in late 2023 gives $6,000 to Alberta families who make less than $180,000 and have privately adopted a child, and those families can also be eligible for certain tax breaks. "[It's a] good thing the subsidy helps a family adopt a child, but this mother has already chosen life for her child, so it's not as if it provides anything in the way of support to the pregnant woman deciding whether to choose abortion or life for her child," stated Dur."So it is helpful for adoptive families, but it doesn't provide anything in the way of support for the mother facing the abortion decision."Dur also gives Smith a failing grade in terms of chemical abortion laws, in large part due to the "lack of oversight."."Plus, there's the absence of an in-person medical examination, the ability then to confirm the gestational age of the baby, which is important when it comes to the administration of chemical abortion drugs, because if it's administered too late, that can be life-threatening for the mother," states Dur."If she's having an ectopic pregnancy, that's not something that a pregnancy test picks up.""That's something that needs to be verified by ultrasound, and it basically becomes a do-it-yourself abortion without medical safeguards in place to protect the pregnant woman, let alone the baby."A mandatory phone call is usually only necessary 5-7 days after taking chemical abortion medication in Alberta, though a urine pregnancy test is usually asked for 30 days after taking the medication.
