Madeline Frazer marked the tenth anniversary of her husband’s death in a touching way. She wrote a B.C. Catholic column about the life and legacy of Dr. Brian Frazer.
Dated Nov. 8, 1999, the article appears here.
Now, on the 30th anniversary of Dr. Frazer’s passing, Madeline has a grander tribute planned: a book on his life as a Catholic, pro-life physician. It will also have a unique appendix: complete transcripts of radio interviews he did with various Vancouver talk show hosts back in the 1980s.
Born in Johannesburg, Frazer practised medicine in South Africa, England, and Canada. His early interest in pediatrics grew into an obstetrics and gynecology specialty. But as he applied for positions, he was told his views were out of place. Abortion was becoming increasingly legalized and regularized, and doctors were coming under more pressure to participate, something Frazer found appalling.
Early in his medical career he had resolved never to perform an abortion. A Catholic, he researched the matter, reading everything from medical literature to philosophy to theology, including Thomas Aquinas, Scripture, and encyclicals. Everything he read, as well as the Hippocratic Oath he had taken, confirmed abortion was contrary to the ethics of medicine.
As an obstetrician, he found he was unable to separate the bond between the pregnant woman and her child, said Madeline. Two lives, two human beings, both demanded he provide the best medical care he could give. A pregnant woman with a medical condition needed medical care, not an abortion, he said.
He settled in Vancouver in the 1970s, and as abortion moved from being something clandestine to legal and celebrated, Brian Frazer was a rarity: a pro-life doctor willing to speak publicly and be shunned by a medical community that not only embraced abortion, but castigated colleagues who weren’t equally enthusiastic. He found himself alienated by other doctors, and one hospital department head said he looked forward to getting rid of Frazer after a one-year posting.
In 1988, when Vancouver’s first abortion clinic opened at 44th and Victoria, Frazer protested. He was the lone picket, carrying a sign that read, “Doctors Against Abortion.” Despite a heart condition that required him to bring a chair for rest, he walked in front of the clinic day after day.
Less than a year before his death, The Vancouver Sun profiled him.
Continually confronted with the argument that abortion was sometimes medically necessary, Frazer always kept an open mind to any medical reason that could be used to justify abortion. He never found one.
As abortion became legalized, Frazer became a medical voice for the pro-life movement until Canada’s abortion law was struck down in 1988.
He became a go-to source for radio interviewers looking for a medical expert to discuss abortion. Talk show hosts ranging from Pat Burns to Rafe Mair regularly had him on, and he would field listeners’ calls.
Throughout the open-line interviews, some of which were broadcast coast to coast and lasted for hours, Frazer would respond calmly and scientifically to caller after caller, using arguments from natural law to medical ethics. He repeatedly put forward invitations for anyone to provide an example of a medically required abortion. No one ever did.
Frazer died July 26, 1989, a year after the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s abortion law.
Madeline has more than 20 of the radio interviews her husband did, recorded and stored on disc, where they remain “as fresh as the day they were spoken because the issues are still out there.”
She is now working on a book about Frazer and his commitment to life, and she hopes to include about a dozen of those transcribed interviews in it.
The book’s working title is The Voice That Would Not be Silenced, and she is looking for ideas on how she might publish it. I’ll be happy to forward to her any suggestions.
You can email me at pschratz@rcav.org.
Twitter @paulschratz
