Good reasons for all sides to support this unborn bill
LORNA DUECK
March 5, 2008
There was a faint heartbeat in baby Gul when she arrived at Toronto's
St. Michael's Hospital last October; her mother's was equally weak.
Aysun Sesen, 25, was seven months pregnant, but neither survived stab
wounds to Ms. Sesen's abdomen. The husband was charged with one count
of second-degree murder.
In Edmonton two years earlier, baby Lane Jr. was hope and purpose
personified for his 19-year-old mother, Olivia Talbot, who was six
months pregnant. On a day she'd spent hanging curtains for her baby's
nursery, she opened her door to a friend who may have been in a state
of crystal-meth-induced paranoia. There, on her step, she was shot
three times in the abdomen and twice in the head. Later, Ms. Talbot's
mother, Mary, held baby Lane and observed that only his right leg had
been grazed by a bullet. But he'd died because his mother had died.
Mary Talbot says police recordings of the killer's confession hear him
say: "I wanted to get the baby. ... Will I be charged for two murders?"
Not in Canada.
Neither will the Winnipeg teens who beat to death 24-year-old Roxanne
Fernando last year because she refused to have an abortion. Nor will
the Dartmouth, N.S., man who stabbed his pregnant girlfriend, Charlene
Knapp, with a sword last July. Ms. Knapp survived, but her child did
not. No charges were laid in connection with the death of the fetus.
We can find more recent horrific facts from our reality with domestic
violence, but they will always point back to an issue we should be
embarrassed to own. We do have not justice in place for unborn children.
In the House of Commons today, a free vote is scheduled that would
finally present something to the justice committee to examine on this
issue. Bill C-484, a private member's bill tabled by Conservative MP
Ken Epp, would amend the Criminal Code to allow separate charges to be
laid in the death or injury of an unborn child when a pregnant woman is
attacked. While the vote would only launch C-484 into committee for
study, it's ignited a firestorm of activism by abortion-rights
advocates.
The pro-life camp is muted; there are no petitions that I can find, and
the usual petition-happy Campaign Life calls C-484's wording
"unfortunate."
This bill doesn't cover what anti-abortionists are after. The Unborn
Victims of Crime Act contains a "for greater certainty" clause
explicitly excluding abortion, excluding any acts or omissions by the
mother, and would criminalize attacks on a woman's preborn child by
third parties only, and only "death or injury during the commission of
a crime."
It protects a mother's right to give consent to pregnancy termination,
and that's explicitly stated in the proposed bill, which would
anathematize a pro-life campaigner. The Abortion Rights Coalition of
Canada still wants the bill voted down because it feels it's an
"unconstitutional infringement on women's rights" and is calling for
petitions against it.
Here's the heart of the conflict: unborn child versus human being. A
child is considered a human being with protection in the Criminal Code
only "when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the
body of its mother." Bill C-484 does not propose to change that
definition, but would add the phrase: "every person who directly or
indirectly causes the death of a child during birth or at any stage of
development before birth while committing or attempting to commit an
offence against the mother."
So even though the bill contains "for greater certainty" points to
protect abortion activity, pro-choice advocates object. "I am a
pro-choice person and it wasn't ever intended to be an issue like this,
pro-life or pro-choice," said Mary Talbot. "Everyone should be behind
this bill."
I am a pro-life person, but I am just as equally a person wanting to
give justice to a woman who made the choice to keep her child but was
attacked and robbed of her choice. You may argue that, if someone is so
angry they'll stab or shoot a pregnant woman, the thought of two murder
convictions won't slow them down. Perhaps not, but it will say that
Canadians fight for a woman's right of safety when pregnant, and we
provide justice when a women's choice is attacked by violence.
Lorna
Dueck
is the Executive Producer of Listen Up TV www.listenuptv.com
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On April 30, 2005 Lorna was privileged to receive an honorary Doctorate of Christian Ministries from Canada's largest Christian university, Trinity Western University. Lorna was recognized for the witness and leadership that Listen Up TV has provided in public messaging: "a leader in the voice of evangelical life in Canada."
