The National Discussion on Preborn Rights Continues
April 15, 2013 – André Schutten – The annual March for Life is quickly approaching. For those of you who plan to join me (and thousands of others!) in Ottawa, thank you for contributing to a passionate and visual call for protection of the preborn child. The March is a great opportunity for friends and families to get away for a day or two and to contribute in a powerful way to a national discussion on life.
In the past year we’ve seen an incredible amount of discussion on this issue already. For anyone who says the debate is over, I say, “Baloney!” Let me just note five significant national discussions on this issue that have happened in the last seven months alone.
1. Motion 312 (a motion introduced by MP Stephen Woodworth calling on Parliament to study the definition of human being, a definition which currently excludes preborn children) was defeated in a vote of 91 to 203 on September 26th last fall. This motion generated an incredible amount of discussion across the country and in Parliament too. It appears that the pro-abortion establishment has led us to exclude some human beings from the protection of the law. The debate on preborn life began again!
2. The very next day, another motion, M-408 was announced. This motion simply asked Parliament to condemn “sex-selective pregnancy termination”; that is, abortions of baby girls who are killed simply because they are female. In June of 2012, CBC confirmed with an undercover investigation that this practice does in fact happen. It appears that the pro-abortion establishment has led us to gendercide – the targeted elimination of members of one gender. The debate on preborn life continued!
3. In October, 2012 the Supreme Court had to wrestle with the case of the dead baby on the balcony. Ms. Levkovic was charged after a building superintendent found a badly decomposed human baby on her apartment balcony. Ms. Levkovic later told police that she had fallen, went into labour, and then put the dead body of the baby girl in a plastic bag and left it on the balcony. A pathologist could not determine whether the baby had died before or after birth.
Ms. Levkovic was charged under Section 243 of the Criminal Code, which outlaws the concealing of the body of a dead child regardless of whether the “child died before, during or after birth.” But the word “child” is not defined in the Criminal Code, and the original trial judge could not come up with a clear definition for the term in cases where a death occurs before birth. Does the term child then include a human fetus? Or only a late-term, more fully developed fetus? Does it include a human embryo? Does it matter how old the fetus is before birth or how likely it will survive after birth?
At issue before the Supreme Court was whether the words “child died before . . . birth” are vague and therefore whether s. 243 breaches s. 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 7 is the right to not be deprived of liberty except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice (of which one principle is that a vague law cannot be a just law). Although the Supreme Court has not yet released a decision, this case demonstrates that the pro-abortion establishment has led us to the careless treatment of infants and a disregard for their bodies. The debate on preborn life continued!
4. The next month, news broke of babies being born alive due to a failed abortion procedure, and then being left to die. The mainstream media refused to pick up the story until three Members of Parliament, nearly three months later, requested the RCMP to investigate. Even then, the majority of the news outlets got the story wrong. It appears that the pro-abortion establishment has led us to infanticide. The debate on preborn life continued!
5. Then, in March of this year, debate on M-408 (the gendercide motion) was suppressed in the House of Commons by all three party leaders. Now the House of Commons cannot even discuss sex-selective abortion! It appears that the pro-abortion establishment has led us to tyranny. And finally the mainstream media started swinging in our favour. The discussion on preborn life continues!
Participation in the March for Life this May will help to keep the pressure on, keep the media engaged, keep our youth excited, keep our political elites on edge, keep the lives of preborn Canadians at the forefront of our national discourse and keep the discussion alive. For those who are able to come, I look forward to seeing you! For those not able to make it, I hope to see you next year.
