For Immediate Release – September 28, 2009 – MP Maurice Vellacott

 

OTTAWA –  Just prior to MP Maurice Vellacott tabling petitions today, Liberal MP Marlene Jennings tabled a petition calling on the government to adopt effective animal welfare legislation because “It is well known that there is scientific consensus and public acknowledgement that animals feel pain and can experience suffering.” Vellacott (Conservative – Saskatoon-Wanuskewin) took the opportunity to note that preborn human children also feel pain, pain and suffering that is not recognized in Canadian law which allows for legal abortion through all nine months of a pregnancy. On the floor of the House of Commons, Vellacott said:

 

Mr. Speaker, as a follow up to that series of petitions in respect of the pain that animals feel and in view of the fact that babies in the womb for the entire nine months feel some considerable pain caused by the abortion procedures that are used in this country, these petitioners in the country of Canada note that in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms everyone has a right to life, freedom from pain and freedom from the kind of assault fetuses experience in the womb.

 

It has been 47 years, since May 14, 1969, when Parliament changed the law to permit abortions and since January 28, 1988 Canada has had no law to protect the lives of unborn children. The petitioners are calling on Parliament, as the Supreme Court also urged, to pass legislation for the protection of human life from the time of conception and fertilization until the time of natural death.

 

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