Dear Canada: Our Silence is Bad Science
This week I got an email titled: “It’s an exciting time to be a Liberal woman.” The fact is, it’s not.
Currently Canadian law deprives a child of recognition as a human being until the moment of complete birth. Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth has put forward a motion to revisit Section 223, which states that a child is not a human being until “it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.” He is suggesting that Parliament study what modern medical information tells us about when a child should be considered a human being.
And the Liberals are opposing it point blank.
When did Opposition become about opposing ideas, regardless of their good?
According to a 2011 Environics poll, 92% of Canadians feel strongly enough about sex-selection abortion, that they want to see it banned, and 72% of Canadians feel that there should be some protection for all human life before birth (boys and girls), so how is it that Parliament insists on stifling the issue of unborn human rights?
My party’s suppression of debate is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Today I am saying sayonara to my Liberal membership.
In the email I received, Liberal Women’s Caucus President Caprice Barbour writes:
“In the House of Commons, a Conservative Member of Parliament has tabled a Bill that if passed, will upset the hard won and delicate balance that Canadians have achieved in giving women access to safe abortions. This Bill is a first step in turning back the clock on choice. Abortion has not been a criminal offence in Canada since 1988 and the lives of many women have been saved because of it. The Women’s Commission has taken a strong stand in support of Canadian women having access to safe abortions no matter where they live. We hope you will stand with us.” (Emphasis mine.)
What is the balance she speaks of?
We’ve gone long enough without laws protecting the unborn. The issue has laid dormant since 1989, when the Conservative Mulroney government neglected to challenge a tie in Senate. We need legislation that supports children and women. Legislating against partial-birth abortions is good thinking and sound healthcare.
Why?
Because if someone on the street carefully cut open my eight-month pregnant stomach with a scalpel, inside they’d find a fully-formed human, a little girl or boy, ready to take on life on the outside.
If the same person took a rock and began hammering on my belly you, along with 99% of Canadians, would be horrified. Because that’s a living person inside.
Yet, if I were to take my 36-week pregnant body to a local abortion clinic, under current legislation, it would be legal for them to dispose of my baby, no questions asked.
In the wake of the last election I remained a Liberal in hopes of progressive change within the party. I never thought abortion would be on the table. Now that it is, the game has changed.
I am turning in my card. I don’t want red on my hands anymore.
_____________________
An important note from Stephen Woodworth:
“There is no question that our seventeenth Century law declaring that a child is not a human being until complete birth is related to the issue of abortion. However, whatever view one might take of abortion laws, isn’t it important and helpful to know whether the child is a human being? Shouldn’t a law with fundamental human rights implications be informed by truthful science and just principles? If a child is actually a human being before complete birth, should any Canadian law be so arbitrary as to designate anyone who is human as less than human? This has far wider implications than merely for the abortion issue. Parliament should not accept any law that says some human beings are not human.”
Related Links:
Abortion in Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_canada
MP’s motion aims an arrow at the self-deceptions of abortion.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/14/mps-motion-aims-an-arrow-at-the-self-deceptions-of-abortion/
CHANGE MY MIND: When Should a Fetus be Recognized as a Child?
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/stephen-woodworth/post_3178_b_1397417.html
MP Stephen Woodworth – Motion 312
http://www.stephenwoodworth.ca/canadas-400-year-old-definition-of-human-being/motion-312
ProWoman, ProLife
http://www.prowomanprolife.org/
4 comments
Perhaps the motion should consider what the ethical definition of a human being is, and whether an embryo, fetus, or infant or animal would reasonably qualify. A starting point is emerging in the ethics community: http://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2012/03/01/medethics-2011-100411.full.pdf+html
I applaud your stand! Too many of us are remaining complacent as innocent lives are lost.
Good stuff. i feel guilty when i go vote, because all the candidates on the ballot are pro-abortion. Only some areas have pro-life candidates, while others do not. i congratulate you for leaving the Liberal party. Likewise, i’ve stopped supporting the Greens when they, like the Liberals, wanted to stain their hands with Red.
First of all,I don’t think any one, pro-choice or otherwise, questions the human nature of a fetus. We certainly don’t think we’re discussing a toaster, tea-kettle or kangaroo embryo gestating inside a pregnant woman.
I strongly disagree with Woodsworth’s opinion that “declaring that a child is not a human being until complete birth is related to the issue of abortion.” Rather, it is an issue directly related to ensuring that a woman has full legal autonomy over her body at all times.
The problem with personhood laws is that remove women’s rights as full human beings, and have even criminalized their decision-making during pregnancy. There are a number of alarming cases in the US, where personhood laws are in place in several states, and they have been used for awful things such as court-ordering women who desired trial of labours for a VBAC to have C-sections. Women have been restrained and forced under general anesthesia against their will because the hospital had a ban on VBACs and used the personhood law to put the unborn fetus into protective custody of the state, which then mandated cesarean delivery for the child. In another state with personhood laws in place, a woman who had spoken with her care provider about abortion early in her pregnancy, but then decided to continue the pregnancy and fell down the stairs and sought care at the hospital afterwards. She was arrested and charged with attempted murder of her fetus. A recent case in a state with personhood laws in place saw a woman whose fetus was incompatible with life due to severe birth defects. She wanted to induce labour and deliver the baby, as her water had broken and her uterus was crushing the fetus. However, she was was legally unable to do so because she was past the gestational age eligible for abortion, but before the “viable fetus” date. Even though her doctors recommended that she be induced and went to court for her to be allowed to induce labour, she was forced to carry her pregnancy, against her will until she went into labour spontaneously.
As a doula, these cases are extremely concerning. I already see an erosion women’s rights in hospitals. Fear mongering and pressure to comply with interventions that are for the doctor or hospital’s convenience and when women decline inductions or c-sections they are often met opposition and judgement. The last thing they need is to have to face legal opposition to their choices because their unborn baby has legal rights separate from them.
My questions are these: Do we trust women? Do we trust women to know themselves and their needs well enough to make the best choices for their lives? Do we really want to take away women’s rights to choose whether they want to be pregnant or not? Do we really want to take away women’s rights to choose where and how they give birth?
This one will hit home for you: There are cases where women who have had home births have had their children take away by social services for “child endangerment” because the woman’s doctor didn’t believe home birth was safe. Do you think that Madeline and Matthew should be removed from your care because you made the choice to birth in a situation that many doctors think is unsafe? Who should be trusted to make your reproductive choices for you? Should you be trusted to choose that home birth is a safe birthing choice for you? Would you like to be court ordered to birth in a hospital or birth by cesarean because your unborn child has legal rights separate from yours?
Women do not cheerfully and blithely waltz into abortion clinics to end pregnancies. Every single woman I know (and I know many) who have had abortions have had them thoughtfully and often sadly, but also with great relief and gratitude that safe, medical termination was available to them.
It is actually untrue that if you went to an abortion clinic at 36 weeks that you would be able to have a “no questions asked” Most abortions in Canada are done in the first trimester, and even then there is counseling done at the abortion clinic to ensure the woman is sure of her choice. I have had a friend in her first trimester who thought she wanted an abortion, but was a bit unsure. She turned away by the clinic, given some worksheets to go through to help work through her decision and to come back if she came to the decision that an abortion was for her. She didn’t go back. It’s actually fairly difficult to get an abortion after 16 weeks. Not that it doesn’t happen, but most clinics won’t do them after 16 weeks, and some clinics don’t even do them past 9 weeks.
In 2010, the most recent Stats Can statistics available, there were just over 60,000 abortions in Canada. Less than 2% of those were over 21 weeks. 98% of abortions occur before that.
Research has shown that restrictive abortion laws don’t actually decrease abortions. They just decrease SAFE abortions. I don’t want blood on my hands either. Women – and their fetuses – die when they cannot access safe, affordable and timely abortions.
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