Pregnant women deserve protection for their fetuses

[maldon_road]

This is number one on the lib-left's hate list. But it does have some following since it passed at 2nd reading. It is now before the Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee where I have no doubt it will get bogged down.

Pregnant women deserve protection for their fetuses

KEN EPP, MP, Freelance

Bill C-484's supporters have no agenda to recriminalize abortion

Edmonton Conservative MP Ken Epp has sponsored C-484, a private member's bill which would make it a criminal offence to "directly or indirectly, (cause) 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 of the child, who the person knows or ought to know is pregnant." The bill is before the Commons committee on justice and human rights for study....

magine being a woman who is pregnant and wants to be, who wants to bring her developing child to term and raise it in her family. She has made a choice. She knows what is growing inside her is going to be a person in her family some day.

By all means reject the notion that it is a "person" now if that is your personal belief - Bill C-484 doesn't change that at all, in fact. But I hope you will acknowledge that to this woman it is a life that is growing inside her. If someone attacks her and takes that away from her, she has lost something very real. To her and her family, it matters deeply...

Despite what opponents have said, Bill C-484 is truly not about abortion. If a woman wants to have an abortion in Canada, we all understand that she has that recourse and this bill has explicit wording to respect that choice....

Ken Epp's comments

Bill-C484

[guyser]

Another dumb law.

Why cant they apply the laws on the books instead of making up some new silly ones?

[DrGreenthumb]

This is number one on the lib-left's hate list. But it does have some following since it passed at 2nd reading. It is now before the Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee where I have no doubt it will get bogged down.

Bill c484 IS about abortion, one only has to look at who is backing this bill, namely pro-life groups, to see what the hidden intent of this bill is.

[Oleg Bach]

Bill c484 IS about abortion, one only has to look at who is backing this bill, namely pro-life groups, to see what the hidden intent of this bill is.

You would think this abortion issue would have been put to rest a long time ago on the simple fact that we import human beings from where abortion is frowned upon - mean while we vanquish and destroy our own nationalist that established this nation with their sweat...the decendants of the establishers are all being aborted - what's wrong with this picture? Does anyone smell a tad of stinking disloyalty? Plus the term "pro-life" - you would safely assume that we are all pro-life and anti-death....but who knows - some of us are nuts and have no genetic survival skills - welcome the folks from China - this spectacle called the Olypics is like a huge dog marking it's global territory - we just got peed on as they strive for world dominance - as we kill our own children and call it a choice or some sort of reproductive freedom - where abrotion providers steal your ownly true wealth - your genetics! Bill c484 will pass because we have men in power that hate humans...plain and simple - haters rule!

[maldon_road]

In the eyes of some, since the anti-aborts don't have the votes for a frontal attack, they are trying to get it through the back door.

Bill endangers abortion rights

Letter

Once again, Ken Epp trots out the same old propaganda about his Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act ("Pregnant women deserve protection for their fetuses," Opinion, Aug. 7).

In many U.S. states, "fetal- homicide" laws have been misused to arrest hundreds of pregnant women. Epp claims there are "no valid comparisons to make," but even with the best of intentions, laws can be used for ends that can't be predicted in advance. This has happened over and over again in the U.S., even though these laws were intended to apply only to third-party attacks on pregnant women, just like Epp's bill.

In many of the American cases, it made no difference if the law exempted pregnant women from liability, as does Epp's bill. Women were often charged under a different law (such as a child endangerment law) that explicitly relied on the authority of a fetal homicide law. Epp seems unaware that Bill C-484 could be used the same way in Canada.

Epp claims that C-484 does not change the definition of a human being. In fact, his bill grants legal personhood to fetuses in eight specific ways, as detailed in a rebuttal (www.arcc-cdac.ca/presentations/rebuttal-to-ken-epp.pdf) we sent him in May....

(full letter)

Letter

[ispeakforher]

What is this?

[guyser]

What is this?

A pale blue background with a darker blue border encapsulating black letters in the form of words and sentences.

It is called Maple Leaf Web.

[maldon_road]

What is this?

What are you referring to? Bill C-484? There have been recent developments.

[HisSelf]

There will be an onus of proof on the Crown to show that the perp knew that the victim was pregnant. If that can be proved, then I agree there should be special treatment.

[maldon_road]

There will be an onus of proof on the Crown to show that the perp knew that the victim was pregnant. If that can be proved, then I agree there should be special treatment.

This Bill is now dead after what Nicholson did. It'll die anyway with an election.

[WIP]

Bill c484 IS about abortion, one only has to look at who is backing this bill, namely pro-life groups, to see what the hidden intent of this bill is.

The bill should be judged on its own merits, not speculation on the motives of the people who are proposing it. In a hypothetical situation where this might be an issue: if a man kicks his wife, ex-wife, girlfriend whatever, in the abdomen after declaring his intention to stop her from having his baby, should he be charged with murder? Or at least infanticide? If not, why not? Other than a fear that it might lead to restricting abortion access.

Maybe it's time to establish some clear guidelines regarding abortion. Should a fetus at 22 weeks or so, be guaranteed a right to life? Neither side in the abortion debate seems to deal with the reality that there is an unavoidable conflict between fetal rights and the rights of pregnant women. Prolifers believe the fetus's rights supercede the mother's rights to decide how to deal with pregnancy at any stage of development. The absolute prochoicers are afraid to recognize a third trimester fetus's basic level of awareness because they don't want to address the problem of conflicting rights also. So the best they can offer is, 'it's not a baby until it drops.' But an honest confrontation with these conflicting rights would probably recognize fetal right to life when the higher brain functions are developing, especially the possibility of sensing pain. Even then, the right to life shouldn't be absolute. Should a fetus be brought to term if it is deformed or has some life-threatening condition that will end its life prematurely? And of course, what if the pregnancy is putting the mother's life in danger. The mother's life should have higher value than the fetus in such a situation.

As soon as that's settled, maybe we can get around to establishing some sensible guidelines at the other end of the life cycle, for people who want to decide when and under what conditions they can choose to end their own lives.

[DrGreenthumb]

The bill should be judged on its own merits, not speculation on the motives of the people who are proposing it. In a hypothetical situation where this might be an issue: if a man kicks his wife, ex-wife, girlfriend whatever, in the abdomen after declaring his intention to stop her from having his baby, should he be charged with murder? Or at least infanticide? If not, why not? Other than a fear that it might lead to restricting abortion access.

Maybe it's time to establish some clear guidelines regarding abortion. Should a fetus at 22 weeks or so, be guaranteed a right to life? Neither side in the abortion debate seems to deal with the reality that there is an unavoidable conflict between fetal rights and the rights of pregnant women. Prolifers believe the fetus's rights supercede the mother's rights to decide how to deal with pregnancy at any stage of development. The absolute prochoicers are afraid to recognize a third trimester fetus's basic level of awareness because they don't want to address the problem of conflicting rights also. So the best they can offer is, 'it's not a baby until it drops.' But an honest confrontation with these conflicting rights would probably recognize fetal right to life when the higher brain functions are developing, especially the possibility of sensing pain. Even then, the right to life shouldn't be absolute. Should a fetus be brought to term if it is deformed or has some life-threatening condition that will end its life prematurely? And of course, what if the pregnancy is putting the mother's life in danger. The mother's life should have higher value than the fetus in such a situation.

As soon as that's settled, maybe we can get around to establishing some sensible guidelines at the other end of the life cycle, for people who want to decide when and under what conditions they can choose to end their own lives.

PLease make this an election issue.

[maldon_road]

PLease make this an election issue.

It already is. Tory support of Bill C-484 has come up in the by-elections as "evidence" of an anti-abort animus on the part of the CPC. That's why the Justice Minister distanced the party from it.

If abortion becomes an issue it will help the Liberals.