Great catch by Laura over at We Move to Canada. She caught a show in CP24 with a debate involving Ken Epp trying to reassure everyone how his bill has nothing to do with granting legal status to a fetus, is not anti-abortion, could not be used to prosecute pregnant women. When others began to press Ken on why not toughen sentences on attackers of pregnant women rather then bringing the fetus into it as he has done with his bill, his answer according to Laura was that he wanted to recognize the humanity of the unborn child.
This was said just moments after insisting his bill had nothing to do with granting legal status to a fetus, which seems to me to be a big contradiction on his part. A fetus and a child are not the same thing, Mr. Epp. A child has legal personhood rights, a fetus does not. The Canadian Criminal Code and the Supreme Court of Canada say that very clearly, and I agree with Laura that she can’t see how this doesn’t lead to the next step of declaring “legal personhood” for the fetus, leading then of course to the next step of declaring that abortions are therefore violating the rights of the fetus’s “unborn humanity”
Something else to consider is that everyone on that show agreed that even if this law was passed, murderers of pregnant women would get no longer of a sentence for murdering someone then without this proposed law in place. All this does is recognizes that 2 people were killed, not 1. Therefore, this law would do nothing to protect women. It is designed solely to recognize that the fetus is somehow a person. The main motivation of Ken Epp and his supporters then, in my view, is a backdoor attempt down the road to try and turn back the clock and turn women and their health-care providers into criminals for wanting to have a choice, and giving them that choice.
I urge the Parliament, and particularly the pro-choice Liberals in that caucus to not allow this back-door attempt to be passed. Defeat Bill C-484.
Thanks, Scott - for the link and for your support.