The Conservative government must have gotten spooked at all the public opposition coming over Bill C-484, because suddenly Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has announced the Conservative government is going to basically abandon Ken Epp’s private members bill - The Unborn Victims of Violence Act - with its own government-sponsored bill, that will have no mention of fetal rights in it:

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced Monday that the government will draft a new bill to replace Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, so that it closes the debate about fetal rights and focuses instead on penalizing criminals who harm pregnant women…”We’ve heard criticism from across the country, including representatives of the medical community, that Mr. Epp’s bill as presently drafted could be interpreted as instilling fetal rights. Let me be clear. Our government will not reopen the debate on abortion,” Mr. Nicholson said. “For this reason … I’m announcing that the government will introduce legislation that will punish criminals who commit violence against pregnant women but do so in a way that leaves no room for the introduction of fetal rights.“

More signs of an election perhaps that the governing Conservatives are trying to remove anything that looks remotely controversial. I don’t think it would be a big stretch to say part of this was initiated by Stephane Dion challenging Harper last week to make clear his views on abortion after publicly opposing Bill C-484 at Garth Turner’s town hall. We saw some rather perturbed Conservative supporters reaction, both on the blogs and on the radio talk shows.

The coup-de-gras was probably administered when the Canadian Medical Association came out and publicly opposed it.. but I think some credit has to be given to Dion for his very public call-out of Harper on what his position on abortion was for helping to start the momentum rolling on helping to get this bill scuttled.

As an aside, I’m sure the social conservatives and the religious right must be ticked with the Cons. letting them down. I’d advise them there’s always the Christian Heritage Party, or Family Coalition Party to go and vote for.

Stephen Taylor came up with a post trying to claim because the Liberals have some social conservatives in their caucus (GASP! What a revelation!), somehow that makes the Liberals and Dion hypocrites on abortion. As Red Tory says:

Last time I checked, I don’t believe there was any requirement for members to fall into lock-step with the leader on this controversial issue and it’s fair to say that Dion’s position is entirely representative of the vast majority of the caucus.

It’s rather interesting to me that one rather innocuous sounding statement from Dion in answer to 1 question on that issue (dealing with Bill C-484, Ken Epp’s private member’s bill) in the broader 66 minute town hall at Halton where most of the questions were on the Green Shift and the environment has sent certain Conservative supporters scurrying around either trying to attack Dion, or else reassuring their readers what Harper has said on the issue (which isn’t much, at least not about his personal views on the topic).

You’d think they were afraid of being painted as being out of touch with the majority of Canadian opinion or something.

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.