Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Abortion Debate Goes On

In the Parliament (no, the debate didn't end with the defeat of the Motion 312)...
The answer came almost immediately when B.C. Conservative MP Mark Warawa filed another motion: “That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”
...
The fact that sex-selection abortion in Canada is occurring also raises what should be unthinkable questions for our society. To what extent, for example, is female feticide associated with creating a culture in which other abuses of women – such as “honour killings” – are tolerated? And how consistent are we in our approach in criminal law when we prohibit female genital mutilation but not the killing of an unborn girl just because she’s a girl?
...And even in the Supreme Court itself.
OTTAWA — Just a few weeks after Parliament debated a motion on when human life begins, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal that again raises the difficult issue of when a fetus is considered a human being under the law.

The case is one of more than two dozen appeals Canada’s top court will hear in a fall session dominated by issues of life and death, including a case about withdrawing life support and one about a baby abandoned in a store bathroom.

But the case of Ivana Levkovic, who was charged with, then acquitted of, concealing the dead body of a child, hearkens back to a divisive debate federal politicians recently held...
...
The defeated motion in Parliament, and the Levkovic case, deal with different parts of the Criminal Code, but both confront the question of when a human life begins.
Like it or not, the fetal rights debate is not going to go away. Not until the common sense triumphs and the self-evident truths that life begins at conception and that an unborn baby is a human, are acknowledged by our nation and enshrined in law.

1 comment:

Osumashi Kinyobe said...

What you said.

Harper's weaselly avoidance will not make this go away.