40 - 40 - 20

Choice Joyce at Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada has researched which MPs are anti-choice, pro-choice, or unknown using their public statements during campaigns, their position on the awarding of the Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler, and how they voted on Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, at Second Reading in 2008.

Con MPs who voted in favour of Bill C-484 but have no other known public position on abortion are possibly still pro-choice, says Joyce, and therefore are not included in the anti-choice stats. Members of the Bloc and NDP are presumed to be pro-choice. Details on individual MPs are listed below the chart.

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40% pro - 39% anti - 21% unknown - the support among federal MPs for the right of women to control what happens to their own bodies.

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According to Joyce's calculations, one quarter of the Libs are anti-choice.

SoCon Liberal MP Paul Szabo, Chair of the Ethics Committee, spoke at Fetus Festivus on the Hill last week :

"We will be back to reconsidering the question in the House . . . We’re taking incremental steps, small steps. It’s just a question of knowing when it’s the right time."

In March, a Liberal motion to include abortion in Harper's G8 maternal health initiative failed 144-138 because 3 Blue Dog Libs voted against it, 2 abstained, and 12 Libs skipped the vote.

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Last fall, Con MP Brad Trost initiated a petition, signed by 30 MPs, demanding an end to the Canadian International Development Agency's $18 million in annual funding for Planned Parenthood. Six months into 2010, Planned Parenthood is still without funding.

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CON³ cranks up the anti-abortion wurlitzer

Conservative Convention Constitution, aka CON³, Resolution P-207 -

legislation to make assault causing harm to fetus a separate crime - PASSED

Kady from the convention floor :

"A delegate from the East Coast bravely makes the argument that this would, indeed, open the door to fetal rights - which gets a cheer, and then boos when she indicates that this would be a bad thing."

G&M : "The “Protecting Pregnant Women” policy resolution passed by a narrow margin despite warnings to Tories from abortion rights advocates that it was part of a “slippery slope” to criminalizing abortion.
Mr. Nicholson said the Harper government would move as it promised in August to enact similar legislation to the passed resolution. He repeated earlier Conservative pledges that this was not an effort to attack the right to abort."

Ok, apart from the cheering on the convention floor that would indicate this is, indeed, an effort to attack the right to abortion, what was that previous "similar legislation" for, Rob?

Ken Epp, author of C-484, via We Move To Canada :

"Because we want to recognize the humanity of that unborn child. Whether that child was killed three months before birth or three months after birth, it was still a child, there was still a loss of life. The other side might wish to deny the humanity of that unborn child, but we want the law to recognize it."

Alrighty then. As JJ says : Bring it.

Con Convention '08 : Running with scissors

BigCityLib says Winnipeg may just become the most hilarious city in Canada next week when the Cons hold their big ConConvention and publicly air their C.R.A.P. :

"A Conservative Government will support legislation defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman."

Yeah but not this Consevative Government - what else you got?

"The Conservative Party supports investing significantly in increasing our scientific knowledge base and in making firm and fair decisions based on facts ..."

Um .. yeah. Well, ok, I get it, CRAP, baby steps and all that ...

"Food. Food is one of the basic necessities of life, and a Conservative Government places high priority on assuring that Canada’s food supply is safe, secure, and sustainable."

OK, that's good - keep it mind-numbingly obvious. No need to mention your recent policy forays into having the food industry police itself into listeriosis ...

"... an investigation into the security of our long term freshwater resources as they pertain to exportation as a commodity."

Mentioning water exports as a commodity is pushing your luck a bit though, isn't it?
I also notice the original proposal was "protection and security of" but "protection" got crossed off somehow ...

"... recognizing the need for improving security and improved relations with the United States and establish a study of the feasibility of a North American perimeter."

Whoa! CRAP! What happened to not looking scary? Now is hardly the time to be rediscovering your Reform roots.
But wait! What's this? Antonia Z at Broadsides :

"Protecting Pregnant Women
The Conservative Party supports legislation to ensure that individuals who commit violence against a pregnant woman would face additional charges if her unborn child was killed or injured during the commission of a crime against the mother."

Not the anti-abortion C-484 thingey again? Seriously?
You guys may as well all go get fitted for new muzzles right now before Big Daddy gets home.

Emma the Embryo : If a fetus is a person...

If a fetus is a person, then a woman isn't.
Or, if you prefer, any separate legal rights granted to a fetus as a person with the right not to be killed or injured must necessarily come at the expense of the person carrying the fetus.
In Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, the word "child" appears 14 times and the phrase "unborn child" five times. Clause 5 states :
"It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the child is not a human being."

Read that again : "It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the child is not a human being."

In Bill C-484 Endangers Abortion Rights and Women’s Rights by Establishing Fetal Personhood, an excellent rebuttal to the supposed innocuousnous of the bill, Joyce Arthur of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada writes : "Regardless of Ken Epp’s stated intent for the bill – to protect pregnant women and wanted fetuses from violence – he should realize that once enacted, his bill can be used in ways he did not intend......By recognizing the "rights of the unborn," it creates the risk that pregnant women’s behaviour could be regulated or punished, and abortion rights restricted."

Plus, although Epp cannot be held directly responsible for the, uh, enthusiasm of his followers, referring to his bill as Kicking Abortion's Ass isn't really helping his case much.

Tuesday update : Terrific post from PSA at Canadian Cynic :
Ken Epp's Big Con

Emma the Embryo

Bill C-537 - Vellacott's Trojan Horsefeathers

Bill C-537 : An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of conscience rights in the health care profession)

1. The Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after section 425.1:
Definition : "human life"
"human life" means the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation."

This snowball-in-hell from ReformaTory Alliance parliamentary prat Maurice Vellacott is just another backbencher wedgie against abortion, and, like Epp's Bill C-484, it will be stoutly defended by the usual Trojan horsefeathers crowd as being not against the right to choose - oh no, not at all - it's for the health professional.

Then if, like these women in Pennsylvania, you get raped but manage to get yourself straight to the nearest hospital to be examined and still have the wit to also ask for a morning after pill but are denied one by the attending ER physician on the grounds it's against his religion to give you one, you'll at least be able to thank your lucky stars that his "conscience rights" have been "protected" by Vellacott's peculiar version of the Criminal Code. (H/T Diane Demornay at enmasse)

One thing puzzles me here though : "the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation" ???

What's with "or creation"? What "stage" could possibly need the further embellishment of "or creation"?

Well I guess the Second Coming is covered.

Further raised eyebrows on C-537 :

pale, the regina mom, Laura, JJ, 900 ft Jesus, CC

Paging Charles McVety to the white evangelical courtesy phone

Tory bill could lead to abortion ban: Que. doctors

"Quebec's medical specialists say a private member's bill that would make harming a fetus a crime is likely to outlaw abortions.
Gaetan Barrette, who heads the province's association of specialist doctors, criticized Bill C-484 for opening the door to recognizing the rights of a fetus.
The bill, tabled by Conservative MP Ken Epp, would amend the Criminal Code to allow separate charges to be laid in the death or injury of an unborn child when a pregnant woman is attacked.
It passed first reading last month with support from both Conservative and Liberal MPs.
Barrette, whose association rarely weighs in on policy debates, pointed out that the bill's supporters are already eyeing a court challenge to Canada's abortion laws.
He says the association wants to protect abortion doctors from possible lawsuits and avoid a return to back-alley abortions."

Meanwhile, evangelist Charles McVety has been doing yeoman's work inadvertantly scuttling Bill C-10, the bill to deny government tax credits to tv shows and movies the SoCons don't like, by boasting he'd personally been the guiding hand behind the bill all along.

Hey Chuck, what about Bill C-484? Don't be shy. Surely you and the Canada Family Action Coalition had at least a little influence on writing up this one, huh? C'mon, Chuck, help us out over here - tell the Canadian people you're the force behind C-484 too.

SoCon or Busted

Cathie from Canada catches blogger SoCon or Bust doing a little premature gloating and dogwhistling about the all too obvious endgame of Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, aka the Stealth Act to Recriminalize Abortion :

"... the momentum is clearly moving in our direction.

If not this time, it will happen in the future. It’s inevitable now.

Just give us a little crack and we’ll drive this

RIGHT THROUGH IT!

Little baby steps….easy does it."

Oh come on, SoCons, that's not your usual truck.

This is your usual truck :

that creepy fetusmobile you have on loan from the US Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.

Anyone could drive that thing through C-484.

Go to a party or defend women's rights....hmmmm

Liberal leader Dion attended a reception to celebrate International Women's Day tonight. Oh, the irony.
Live it up, flyboy. Good of you to show up.
Where the fuck were you this afternoon when Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, aka the Stealth Act to Recriminalize Abortion, passed its second reading in the House today?

The vote was 147 to 132 in support of allowing the bill to proceed to committee stage, meaning that just a few more Libs showing up for work today and voting Nay would have ended this bullshit.

As Kuri at Thought Interrupted put it : "The Liberals failed to stand up against the Conservative agenda they warned us against."

And a big fuck you to NDP Peter Stoffer who voted for it as well, courtesy of Mattt at bastard.logic

So off it goes to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, where six of the twelve members including Chair Art Hanger distinguished themselves by voting Yea.
That's six for and six against.

And now a debate on granting fetal rights under the law can begin - which was what this was always about from day one.
Don't believe me? Horse's mouth right here.

Bill C-484 is the ninth private member's bill attempting to regulate abortion tabled by theReform/Alliance/Con party. Their last attempt to make the "murder of an unborn child when a third party murders a pregnant woman" a new criminal code offence, M-560, was introduced on March 11, 2004.
Today marks the first time such a private member's bill has reached second reading.
It was under your watch, M. Dion, and you didn't even show up for the vote.

Thursday update : Red Tory lists the 27 Liberals who voted for this piece of shit plus the 10 who were "conveniently absent".
H/t to Godammitkitty at Hope and Onions

Bill C-484, because fetuses are persons too!

On Feb 13 2008, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously upheld the 2005 double homicide conviction of Texas teenager Gerardo Flores for helping his girlfriend end her pregnancy of twins. Under the Texas' Prenatal Protection Act, Flores received a life sentence.

"We are very pleased with the Court's opinion," said Joe Pojman, Ph.D., Executive Director of Texas Alliance for Life. "The highest criminal court in Texas has again recognized that unborn children are individual persons worthy of protection from murder and assault the same as other persons already born. The Court essentially held that unborn children are babies."

From Canadian LifeSite News: "The decision comes just weeks before the Canadian House of Commons is scheduled to proceed with the second hour of debate on similar legislation for Canada (Bill C-484 - the Unborn Victims of Crime Act).
"Such a decision by the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals will hopefully inspire Canadian Parliamentarians to pass Bill C-484 into law." said Marie-Christine Houle, Executive Director of Women for Women's Health, a group which has been advocating for the passage of the bill."

Bill C-484 permits separate homicide charges to be laid for the death of a fetus when a pregnant woman is attacked. Con MP Ken Epp who introduced the bill is openly anti-choice but has pleaded with opponents to accept that its wording only applies to wanted fetuses, that it is not a stealth attempt to re-criminalize abortion in Canada, that his Unborn Victims of Crime Act is entirely unrelated to the various "fetal homicide" laws adopted to such disastrous effect in 37 states in the U.S.

Under the Criminal Code of Canada, persons do not gain legal status and rights in our society until they have completely exited from the birth canal, alive.
We Move To Canada caught Ken Epp on a call-in cable show. Not a direct quote, says Laura at WMTC, but "a very close paraphrase" answer from Epp to the question of why this bill was necessary :
"Because we want to recognize the humanity of that unborn child. Whether that child was killed three months before birth or three months after birth, it was still a child, there was still a loss of life. The other side might wish to deny the humanity of that unborn child, but we want the law to recognize it."

Busted, Ken.
One body. One person. One count.

Wedging the foot of the foetus in the backdoor

Bloc MP and Catholic priest Raymond Gravel opposes anti-choice anti-gay Con/Reform/Alliance MP Ken Epp's Unborn Victims of Crime bill, calling it an attempt to recriminalize abortion.
The bill, C-484, would allow additional criminal charges to be laid in the death or injury of a foetus in the event the mother is the victim of a crime. It could also wedge the foot of the foetus firmly in the backdoor of personhood.

LifeSite : Gravel said he was "uncomfortable" with the bill "because the member putting it forward is part of a pro-life group, the Campaign Life Coalition, which in my view is a rather extreme fanatical group, when it comes to life." Gravel continued:

"I also think this bill will open the door to a re-criminalization of women who have abortions, and that's not to be desired. I'm against abortion, but this is no way to solve the problem of abortion. It's through education, through outreach, through helping women who have undesired pregnancies I think that's how to solve the problem of abortion. But not recriminalizing abortion, I don't ever want to see that happen."
"...when the fetus is still in the mother they're just one being. Its only when the fetus is born is when it becomes another being, when it becomes a human being."

Well, exactly, sir.

Campaign Life Coalition, however, are displeased with his speech, and presumably also with being labelled as "a rather extreme fanatical group", and they are taking steps :

"We have written to the Papal Nuncio to inform him of Fr. Raymond Gravel’s bizarre House of Commons speech. We noted that typically, Catholic clergy are prevented from running for elected office except when it is necessary to defend the interests of the Catholic Church. Certainly, making speeches undermining the teachings of the Catholic Church on the sanctity of human life indicates that Fr. Gravel is not the man to defend the Church’s interests; rather he has brought scandal, and his presence is a detriment to the Catholic Church’s ability to provide clear moral leadership...yada, yada, yada."

The next article on the CLC website bewails the use of Human Rights Commissions "to silence and punish people for their ideas and beliefs. That is dangerous and undemocratic, but it is all the more dangerous because the decisions consistently run one-way - against Christians."

Heh. I guess it's ok to silence and punish Christians for their ideas and beliefs if you're a Christian.

Oppose Bill C-484, the "Unborn Victims of Crime Act"
One body. One person. One count.

Update : Kuri at Thought Interrupted has a very heartful post up on this and Ken Epp responds to it in the comments.

Twenty years, twenty weeks, and point double-oh-seven

Twenty years ago on January 28 1988 in R.v.Morgentaler, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the jurisdiction of the state over women's bodies was unconstitutional.

Justice Bertha Wilson wrote :

"The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual."

So there you have it : In a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual is paramount.

CBC reports that some fetus fetishists, who presumably hope to one day celebrate the supremacy of the state over the individual here, have attempted to mark the occasion by selling anti-abortion billboard ads for buses and shelters in St John's, Fredericton, and Hamilton. The ad was declined on the grounds that it was misleading.

It reads :

"Nine months… the length of time an abortion is allowed in Canada. Abortion.
Have we gone too far?"

Yes, fetus fetishists, I'm afraid you have gone too far this time.

A fetus becomes viable at around 20 weeks, no?

According to Statscan, the percentage of Canadian abortions performed at the 20 week mark in 2003 was .7% or 0.007. That's point double-oh-seven.

OK, let's try that one as a billboard ad instead :

" .007...the percentage of abortions performed at 20 weeks for medical reasons in Canada."

Yes, I think that would more adequately meet the stringent truth-in-advertising requirements of Metrobus in St. John's, Nfld.

Good luck with it!

And Happy Anniversary, everyone!

UPDATE : Great round-up of the 20 year celebrations from Hope and Onions