Nuts in the News

Arthur knows fetuses. She talks about them all them time. An entry in her online blog entitled Let no fetus defeat us! asserts that "fetuses are not that important" and that they are "a mostly unformed entity about the size and shape of a cashew, maybe a Brazil nut." Furthermore, Arthur's orthodox views on abortion are as rigid as they are creepy. "Why should we favour birth over abortion," she writes, "when we live in an overpopulated world?"
-Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier

Pro-choice radicals oppose 'unborn victims' crime bill
Parliamentary vote stirs up abortion debate

Mark Hasiuk
Vancouver Courier
Wednesday, March 05, 2008

There's a great scene in the Oscar-nominated film Juno when the title character strolls into an abortion clinic to terminate her teen pregnancy. Confronted by a gum-chewing receptionist and gloomy waiting room full of thumb-twiddling pregnant women, Juno experiences an epiphany and strides back out the door into a scary and uncertain future.

That decisive moment touches the audience and steals our heart.

Today, Parliament will vote on Bill C-484, also known as the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. Aimed at abusive husbands and boyfriends, the proposed legislation will criminalize "causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence."

If passed, the new law will carry a minimum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. The bill, which excludes "harmful acts" perpetrated by the mother, does not address abortion. Yet for some, that's all it's about.

The Internet is alive with pro-choice groups denouncing the bill, including Vancouver
pro-choice activist Joyce Arthur, who believes C-484 is the first step on a slippery slope. "This bill is a foot in the door to recriminalize abortion," says Arthur, coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. "There is no other reason to create a law that gives personhood to fetuses."

Arthur knows fetuses. She talks about them all them time. An entry in her online blog entitled Let no fetus defeat us! asserts that "fetuses are not that important" and that they are "a mostly unformed entity about the size and shape of a cashew, maybe a Brazil nut." Furthermore, Arthur's orthodox views on abortion are as rigid as they are creepy. "Why should we favour birth over abortion," she writes, "when we live in an overpopulated world?"

Run, Juno, run!

In Canada, there are no laws governing abortion. The last vestiges of regulation were struck down by the Supreme Court's "Morgentaler decision" in 1988. The practice is regulated by the conscience of doctors, who typically refuse to perform abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy because the fetus is pretty well formed and the risk to the mother is heightened.

According to British Columbia's Ministry of Health, 15,267 abortions were performed in B.C. between April 2005 and March 2006--the earliest available statistical year. That's an average of 41 abortions a day. An unknown number of privately funded abortions take place outside of the province's medical services plan.

The Canadian abortion industry owes its wild popularity to an utter absence of government regulation. Ottawa's official acquiescence has affected our culture and helped convince a generation of Canadian women that unborn children are expendable.

Radical feminists like Joyce Arthur contribute to this malaise by howling like banshees at any attempt to recognize humanity in the womb.

Domestic violence statistics are hard to pin down. What goes on behind closed doors often remains secret. However, a 2004 Health Canada report found that women abused during pregnancy were four times more likely to experience violent physical abuse than non-pregnant abused women.

The author of Bill C-484--Ken Epp, a pro-life Conservative MP from Edmonton-Sherwood Park--says pregnant women need more protection under the law. He points to 14 murders involving pregnant women in Canada since 2004, including the 2006 murder of Surrey schoolteacher Manjit Panghali.

"If a women has chosen to not have an abortion, to give birth to a child and love and care for it," says Epp, "and it's unilaterally taken away from her against her will with violence, there's no offence for that currently in Canada and that's what this bill is going to correct."

Epp expects at least 75 per cent support from his own party, and several Liberals say they'll vote in favour of the bill.

In Juno, the film's climatic scene depicts the final moments of a nine-month ordeal. Following a teeth-clenching delivery, a newborn baby is united with its adoptive mother while Juno and her boyfriend lay quietly together on a hospital bed.

Sadly, for a relatively small number of pregnant women, life's final scene ends with a violent act usually perpetrated by their closest male ally. Bill C-484 will recognize the sanctity of human life in its most innocent and vulnerable form, and further punish some of society's most despicable offenders.

In their opposition to the bill, pro-choice activists seek to deny justice for abused women who weighed their options and chose life.

mhasiuk@vancourier.com