“Using fetuses for research is against government
policy, but killing them is okay.”
Ottawa
– “Yesterday was a sad day for the unborn,” lamented Garry Breitkreuz, MP
for Yorkton-Melville. The
Saskatchewan MP made the remark after watching his Private Member’s Motion
M-228 go down to defeat after just one hour of debate in the House of Commons.
“The motion never had a chance in Parliament.
Just like the more than 100,000 unborn babies that will never have a
chance in the abortion clinics and hospitals across Canada this year.”
Breitkreuz’s motion proposed to amend the definition in section 223(1)
the Criminal Code that states that a baby isn’t a human being until it
emerges completely from the womb. One
Liberal and one Bloc MP voted against two motions of unanimous consent moved by
Breitkreuz to make his motion votable and to refer the motion to the Standing
Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
The
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Canada signed,
states: “the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs
special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as
well as after birth.” Breitkreuz
commented, “In Canadian law there simply is no protection for a child before
birth. The Government of Canada cannot discharge its legal obligations under
this international agreement, an agreement the federal government and 10
provinces have ratified, unless and until it changes the definition of a human
being.”
“The
hypocrisy of the Liberal government was obvious during the speech by the
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, Yvon Charbonneau,” observed
Breitkreuz. “The
government’s representative bragged about their policy governing the ‘research
using gametes, zygotes, embryos and foetuses’.
Can’t they see how two-faced this policy is?
They support a policy preventing researchers from using the very human
beings they allow women to abort for any reason, (or no reason) right up to the
very moment the baby is born.”
Liberal
MP, Tom Wappel spoke eloquently in the support of Breitkreuz’s motion and in
defence of the rights of the unborn. “Do
you not find it interesting, Madam Speaker, that on the one hand it is perfectly
acceptable and legal in Canada at the present time to kill an unborn child at
any point of its development, right up until it comes out of the womb, yet on
the other hand we are wringing our hands about the ethics of experimentation on
zygotes? Where is the logic in
that? How can it be logical to
permit a third trimester abortion at eight months without blinking our eyes and
wring our hands about whether or not a fertilized egg is going to be flushed
down a scientist's drain?” asked Mr. Wappel.
Mr.
Paul Szabo, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and
Government Services also spoke in support of the motion saying, “All one
needs to do is go to a baby shower and ask what everyone is celebrating.”
Mr. Szabo pointed out that there were a number of jurisdictions in
the United States where chronic drinking during pregnancy is a criminal offence.
“This stands in stark contrast to the law in Canada where unborn
children have no rights at all,” Breitkreuz observed.
Alliance
MP, Grant McNally also pointed out the hypocrisy of the legal definition of a
human being during his remarks. “We
know that in one room we may have a doctor performing microsurgery with the
latest technology to save the life of what some may call a fetus, an unborn
child who might be six months in its development, while in the very next room we
might have somebody else in a very similar situation having the termination of a
pregnancy or an abortion. That is a big dilemma. How do we explain that?
How do we deal with that?” asked McNally.
Breitkreuz
concluded the debate, “An unborn child differs from a newborn child in only
four ways: It is smaller; it is not as well developed; it is located inside its
mother; and it is more dependent. Those are the only differences. The evidence
is clear that the unborn are human beings.
They deserve protection. After
10 years of not debating the issue and not talking about it in the House, they
deserve a fair hearing.”
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