This is just another wedge strategy for the anti-choice group. It was sponsored by Ken Epp, a Conservative member of parliament who just happens to belong to Campaign Life Canada. Redfez demolishes Epp’s arguments.
Laura at We Move to Canada caught Epp admitting his motivation: it’s all about the unborn.
Choice Joyce adds:
Two homicide convictions would not even give a longer sentence to a perpetrator because sentences in Canada are concurrent. So the bill does ZIP except give personhood to fetuses. And there’s absolutely no reason to do that, other than to make inroads onto abortion rights. Killers of pregnant women can already be given harsher sentences; we don’t need a new law.
In a previous post, Redfez notes:
Similar laws in the US haven’t been effective at protecting pregnant women and in fact have worked against them.
(Click here for complete article.)
Birthpangs points out that the mainstream media are finally starting to notice “this sneak attack on women’s rights” in “Nope, Nothing to Do with Abortion.”
Joyce Arthur asks for help:
The “Unborn Victims of Crime Act” is scheduled for a Parliamentary vote on March 5. This bill would give fetuses personhood, and it has a chance of passing. Not only is it a foot-in-the-door to recriminalize abortion, it would also endanger the rights of all pregnant women, and violate women’s equality rights in general. Please check out our 14 Talking Points on the dangers of this bill. Here’s what you can do to help:
1. Sign our petition against the bill.
2. Send a letter to your MP urging them to vote against the bill: sample letter.
3. Post a link to the petition on your website or blog.
4. Spread the word.
Thank you so much!
You can contact Stephane Dion, leader of the Liberal Party, and also your own MP, here.
What the Old Testament says.
Science Notes 
March 3, 2008 at 09:14
Thanks for the link and for spreading the word. I think the vote may be today, even – I’ll be on the look out for it as parl.gc.ca gets updated.
March 3, 2008 at 15:08
I heard an interview today on the radio with Ken Epp and a woman whose pregnant daughter had been killed. The interviewer asked if this law would make any difference, and the mother said that murderers now serve their sentences concurrently but she hoped if it passed that Canada would make murderers serve their sentences concurrently. I think she meant consecutively. In other words, no, it wouldn’t make any difference. Epp went on and on about the anguish of people who were assaulted and lost their pregnancies (“children”) and how they would be comforted if the assaulter could be charged with murder to acknowledge the personhood of the unborn. And how assaulting someone so that they are killed or lose their “child” is the greatest denial of choice. He didn’t say anything about how forcing someone into unwilling motherhood was a denial of choice. Jerk.
March 6, 2008 at 21:30
I don’t know if this is a factor or not, but I think it is something to think about. A number of years ago a 8 month fetus was injured in a car accident and the result was that the baby, once it was born was brain damaged and needed extensive special care throughout her life, but there was not way to get the insurance companies to pay because the fetus was not considered a person. What about a situation in which a drunk driver (a crime) injures a fetus, but minor injuries to the mother. I don’t think we are likely talking about early stages of fetal growth, since I would expect that injuries suffered because of a crime would pertain primarily to late term fetuses — at earlier stages, miscarriages are not uncommon and I would have thought it would be difficult to link these directly to a crime — but perhaps fetuses 6, 7, 8 or 9 months deserve some level of protection.
March 7, 2008 at 10:04
MaryL, it’s quite possible to have civil torts and legal responsibility without invoking the criminal code. A person who delivers a blow to the mother that injures the fetus would be responsible for the results of that blow, wouldn’t you think? But one can never be sure what the courts will decide. Insurance companies will grasp at any excuse. I’m not familair with the case. Do you have a reference?