A refresher course for pro-abortions

There are so many things wrong with what Joyce Arthur says in her article attacking Stephen Woodworth’s motion, but I’ll focus here on just a few points where she plays fast and loose with the facts.

1. Ms. Arthur says:

“The Supreme Court has already decided the issue.”

Wrong. The Supreme Court has repeatedly and consistently left it up to Parliament to decide this issue. Did Arthur not read Ken Epp’s response to her in 2008 when she made similar misleading comments about Bill C-484 (Unborn Victims of Crime Act), or has she simply forgotten?

For your convenience, Ms. Arthur, I provide a link to Mr. Epp’s report, The truth about Bill C-484: A compassionate and constitutionally valid remedy to current injustice in Canadian criminal law.

On page 20 Mr. Epp says:

“The courts have said that the fetus is not a “person” in Canadian law, and this is because our existing law does not recognize the fetus as a person. So the Courts have simply acknowledged the law as it stands today. But the Supreme Court has also said on numerous occasions that Parliament has a legitimate interest in the protection of the fetus and that it is not up to the courts to decide how to provide this protection – in spite of the fetus not being a “person” according to existing law – it is up to the legislature, that is, Parliament, to decide. Contrary to Ms. Arthurs claim that C-484 “flies in the face of several Supreme Court of Canada rulings,” C-484, in fact, is reinforced by Supreme Court of Canada rulings, including the very three cases Ms. Arthur cites, namely, Dobson v. Dobson, Tremblay v. Daigle, and Winnipeg and Child Family Services v. D.F.G.”

Mr. Epp then goes on to describe in detail these three cases and how the SCC clearly stated how it is within Parliament’s jurisdiction to protect preborn children in law.

2. Ms. Arthur says:

“Giving personhood to fetuses invites criminal prosecution of pregnant women for negative outcomes”
and then goes on to condemn C-484 and says:
“At the time, the U.S.-based group National Advocates for Pregnant Women prepared a 15-page brief for ARCC-CDAC, documenting the hundreds of unjust cases of prosecutions of pregnant women in the U.S.”

She conveniently omitted to tell the reader that Ken Epp also refuted those NAPW claims in his other report called, Claims that US “fetal homicide / “unborn victims of violence” laws target pregnant women: A Smoke-screen to attempt to discredit Bill C-484.

3. Ms. Arthur says in point 6:

“abortions after 20 weeks are rare in Canada – virtually all are confined to cases of fetal abnormality where the fetus cannot survive after birth.”

I’ve already challenged Ms. Arthur to provide evidence of how many late-term abortions occur every year and the reason for each one in The great pro-abortion urban legend.

I’m still waiting for that evidence. You’d think that if she wanted people to believe her, she would provide some evidence to back up her claims.

All we do know, is that the number of late abortions is somewhere between 552 and 70,621 (that's 552 known late term abortions, plus 70,069 unknown gestational age abortions) and we have seen no published data on the reasons for these abortions.

4. Ms. Arthur says:

“Woodworth also continually uses the word ‘child’ to describe a fetus, which is just another ‘begging the question’ ploy to try and lead people to equate fetuses with children and therefore accept that they should have rights. ...Although ‘child’ is often used informally to refer to fetuses, this is a colloquial usage that has no legitimate place in modern law or medicine – including in Woodworth’s motion.”

Wrong again, Joyce. Let me repeat how Ken Epp already responded to you on this point on pages 16-17 of The truth about Bill C-484: A compassionate and constitutionally valid remedy to current injustice in Canadian criminal law:

“ The Criminal Code currently uses no term other than “child” to refer to the unborn child (Sections 223 (1) , 223 (2), 238 (1) and 238 (2)). The term “fetus” is never used in the Criminal Code.

....the existing section 238 refers to the “child that has not become a human being”; section 223 states that the “child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother”;

....Ms. Arthur is also incorrect in her understanding of section 223 (2). She says, “The meaning of child in subsection (2) is the same as that in the definition – a born-alive human being.” The exact wording of this section is: “223 (2) A person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.” In section 223 (2), the term “child” is used to refer to both the unborn child and the born child.

..... Given that the term “child” is already used in the Criminal Code to refer to the fetus/unborn child/human offspring before birth, one is left to wonder why Ms. Arthur displays such an adverse, extreme, reaction to the use of this term in C-484. It is worth noting that what Ms. Arthur refers to as “anti-abortion activist” language was actually used by none other than staunch pro-choice advocate and former Cabinet Minister Barbara McDougall twenty years ago in the House of Commons:

'Society and religion, over the centuries, have had differing views on the mores of abortion, of killing an unborn child. Let us not be afraid of the vocabulary. [emphasis added] (Hon. Barbara McDougall, Hansard, P. 1 8080, July 27, 1988)'”.

As Joe Friday used to say on the TV series from the 1950's, Dragnet:

"All we want are the facts, ma'am".