Real and imaginary Charter rights

It's been a difficult time for pro lifers.

First there are the pro-life clubs still trying to practice their freedom of expression rights on campuses when they protest abortion. And still they receive no help from the very institutions (universities) that we would (incorrectly) expect would be a bastion of free speech rights.

Next we have hospitals having to defend their freedom of conscience and freedom of religion rights against being forced to participate in assisted suicide. In fact it used to be wrong to kill someone. Not anymore.

Then there's the radical Joyce Arthur who just can't bring herself to support Cassie and Molly's Law because:

"it It gives some human rights to fetuses and could thereby pose a threat to women’s constitutional rights and abortion rights."

Never mind that Bill C225 would not give human rights to pre-born children:

"This bill is about protecting pregnant women and their preborn children from the actions of third parties who want to do them harm. It addresses those tragic and horrific situations, like the case of Cassie Kaake and her preborn daughter, Molly, who were victims of a brutal attack. This bill does not in any way impact a woman’s choice to terminate her pregnancy. Abortion is, by definition, excluded from the bill because of the clear wording in the bill that makes causing injury or death to the preborn child an offence only if the person does so “while committing or attempting to commit an offence under this Act against a female person that the person knows is pregnant.”  In other words, these new offences are not stand-alone offences. The new offences in “Cassie and Molly’s Law” address only the situations where a third party harms or kills a woman’s preborn child while committing or attempting to commit a criminal offence against the woman – action to which she clearly has not consented. This legislation honours and protects a woman’s ‘right to choose’ to give birth to her baby."

And never mind that there isn't even a constitutional right to abortion. Never mind any of that. Arthur just opposes the bill because as she said about Bill C-484:

“If the fetuses are recognized in this bill, it could bleed into people’s consciousness and make people change their minds about abortion.”

For Arthur, changing people's minds about abortion would be a pro-choice mortal sin. It must never be allowed to happen and she will do everything in her power to make sure it never does. 

Actual constitutional rights of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, are always trumped by the magical mythical right to abortion.