How the defeat of Cassie and Molly’s Law could endanger abortion

by Barbara Maloney

Cathay Wagantall’s Private Members Bill C-225 (Cassie and Molly’s Law) was defeatedby a wide margin (209 to 76) in the House of Commons last week. This means the bill will not be sent to a committee for study and is now dead.

Bill C-225 would have allowed charges to be laid for harming or causing the death of a preborn child while committing a criminal offence against a pregnant woman. Such a law would act as a strong deterrent to committing violent acts against pregnant women, increasing the chances she and her baby could make it safely through her pregnancy. It was a compassionate and common sense response to an all too common problem.

Not a single MP from any party other than the Conservatives voted for the bill. This suggests the vote may have been whipped by leaders of the Liberals, the NDP, and the Bloc, which is odd since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the other party leaders have repeatedly argued in favour of women’s reproductive choice. Bill C-225 would have strengthened reproductive choice for women by making it a criminal offence for a third party to intentionally kill a pregnant woman’s fetus (thus terminating her pregnancy) while committing a criminal offence against her – a pregnancy termination to which she clearly did not consent. We are talking here about someone who attacks a woman and takes away her choice by ending the life of the child who otherwise would have been born alive. Nothing could undermine women’s reproductive choice more than that.

My MP, Chandra Arya (Liberal) wrote to me last month saying that he would not be supporting the bill. I had seen comments from other Liberal MPs as well. No doubt, the Liberal MPs were given a set of talking points to use to try to defend their opposition to C-225. But their arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny, which suggests something else was behind their opposition to the bill, as I explain below.

Criticism: C-225 doesn’t address the broader issue of gender-based violence

The Liberal government criticized the bill for failing “to address the broader issue of violence against women.” But why would any MP not support a law that at least partially addresses the problem? No bill ever completely addresses an issue, and so why should C-225 be held to a higher standard than any other bill?

Mr. Arya also told me that “Our government believes that gender-based violence has no place in our society, and we are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive federal strategy against gender-based violence.” That’s great, and bill C-225 could have been one important part of such a comprehensive strategy. Voting for this bill in no way would have precluded the government from enacting further laws and policies that address gender-based violence. Pregnant women are sometimes attacked precisely because they are pregnant. Cassie and Molly’s Law would act to deter such violence, given the stiff penalties in the bill for purposely causing the death of the woman’s unborn child.

Criticism: C-225 might be challenged under the Charter

My MP also told me the bill “would likely be challenged under the Charter.” Yet, as far as I’m aware, there has been no credible legal opinion by any reputable lawyer arguing that the bill violates the Charter. On the contrary, renowned constitutional expert Eugene Meehan has provided a legal opinion, posted on Cathay Wagantall’s website, defending the constitutionality of the new offences created in the bill.

Most Liberal MPs voted in favour of the government’s bill C-14, Medical Assistance in Dying, even though several lawyers were of the opinion it was unconstitutional. So if the Liberal MPs were not deterred by the constitutional concerns regarding C-14, it is incredible that constitutional concerns were behind their opposition to Cassie and Molly’s Law.

What was the real reason for opposing C-225?

Given C-225 respects the constitution, including the Charter; given it is one concrete way that MPs can help tackle gender-based violence which they claim they want to do; and given it is supported by amajority of Canadians, it seems that MPs’ opposition to this bill stemmed from something else – something they may not have been even consciously aware of.

Which brings us to the issue of abortion.

Fear that C-225 could reopen the abortion debate

My MP told me that this bill could “reopen the abortion debate.” This bill and the abortion issue do have something in common – they both deal with pregnant women and preborn children. But anyone who is truly pro-choice ought to recognize the difference between an abortion which a woman freely chooses, and a situation where a woman has not chosen abortion and is violently attacked by a third-party who wants to kill her and/or her baby and unilaterally takes away her choice to bring her child safely to term.

So how do we account for supposedly pro-choice MPs voting against a bill that would have made it a crime to forcefully end a woman’s pregnancy against her will? Why did these MPs ignore the significant role that the woman’s free choice plays in differentiating C-225 from abortion? Are these MPs not pro-choice after all, but rather pro-abortion, even pro-forced abortion?

I don’t believe so – I don’t believe a majority of our MPs voted against C-225 because they actually believe that a dead fetus is better than a live fetus.

The only remaining explanation is that they voted against C-225 out of fear of what it would mean for abortion if we recognized in law that it can sometimes be wrong to kill a preborn child. They would have been asking themselves, even if only at an unconscious level: if it is wrong to kill a fetus during a brutal attack on a woman against her will, how can we justify abortion, which also kills a fetus?

But as MikeSchouten writing in the National Post points out, there would be no reason for anyone who is pro-choice to fear that C-225 would endanger abortion if they actually believed in their own pro-choice rhetoric: that a woman’s freedom to choose is enough to justify abortion (that is, that the choice of the woman trumps the life of the fetus.)

The defeat of C-225 was in essence, then, a sign that a majority of our MPs do not believe that freedom of choice, in and of itself, can justify abortion. A majority of our MPs could not get past focusing on how C-225 and abortion are alike (preborn child’s death), rather than how they differ (woman’s choice). It was apparently easier for our MPs to deny that it can ever be wrong to kill a fetus – and vote against C-225 – than to be put into the uncomfortable position of having to justify why abortion is not wrong. They are apparently only able to defend abortion if they deny there is any inherent value in the life of a preborn child. They would have had the confidence to defend abortion if they truly believed deep down that the choice of the woman trumps the life of the fetus.

Thus in defeating C-225 for fear it could endanger abortion, our Members of Parliament ended up revealing a lack of confidence in their own ability to defend abortion. If even our supposedly staunch “pro-choice” MPs feel so ill-quipped to defend abortion, then what kind of message does that send about the acceptability of abortion? C-225 itself could never have endangered abortion. The irony is the MPs who opposed the bill might end up doing just that.

Nothing "progressive" about Canada's 27 year abortion era

27 years later. And still no legal protection for pre-born children.

Mike Schouten reminds us of what Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson said after the 1988 Morgentaler decision:

"A developmental view of the foetus… supports a permissive approach to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy and a restrictive approach in the later stages…The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state’s interest in its protection becomes “compelling” I leave to the informed judgment of the legislature… It seems to me, however, that it might fall somewhere in the second trimester.”

"Justice Wilson, arguably the most iconic feminist judge in the history of our country, would be labeled an “anti-choice extremist” by the more adamant of today’s pro-choice movement. Justice Wilson was abundantly clear - abortion should not be legal throughout all the stages of fetal development as it is today. In fact, she was comfortably open to a gestational ban between 12 and 18 weeks, similar to most European countries. And as the informative morgentalerdecision.ca website points out, Wilson also stated that it should be the Legislature, not the courts, to decide at precisely which stage abortion should be restricted."

So here we are in 2015. And unborn children continue to be ripped out of their mother's wombs.

Some think this is what a civilized society does: fully funded, any time, any reason, abortion on demand. Some call this "progressive." I call it regressive. I call it shameful.

What if a human fetus developed outside instead of inside?

David Attenborough shows this remarkable film about the birth of a kangaroo.



It's a stunning analogy for the beginning of a human being. The only difference is that the kangaroo's gestation period is about 31-36 days when it is born. At which time it is about the size of a 7 week old human embryo. It then spends nine months in its mother's pouch.

Human embryo

Imagine for a minute, that a human embryo is born at the same time a kangaroo is born. And imagine that, it is then nurtured for the remainder of its gestational period on the outside of the mother, where you could actually see it growing, instead of on the inside where you can't see it?

David Attenborough says:

"The Kangaroo produces young without a protective shell. What comes out is a tiny undeveloped little worm. The fetus is expelled from the mother and weighs less that a lump of sugar (has no back legs, but it only fore legs). Just enough to pull it through its mothers fur. It's started on an extraordinary journey. To survive it must get to a pouch higher up on its mother's belly. Instinctively this tiny living particle climbs upwards against the pull of gravity and towards the smell of the pouch. After about three minutes it reaches the lip of the pouch, and clambers down safely inside. There it clamps its tiny mouth on its mother's nipple and takes its first meal of milk. As it grows, the ingredients of the milk changes, to make sure that it gets exactly what the infant needs for each stage of its development. By the time its nine months old, its getting a bit cramped. It's time to enter the outside world. It's almost like a second birth." 

It will be another year before it is fully independent."

What would it be like if we could actually see the baby as it developed, instead of not seeing it? Would it make a difference? Would pro-choice people still be okay with abortion?

Repeating untruths doesn't make them true

Frankly, this is tiring: Joyce Arthur working reality into a fictional story on abortion in Canada. Does she ever give it a rest? Apparently not.

I've already debunked her make-believe world here when I wrote on January 12, 2012 about 2009 Canadian abortion statistics, and here when I wrote on November 19, 2012 about 2010 Canadian abortion statistics.

So here we go again--now I'll do it for 2012 abortion statistics.

1) Arthur says:

"Since 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada threw out our abortion law as unconstitutional, the sky has not fallen, but our abortion rates have – we’ve witnessed a continuing decline since 2000 and now have a relatively low abortion rate compared to many other developed countries – about 14 abortions per 1000 women of childbearing age per year." (emphasis added)

Arthur points to CIHI as proof that Canada's abortions statistics have been declining since 2000. But how does she know this? She doesn't. Because as CIHI themselves tell us their numbers are underestimated:

"...while this is probably an underestimate of induced abortions done in the country, it is currently the best way to produce pan-Canadian comparable data."

That's because CIHI's numbers don't record abortions done in private physician's offices; don't record medical abortions; and don't record all clinic abortions, because many clinics choose not to report that information, and nobody makes them do it.

Arthur then says there are 14 abortions per 1000, but neglects to tell you, that that number is from Statistics Canada data from 2005--nine years ago. We have no idea right now how many abortions are committed per 1000 abortions, because our data is inaccurate. And even if it was accurate, you can't use nine year old data to talk about today's trends.

(In fact, discerning minds must question why CIHI reports at all--if their numbers are so woefully inaccurate? But that's a question for another day.)

2) Arthur says

"90 per cent of abortions occur during the first trimester, and less than half a percent after 20 weeks." (emphasis added)

For 2012, CIHI reported a total of 83,708 clinic and hospital abortions (and as stated above this is under reported). Of these abortions, a full 62,178* have "unknown" gestational age.

That means all 62,178*, or most of them, or some of them, or none of them, could be late term abortions. We. Do. Not. Know. That's what "unknown" means. And we don’t know these gestational ages because most abortion providers don't report them.

So concluding late-term abortions are "less than half a percent" is impossible.

3) Arthur says:

"The latter [after 20 weeks] are all for compelling reasons, such as fetal abnormalities incompatible with life or a serious threat to the woman’s health or life."

How does Arthur know these late-term abortions are for compelling reasons? Because nobody else in Canada knows this. Arthur can't know--since reasons are not reported.

We know for sure that in 2012 there were 563 late term hospital abortions (as reported by CIHI). And remember, we don't know how many late term abortions were done in clinics because clinics don't report late-term abortions. And since we don't know the gestational ages of 62,178* abortions, Arthur's conclusions are based on bad, wrong, missing, and or inaccurate information.

Even if Arthur can prove there are "only" 563 late abortions per year, are we supposed to take comfort in the fact that in relative terms there are so many fewer late term abortions than early abortions? That just means we have many, many, many, many, many, many early abortions.

4) Then Joyce gets creative, by actually redefining the medical term "fetal viability":

"Much of the debate in the UK media has focused on the science of fetal viability and at what gestation they can survive on their own. This issue is totally irrelevant to women who need abortion care, as the survival ability of premature babies applies only to fetuses being carried to term. If a woman needs an abortion, then by definition, her fetus is not viable." (emphasis added)

In other words, if you don't like the definition of something, hey just change its meaning. That was easy.

5) Finally we get to the bottom of Arthur's real worry. That darned fetus. Always gets in the way of a good abortion fairy tale.

To solve this thorny issue of decapitating, dismembering and disemboweling another human being, we simply advise the reader to NOT focus on the fetus.

"When we focus on the fetus, we forget about the woman and her reasons for an abortion. Women don’t ask for an abortion because it’s their ‘right to choose,’ or because they don’t understand what’s inside of them. They request abortion because they can’t provide responsibly for a child (or another child) at this point in their lives. A woman’s abortion decision is about ensuring her future and that of her family, not about the current legal or moral status of her fetus. It’s about being the best mother possible when she’s ready – or maybe not becoming a mother at all if she knows she’s not suited to it. That is the very definition of conscientious decision-making. We can trust women to know what’s best for themselves and their families, without imposing punitive criminal laws against their private decisions."

So many problems dissipate when we make up numbers, change definitions, and ignore the fetus. It's easy, really. Just ask Joyce.

(* 62,178 unknown gestational age abortions is calculated using simple arithmetic: 83,708 total known abortions - 21,530 known gestational age abortions (see page 6 of CIHI's 2012 statistics) = unknown gestational age abortions)

Globe and Mail - your bias is showing

We all know where the Globe and Mail's bias lies concerning abortion. And it isn't pro-life.

This article: How abortion protests are coming to Toronto's high school steps criticizes CCBR's bloody abortion displays outside Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute. I expected no less.

Here are a few "choice" sentiments in case anyone didn't catch it:
“There’s nothing we can do; they stand off school property,” said spokeswoman Shari Schwartz-Maltz. “If members of the community take exception to what they’re saying or their tactics, they are absolutely encouraged to phone the police.”

"Some Toronto parents are fuming, not only at the presence of the pro-life group but also because the TDSB hasn’t informed them of the group making the rounds outside secondary schools. “They send us a letter home if some kid has lice. They send us a letter home if there’s been a shooting. Why hasn’t anything been sent home saying ‘Just in case you’re not aware, there is a pro-life group that has been picketing various high schools, and we’ve told kids not to engage’?”

"Others, mainly boys, were infuriated by the presence of a pro-life group. As the discussion heated up, school administrators pull them away."

"Arthur Morris was so angry, he was shaking. “I don’t have a problem with them protesting. Freedom of speech, I’m all for that. But I have a problem with this, these images, right outside of school,” said the 16-year-old. “Don’t force your religion, and it’s largely a religious thing, don’t force your religion onto others.”

(Why do pro-choice people always fall back to religion as a motivation for being pro-life? Notice how they never explain the connection between the two. And who is "forcing" religion on anybody? We aren't even talking about religion.)

“I think it’s ridiculous,” said Hayden McKinnon, 18. He added: “They’re at a high school. They’re showing pictures of dead fetuses right on the corner... I think all women should have a choice.”

(How ironic. The purposes of the pictures is to graphically depict that "choice", Hayden. Don't you get it?)

"Kerry Bowman, a professor of bioethics at the University of Toronto, worries that vulnerable students are being targeted by a group that is not providing information, but rather using manipulative language and advertising techniques to recruit."

(If dead bloody fetuses are not information in the truest sense of the word, then what are they?)

“When you combine the manipulative techniques with a population that is still forming their values and beliefs, I see an ethical red flag going up,” Prof. Bowman said. “You’re really playing to win. It’s not a just a question of informing people about this issue; it’s much more manipulative.”

(How is speaking the truth, manipulative? And ethical red flag? Uh, isn't abortion an ethical issue? One could argue that not showing dead bloody fetuses to someone considering an abortion, would be an ethical red flag, Professor.)

"Ms. Christopoulos said schools have a responsibility, however, to inform the community. Her 16-year-old daughter did not think much of the group showing up at her high school. Ms. Christopoulos was furious that her daughter and her friends were being targeted."

“I think it’s inappropriate. If you want to make a point, then I think you should be approaching people who are in a position to be making those kind of decisions,” she said. “I don’t think my 16-year-old daughter is.”

(Teenagers certainly make the decision to have abortions; therefore they are quite capable of seeing what the abortion "choice" looks like.)

Notice how the Globe didn't interview one person who agrees with showing the signs, and maybe even had their heart changed while viewing those pictures or talking with the CCBR folks. Interesting don't you think?

National Post shows fetuses in newspaper

This article in Saturday's National Post about Canada's abortion stats elicited these letters today.

Warning to readers: graphic content of fetuses.

I'm here to stay, plant me

From TEDTalks: Alexander Tsiaras: Conception to birth -- visualized:



Tsiaras says:
"...and at nine weeks is this little human being...and 60,000 miles of blood vessels by nine months...even though I am a mathematician, I look at [fetal development] with marvel: How do these instruction sets not make mistakes as they build what is us?...it's mystery, it's magic, it's divinity...."

Isn't Science fantastic? It can show us in minute detail how we are formed in our mother's womb.

The fetus had no legal recognition capable of protection

In an interview with CBC’s Peter Mansbridge (about 5 minutes into the interview), Stephen Harper, when asked if his government received a majority in the next election, whether he would "reopen the abortion issue", responded:
"No, no, no. Look Peter, I've spent my political career trying to stay out of that issue. It's one on which people, including in my own party have passionate views, they're all over the map, and you know what I say to people...as you know, many people I know are pro-life...what I say to people, is if you want to diminish the number of abortions you've got to change hearts and not laws, and I'm not interested in having a debate over abortion law."

What a politically expedient thing to say.

It is true that the Conservatives have done a very good job on the economic and fiscal file. It would be disingenuous to deny this.

But Mr. Harper has to put a stake through the “hidden agenda”'s heart, killing it once and for all. Mr. Harper wants to court those Canadians who just might vote for a fiscal Conservative, but who would never, ever vote for a social Conservative.

Mr. Harper might even get a majority. Imagine that.

But let's go back to his not changing the abortion laws comment.

We all know that the Supreme Court ruled in 1988 when they struck down Canada's abortion law (R. v. Morgentaler, 1988), that Parliament has the right to legislate protection for unborn children (e.g. Chief Justice Dickson said, "Like Beetz and Wilson JJ., I agree that protection of foetal interests by Parliament is also a valid governmental objective.").

Then in 1959, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child was adopted by a UN General Assembly Resolution 1386 (XIV).

The Declaration states in its preamble:
"WHEREAS 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 (emphasis added)".

In 1989 this declaration became a Treaty which Canada and all 10 provinces signed.

Here is a good discussion on this Declaration: The Issue of Fetal Rights in Canada written by Colleen D'Orsay Wintermans, student, Cape Breton University, November 25, 2005.

Ms. D'Orsay Wintermans says:
“The purpose of this paper to explore the issue of fetal rights in Canada. I do so from the perspective of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child...In protecting rights of the unborn child to adequate care however, the [Canadian] Criminal Code seems to come up short. In an effort to avoid both the heated and oft politically volatile abortion debate and the rights of the mother to control her own body, no section of the Code exists that protects for the health and well being of the unborn developing child in utero. Section 223(1) of the Criminal Code says that a child becomes a human being when it has "completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother." In other words, the child has no protection until after birth (Byfield, 2002)... Until then, the fetus has no legal rights any more than, say, a pair of sneakers has legal rights. Therefore, the fetus had no legal recognition capable of protection. According to the courts, there is, simply, no one to protect (Bowal, & Wanke, 1998).”

We can and should “change the hearts” of people. But most Canadians also want some legal protection for the unborn. Our judges have said this, and the Declaration of the Rights of the Child has said this.

Mr. Harper will not reopen the abortion debate unless he is pressured into it by us.

So what can we do?

Write a letter to Mr. Harper and tell him you want legal protection for the unborn and you want this to be an election issue.
(Prime Minister pm@pm.gc.ca
Stephen Harper Harper.S@parl.gc.ca)

Write a letter to your MP and tell her or him you want legal protection for the unborn. Tell your MP that since they represent you in Parliament, you expect them to advocate for the unborn.
(MP email addresses)

Write a letter to your favourite newspaper letters’ editor and tell them you want this to be an election issue.
(Here are a few:
Letters at the Citizen letters@thecitizen.canwest.com
Letters at the Montreal Gazette letters@thegazette.canwest.com
Letters at the Globe and Mail letters@globeandmail.com
Letters at National Post letters@nationalpost.com)

It's up to us to speak up for legal rights for the unborn.

An inconvenient truth

The pro-abortions get really cranky when the truth about abortion is shown out there in the world for all to see.

In particular, they don't like that the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform (CCBR) uses photos that show pictures of dead fetuses. These photos make it kind of hard to deny that fetuses exist. You see, if we just pretend that fetuses don't exist, then it follows that nothing actually dies during an abortion. But pictures of dead fetuses blows that pretense out of the water.

The solution for the pro-abortions is to come up with a new imaginary notion--that pictures of these dead fetuses in all its graphic horror somehow constitutes hate speech:
"If anti-choice activities, like those undertaken by the CCBR in co-operation with anti-choice campus clubs, are deemed to be hateful, this justifies a restriction in civil liberties. Establishing that the activities of such extreme anti-choice activities are hateful has thus been one of the primary goals of student pro-choice advocates."

How does the truth equal hate speech? Well of course, it doesn't. No matter--because the pro-abortions are on a roll. They've got a brand new bandwagon to jump on, that runs alongside their "reproductive health" and "reproductive rights" and "reproductive choice" euphemisms...now they have invented "reproductive justice."

So tell me, do the pro-abortions also want "reproductive justice" for the women who want to KEEP their babies? Nope. At the end of this new abortion manifesto, they clearly come out against the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. Why? Well, Joyce Arthur let slip the real motivation behind opposition to that bill when she told Charles Lewis of the National Post:
“If the fetuses are recognized in this bill, it could bleed into people’s consciousness and make people change their minds about abortion.” (“Fetal rights stir debate on abortion,” by Charles Lewis, National Post, March 1, 2008).

We cannot under any circumstances protect those choices. As long as the choice is abortion--it's a go. Just don't let the truth of dead fetuses get in the way of "reproductive justice".

What would the Martians think--(Part 5...does the fetus matter?)

On page 29 of the 20 year abortion celebration anniversary, we come to the very heart of what abortion advocates are so deathly afraid of--the unborn child.

Out of 79 pages of text, only one presenter, Lawyer Shelley Gavigan speaks at any length of the human fetus.

The fetus always poses a problem for pro-abortion people. They believe if they deny its value, and convince others to do the same--the equivalent of sticking their fingers in their collective ears saying la-la-la I can't hear you--they will somehow alter reality.

When they do discuss the fetus, logic has a sort of Alice in Wonderland feel to it. Am I awake? Am I dreaming? Is anything real? Is life just an illusion?

The master of this technique is the radical abortion advocate, Joyce Arthur.

In all her many writings, and in particular in her Fetus Focus Fallacy and Personhood: Is a Fetus a Human Being? Arthur tells us that the moral status of the fetus is an "opinion" and that it is "subjective" and "emotional":
"We all have our own opinions about what the moral status of the fetus might be. Some people believe a fertilized egg is a full human being with an absolute right to life that supersedes any right of the woman. Others believe that a fetus attains moral value only after it becomes viable, or upon birth. But that's all these beliefs are - opinions. There's no way to decide between them, because they're entirely subjective and emotional. Therefore, the only opinion that counts is that of the pregnant woman. The status of her fetus and any moral value accorded to it is entirely her call. A fetus becomes a human being when the woman carrying it decides it does."

Arthur devotes over 20 pages in these two articles as she expounds on her theory that the value of the fetus is based on a woman's opinion. Unfortunately for Arthur, her weird reasonings don't alter the truth that the fetus has moral value.

In Gavigan's presentation: Better Never Than Late, But Why? The Contradictory Relationship Between Law and Abortion, she is dismissive of the unborn child. Talking from a historical perspective Gavigan talks about:
"...the demise of the relevance of quickening"
and
"I found the voices of women who said to doctors, “Nonsense, doctor, there is no life yet…” and “Doctor, I do not believe it is a crime.”

But pro-abortionists know they are on shaky ground. The Supreme Court ruled the state had an interest in the fetus because of its value. Gavigan says:
"It is now axiomatic to observe the Supreme Court’s 1988 decision resolved some questions but left many more dangling—tantalizing and inviting to the opponents of women’s right to choose. For instance, the precise nature and expression of what all judges of the Supreme Court characterized as the “state’s interest in the foetus” remained to be elaborated and tested."

The state's interest in protecting the fetus concerns pro-abortion people. As does what Gavigan calls the "Ideology of the unborn child":
"Their discourse of the unborn child has become a dominant ideology of our time. Their ability to present all pregnant women as risky, possibly irresponsible, always potentially hostile to their own pregnancies, has in my view become pervasive and I believe socially shared. So, rather than speak of maternal mortality, or of women’s inherent dignity, of the complexity of the abortion decision, never not a complex decision, never an easy choice, or of sexual coercion, they assert only a chorus of the unborn child in a selfimpregnated woman... I do struggle with how to engage with the dominant ideology of the unborn child."

Pro-abortion people know that those of us against abortion aren't going away. It frightens them.

Then Gavigan talks more on ideology; takes a stab at men; and is indignant at our non-acceptance of late-term abortions--all in a single breath:
"I do want to make the point that ideologues like David Frum attempt to cultivate in the national imagination that late trimester abortions are a ubiquitous menace, a direct legacy from Madam Justice Wilson’s courageous reminder of the limits of men to be able to respond—‘even imaginatively’—to something so out of his personal experience. It is difficult to discern even a kernel of truth in David Frum’s construction of the crisis– for the world is truly upside down through his lens. The image of the scourge of late trimester abortion could not be further from the truth, and yet it is asserted as truth."

Is Gavigan saying that late-term abortion don't happen? Or that they aren't a ubiquitous menace? Or both? Pro-abortion people get cranky with the late-term abortion topic. I wonder if late-term abortions bother them even a little bit.

Ms. Mary Martian ruminates at the back of the room: "How can these people place so little value on their unborn offspring?" She asks herself. "This doesn't make any sense. This human species doesn't make any sense". Then Mary answers her own question. She has an ah-ha experience. "The fetus does have value. It is only a strange subgroup of Earthlings that believe it doesn't."

Mary realizes that the moral value of unborn children is an objective reality. It's not a matter of some one's opinion at all. She gets it: abortion advocates can say, think, and argue all they want with their strange notions of the value of the unborn. She understands that their reasoning is illogical. She has learned that abortion is the intentional destruction of these unborn members of our species. She gets that the fetus has value.

Part 1...Women's "Rights"
Part 2...When the truth isn't the truth
Part 3...Translating Dr. Henry Morgentaler
Part 4...Why late-term abortions are not inconsequential