Government Whip yields big stick

May 4, 2012

Asking for a study whether the unborn becomes a human being only at “complete birth” generates hostile response in Canadian Parliament

By Patricia Maloney

 

Conservative Member of Canadian Parliament Stephen Woodworth

In Canada there are no legal restrictions on abortion. None. Abortion is legal at any time throughout the nine months, for any reason, or for no reason.

So when on Thursday April 26, Conservative Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth brought forward a motion in the House of Commons to simply ask for a committee to discuss when an unborn child becomes a human being, it really seemed like a legitimate request to ask our Parliament.

Simply put, Woodworth’s motion 312, was to ask “that a special committee of the House to be appointed and directed to review section 223(1) of our Criminal Code which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth…”

In other words, let’s talk about when an unborn child becomes a human being. This motion is not about enacting a law to prohibit abortion in any way. This motion is about a study; to discuss; to research; to debate. To, you know, participate in the democratic process.

Naturally we expected opposition from our two opposition parties, and we weren’t disappointed.

But it was the vociferous objections that came from Woodworth’s own party when Government Whip, Gordon O’Connor said:

“The decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision…in a free and democratic society, the conscience of the individual must be paramount and take precedence over that of the state…I cannot understand why those who are adamantly opposed to abortion want to impose their beliefs on others by way of the Criminal Code…There is no law that says that a woman must have an abortion. No one is forcing those who oppose abortion to have one…Whether one accepts it or not, abortion is and always will be part of society. There will always be dire situations in which some women may have to choose the option of abortion. No matter how many laws some people may want government to institute against abortion, abortion cannot be eliminated. It is part of the human condition.”

(In Canada the Whip is the MP responsible for ensuring party discipline among members of the Government caucus. In other words, the Whip carries a very big stick.)

No need to read between the lines here. Our Prime Minister has said many times he will never reopen the abortion debate. But for the Government Whip to come out with statements like this, implies that the government is going much further than simply remaining silent on the subject of abortion. This sounds like a pro-choice position to me.

You know, this is actually sort of funny, in a warped kind of way. This tells us that the Conservatives in Canada are really no different than our other parties on abortion policy.

So what happens next? Well, one more hour of debate in June, and then a vote later in the year to see if the study will take place.

Will any of our brave pro-life MPs be willing to vote for the Motion with the courage of their convictions? Or will they allow themselves to be whipped into shape? We’ll just have to wait and see.

Patricia Maloney is a Canadian pro-life blogger.

Revised 2010 Ontario abortions tell a sad tale

We know that CIHI recently released their 2010 abortion statistics.

Absent from the statistics were the number of abortions from Quebec.

So I asked CIHI why there was no data for Quebec, CIHI told me that:

"We receive Quebec hospital and clinic abortion data directly from the Quebec ministry (hospitals, but not clinics, are mandated to collect it). It reflects all induced abortions for patients covered by the province’s health insurance plan. As per my earlier note, we are currently working with the ministry to obtain this data."

I also asked for clarification on clinic data and which provinces accurately report clinic data. This is what CIHI told me:

"AB, MB, NL and NB have reported comprehensive clinic data. As stated in the footnotes for the published tables, BC, ON, QC have not reported comprehensive clinic data. There are no clinics in SK, NS, PEI or the territories."

Regarding hospital data CIHI confirmed that all provinces and territories:

"voluntarily participate in the DAD database. The data is collected through a secure electronic data electronic submission service."

Finally, now that we know the 2010 CIHI numbers, I was able to more accurately compare the 2010 Ontario numbers for Ontario, with the data I received from 2010 OHIP billing records.

These OHIP billing records reported that there were at least 43,997 abortions in Ontario in 2010. Plus there were 94 medical abortions in Ontario for 2010, for a new total of at least 44,091 abortions committed in Ontario in 2010.

CIHI is reporting only 28,765 abortions in Ontario for 2010.

This means that Ontario abortion statistics based on OHIP billings are higher by 53.3% than CIHI's numbers. This is much worse than what my last estimate reported, which was higher by 45.4% (I originallyy reported this as being 31% higher but that calculation was in error).

So while we're at it, let's multiply that 44,091 number of Ontario abortions for 2010 by a more realistic total cost for an abortion, which is $1,600.

(UPDATE January 15, 2017: The article linked to above is no longer on line anymore but here is the text of what it said: 

"By Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal, Published: Tuesday, October 11 2011...Cholewa says her clinic would likely bill AHS [Alberta Health services] somewhere in the neighbourhood of $1,600 for each procedure - about the same fee it charges the province to terminate a pregnancy." emphasis added

That's at least $70,545,600 Ontario taxpayers spent killing their unborn children in 2010.

The pro-abortions should listen to themselves

I think the pro-abortions are losing it.

If you don't believe me, watch Natalie Hudson-Sonnen debating Joyce Arthur, and Andre Mrozek debating Carolyn Egan on Stephen Woodworth's motion.

The radical feminists just keep dragging out their same, old, tired, boring, urban legend myths, every time they talk. I wonder if they ever listen to themselves:

"abortion is a basic human right."

"abortion is a constitutional right."

"legal restrictions on abortion don't work because women will still have them anyway."

(While we're at it, maybe we should make murder legal too, since people will still murder anyway.)

When Ms. Arthur was asked about a compromise in the abortion debate, she completely ignores the question and instead says:

"I want to respond to what Natalie said about the polls. It[abortion] is too complex an issue to have it accurately judged by polls."

Really? Is that because people are too stupid to understand the questions being asked them?

And because these polls are:

"Commissioned by anti-choice groups or use anti-choice propaganda, the answers can't be trusted."

Take that Environics.

Then Ms. Arthur starts on a new tangent and tells us that:

"it is totally inappropriate to have legal restrictions playing a role in medicine...no treatment or procedure in medicine covered by law."

Except that abortion isn't a treatment for anything Joyce. Abortion is the destruction of a defenceless human. This is a situation where the law has an extremely appropriate role.

They are really really afraid of this motion, and the abortion debate it's generating. What's happening here, is that the pro-abortions don't want us to talk about abortion because they know whenever the topic comes up, like in Mr. Woodworth's motion, their pro-abortion arguments simply don't hold up to scrutiny or logic. The more we put the pro-abortions on the hot seat and make them defend their radical views, the more everyone will see how what they say doesn't make any sense.

I did notice that Ms. Arthur actually said that the:

"Fetus is biologically human".

Oh my, was that a mistake?

Educating Francoise (part deux)

Oh dear. Francoise is at it again.

On Monday this week, Ms. Boivin got up again in Parliament to talk about abortion. Now Ms. Boivin can talk about abortion all she likes. That's fine. But it's the strange things she says that makes me twitch.

Like:

“Mr. Speaker, I rise here today to denounce certain government MPs' attempts to criminalize abortion. Of course, they know that their approach is extremely unpopular with women who hate it when men try to tell them what to do with their bodies.”

I have to ask myself, exactly which women are you talking about Francoise? Would that be me? Would that be some of my women friends? Because I can let you in on a little secret. Any "approach", by any MP, to put limits on abortion is not unpopular with us, it is actually very very popular with us. Really.

I almost get the impression that you might be thinking that you speak for us women. I have that wrong though, right? Because, and I know this might come as a shock Ms. Boivin, but you don’t actually speak for us at all. Not now. Not ever.

And you do understand that nobody is telling any woman what to do with her body right? This is somebody else’s body. But I think you already know that Francoise. I think you’re pulling my leg.

Then you say:

“That is why these members are drawing inspiration from the Republican Party and using roundabout ways and bogus motions that are based on pseudo-science.”

Ms. Boivin, are you a clairvoyant that you know where MPs get their inspiration from? Wow, lucky you.

And pseudo-science? Let me see...nope, no pseudo-science here: An unborn child is human, since it comes from, you know, a human mother and a human father. Yep. Definitely human. That's science. Biology actually.

And finally this:

“Canadian women have a right to access abortion and this backwards-thinking government cannot take that away from them.”

Francoise I think we’ve had this particular discussion before. And nothing has changed since the last time we spoke.

What is this right to abortion you keep talking about? Did you make that up? There is no Charter right to abortion Ms. Boivin, I don’t care if you say it 100 times. It doesn't change anything.

So for your homework Francoise, please write this 100 times in your scribbler:

"I do not speak for women. An unborn child is not a part of a woman's body. There is no constitutional right to abortion in Canada".

When you're done, we can talk again.

A female is not a clump

George Jonas on sex-selection abortion: You haven’t come such a long way

Ah, George Jonas. As Carly Simon says "Nobody does it better".

This is what he says:
“Choicers” lose just by noticing the blessed fetus is a female. An extension isn’t a female. It’s a growth, a confidence between a woman and her gynacologist. But a female is a different story. A female isn’t a growth. Not a clump but a soul, she’s not in the realm of obstetrics but of morality. Medical waste has no sex; a female, born or unborn, obviously does.

Once it’s possible to object to the elimination of fetuses on the basis of their sex, it’s possible to object to their elimination, period. Suddenly they come to life. It’s as if they were born, and once they’re born, any decision about what to do with them is no longer a question of a woman controlling her own body, but a woman controlling someone else’s body. A body that’s in her temporary custody; a body she has a fiduciary duty to protect."

And "choicers" out there, please take note. Jonas is neither religious or a social conservative. Just saying.