Ottawa

’A sad day for Canada’

A release from the Campaign Life Coalition.

Campaign Life Coalition is very disappointed that Parliament voted 203-91 against permitting a parliamentary panel from considering modern scientific evidence about the child in the womb and whether their findings should result in reform of the Section 223 (1) Criminal Code definition of human being, which is based on an out-dated 400-year-old law.

“It is a sad day for Canada that a majority of MPs were afraid to examine the science of preborn life,” said CLC National President Jim Hughes said. “What are they afraid of? These anti-debate extremists have wrapped themselves in a strident pro-abortion ideology that requires them to avoid any discussion or debate on matters that properly are the domain of Parliament.”

Hughes pointed to comments by NDP MP Françoise Boivin who said that rules should be changed to prevent private member’s business such as M-312 from being introduced in the future. She said the issue of abortion has been settled and is not up for review. “Who is Ms. Boivin to decide which issues Parliament gets to debate?” asked Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of Campaign Life Coalition.

Douglas also noted that M-312 has nothing to do with abortion. “The motion does not include the word abortion. What Mr. Woodworth was trying to do was begin a discussion informed by science about the unborn child, but the opposition MPs, gripped by a radical pro-abortion ideology, refused even this simple, democratic debate.”

Campaign Life Coalition thanked MP Stephen Woodworth (Kitchener Centre) for raising the issue of the scientific and legal status of the child in the womb and expressed disappointment that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and most of his cabinet parties joined the opposition parties in defeating Mr. Woodworth’s motion.