VIOLENCE AGAINST PREGNANT WOMEN:

NO DANGER TO ABORTION RIGHTS

by Beck Poulsen

Montreal Gazette August 17, 2008

Joyce Arthur either doesn't know what she's talking about when she claims that Bill C-484 "negates the current 'born-alive' definition of a human being in the Criminal Code by prohibiting it as a defence. This in effect makes the fetus a human being, thereby jeopardizing abortion rights."

The bill clearly states that "It is not a defence to a charge under this section that the child is not a human being." This is proof that C-484 recognizes that the fetus is, in fact, not a "human being" in today's criminal law. How? By making it explicit that, in spite of it not being a "human being," it would be a crime to kill it without the pregnant woman's consent.

The Law Reform Commission of Canada, in its 1989 report, Crimes Against the Fetus, noted that criminal-law protection is not limited to persons. The Canadian Criminal Code already covers crimes against animals and dead bodies. Why can't we protect fetuses, though not "human beings," from third-party attacks against their mothers?

Beck Poulsen

Vanier, Ont.