Bill C-537 - Vellacott's Trojan Horsefeathers

Bill C-537 : An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of conscience rights in the health care profession)
1. The Criminal Code is amended by adding the following after section 425.1:

Definition : "human life"

"human life" means the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation."

This snowball-in-hell from ReformaTory Alliance parliamentary prat Maurice Vellacott is just another backbencher wedgie against abortion, and, like Epp's Bill C-484, it will be stoutly defended by the usual Trojan horsefeathers crowd as being not against the right to choose - oh no, not at all - it's all for the protection of the health professional.

Then if, like these women in Pennsylvania, you get raped but manage to get yourself straight to the nearest hospital to be examined and still have the wit to also ask for a morning after pill but are denied one by the attending ER physician on the grounds it's against his religion to give you one, you'll at least be able to thank your lucky stars that his "conscience rights" have been "protected" by Vellacott's peculiar version of the Criminal Code.

H/T to Diane Demornay at enmasse for news item)

One thing puzzles me here though : "the human organism at any stage of development, beginning at fertilization or creation" ???
What's with "or creation"?

What "stage" could possibly need the further embellishment of "or creation"?
Well I guess they've got the Second Coming covered.

Further raised eyebrows on C-537 :
pale, the regina mom, Laura, JJ, 900 ft Jesus, CC

Cross-posted at Creekside

You can't understand the outrage? Here. Let me explain it.

Some of the Liberal (capital L) bloggers can't seem to grasp the outrage felt by those of us of in the left side of the swamp over the failure of the opposition to meet Bill C-484 with the appropriate action.

Yes, we've all had visits from the House of Commons and slowly the message should be starting to sink in.

One suggestion is that the Liberal MPs who voted with the Conservative sponsor of this bill would have defied a whipped vote. And then we're supposed to persuade those MPs to change their vote.

Persuade?

Let's get something clear here. We, the people, do not work for our Members of Parliament; they work for us. If there is any persuading to do it is them addressing us, not the inverse. If I have to start getting persuasive with non-responsive MPs it will be by way of an effort to have them destooled and replaced. And that includes their leaders, whomsoever they might be.

The outrage is not just at the Liberals' obvious failure to properly interpret this bill and then meet it head-on. The outrage goes deeper - much deeper.

My extreme dislike for Harper and the sycophants he has gathered around him is based completely on his past performance and activities. He has back-stabbed his way to power and his personal views on Canada are unrepresentative of the majority of the population. He believes in a Balkanized country. Further, he is no less a separatist than the members of the Bloc Quebecois.

So, when the Liberals stand up and tell us that Harper has a hidden agenda, something I believe to be true, I expect those same Liberals to beat that agenda into the ground as soon as it starts to emerge and with as much force as they can muster.

By failing to do that, the outrage develops, and we all wonder why we bother with an opposition at all. TIBT explains why we're now questioning why we should call on the opposition for anything:

The Liberals failed to stand up against the Conservative agenda they warned us against.

Got that? You Liberals were the ones telling us how dangerous Harper is. And sure enough, he's one destructive little bastard. So where do you get off not keeping your swords sharpened?

Get your goddamned act together. Now.

You weren't elected to do a part-time job.

Just another point: At the top of the post I did say "some" capital L bloggers. That doesn't mean all of them by any stretch. By example, I give you Far and Wide as one of the better examples of the capital L bloggers who does get it.

Bravo Zulo, Gordon O'Connor

Skdadl over at POGGE rightly pays due respect to the four Conservatives who voted against Bill C-484, the incremental and unconstitutional attempt to change the definition of human life.

In that post she recognizes Josée Verner, CPC, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women and Official Languages; Lawrence Cannon, CPC, Minister of Transport; Infrastructure, and Communities; Sylvie Boucher, CPC, MP; and, Gordon O'Connor, CPC, Minister of National Revenue.

I've taken more than my fair share of chunks out of Gordon O'Connor. When he was Minister of National Defence I can only describe him as a near perfect target.

That was then. This is now. I was always willing to single out O'Connor for his failings. I am just as willing to applaud him for his courage.

Gordon O'Connor demonstrated political integrity yesterday. He also joined three others of his party in refusing to join a mindless herd of MPs who clearly have either no respect for or no knowledge of constitutional law.

Well done, Mr. O'Connor. You have put some of the members opposite to shame.

Bravo Zulu is the is the supplementary signal from the Allied Naval Signal Book carrying the meaning Well Done.

SoCon or Busted

Cathie from Canada catches blogger SoCon or Bust doing a little premature gloating and dogwhistling about the all too obvious intended endgame of Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, aka the Stealth Act to Recriminalize Abortion :
"... the momentum is clearly moving in our direction.
If not this time, it will happen in the future. It’s inevitable now.
Just give us a little crack and we’ll drive this

RIGHT THROUGH IT!
Little baby steps….easy does it."

Oh come on, SoCons, that's not your usual truck.
This is your usual truck :


that creepy fetusmobile you have on loan from the US Center for Bio-Ethical Reform.
Anyone could drive that thing through C-484.

Cross-posted at Creekside

The thin grey line

TODAY is when bill C-484, the piece of dishonest, incremental legislation intended to criminalize abortion comes before the House of Commons for a vote on second reading and referral to the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights.

The anti-choice crowd can't seem to get their act together. On one hand they are attempting to keep the camouflage over the bunker while on the other hand they can't help but wet themselves with excitement that the real intended purpose of this legislation is to criminalize abortion. Need some evidence? Take a wander over to see what JJ and Matttbastard found.

In a casual conversation with a friend, who happens to be a criminal lawyer, this morning I discovered precisely what this piece of socio/political gradualism would do and why it can have no other purpose than to directly assault the right of a woman to make her own choices.

Ken Epp and his co-sponsor, former used-car salesman Dave Van Kesteren, can quack all they like about how this is not about abortion. I've called bullshit in the past and I'm calling it again. No matter how they try to frame the bill, there is one aspect of it which is intended to hobble the Supreme Court of Canada.

While Epp might be speaking truthfully when he suggests that this amendment would not be used to prosecute women or doctors in the case of an abortion, (although I don't for a minute believe that's the case), he has neatly avoided discussing the one thing that would plant a ticking bomb in Canadian law.

A definition.

The long title of the bill, according to my lawyer friend, contains the time bomb. (emphasis mine)

An Act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offence)

There's the bomb.

Epp and his gang of anti-choice crusaders regularly refer to the bill by its short title, Unborn Victims of Crime Act, quietly sidestepping the clarity of intent in the long title. If it wasn't so underhanded it would be ingenious.

If this bill moves out the House and goes to committee the amendment will require more than just the rewording of section 238 of the Criminal Code. It will require a written definition of an unborn child.

The current offence specifies "in the act of birth".

It is the definition this crowd is attempting to insert into the Criminal Code. By doing so, if this bill goes anywhere other than the garbage bin, they will have provided a counter argument to the Supreme Court decision in Tremblay v. Daigle in which the court specified that a fetus has no status as a "person" under the common law.*

Fern Hill brings out an article from December 2007 in which the incrementalism of bill C-484 is celebrated.

In the United States, incrementalist legislation – informed consent, waiting periods, defunding, clinic hygiene laws, etc. – have successfully reduced the number of abortions.

Once again, I'm calling bullshit. The author has no way of knowing that and cannot possibly substantiate it. Better education and freely accessible contraceptives are distinct factors which reduce the number of abortions but were they were never mentioned.

What is also omitted is that the only abortions the author of that dishonest claim can monitor are those which are carried out in a system reporting statistics. In places where safe, legal abortions are not accessible, abortions still occur, but in much more dangerous circumstances and in a statistical void.

You still have time to take action. Stop this bill dead in its dishonest tracks.

* I had meant to put this following note in at the time of the original post:

It should be noted when the anti-choice crowd whines about the Supreme Court decision and the rights of poor Jean-Guy Tremblay being trampled they conveniently leave out he fact that this miscreant has been convicted of no less that 14 physical attacks on women, most of whom were his former girlfriends.

One Person, One Body, One Count. Whatever is happening in her body is a part of her.

I don't know if Ken Epp is a good Member of Parliament or a bad Member of Parliament. He's not my MP. I don't know whether he's promoting a religious agenda or a secular one. In short, I cannot, with a clear conscience call Ken Epp what I think I would like to call him.

I do know that the legislation he is proposing with Bill C-484 is nothing but a copy of the Christian Dominionist social conservative US Republican garbage intended to provide human status to something that has yet to take a breath.

I have read Epp's defence of his bill in the comments section of a gut wrenching post. Right here.

I appreciate the comments people are making on my Bill. However, I plead with them for compassion. My bill specifically and explicitly excludes consensual abortion. It applies to the case where the woman has DECIDED NOT to have an abortion. She has CHOSEN to bring her pre3gnancy to term, and to give her child birth, care and love. Do you really believe that your case for consensual abortion is so weak that you have to sacrifice the right of a woman to choose to maintain it? Surely the ultimate denial of a woman’s right to choose is to have her pay with her life for CHOOSING to have a baby!

Please read the Bill. See that it is totally focussed on the victims. See that it cannot possibly be used to charge a woman for anything that SHE chooses to do in this regard. See that the charges only apply when the mother-to-be is the victim of a criminal act. Please think. Here is a woman who has no support in our criminal code for HER CHOICE at the present. This is for her, her family, and the unborn child that was taken away from them by a criminal act, against her will, without her consent, and with violence which she most obviously has not chosen.

Thanks.

Ken Epp, MP

Mr. Epp, with all due respect, horseshit. You know it and I know it.

Take a read here and explain how your bill will improve matters, Mr. Epp.

As it stands, though, the Criminal Code already allows for more severe sentencing when the victim of an attack is pregnant. Hive off the aggravation charges to a separate charge related to the fetus, and you’re back to a shorter sentence since criminal sentences in Canada typically run concurrently.

That's not a guess. That's Canadian law and its administration.

I am at a loss to understand how the mother in your scenario, Mr. Epp, is protected. In your scenario, she is dead. By the equation you provide punishment for an offender times two. But the offender, in your scenario, still receives a life sentence with parole eligibility after 25 years. Your scenario does nothing but elevate a non-breathing group of cells to the status of a hominid while diminishing the status of the living, air breathing being.

The force of your bill, sir, is to make a woman less of a person than the potential human she is carrying. Feel free to read the word potential one - more - time.

If you were a good lawmaker, and I have no evidence to support your record in that regard, you would be well aware of what has happened elsewhere when similar bills found their way past the sanity of legislative process.

And if I might be so obnoxious as to provide you with yet another line of thought, one should be asking why it is that you are so concerned with what is happening inside the body of a woman. It's not your body; it's hers.

When, exactly, did a woman become only the contents of her womb? She is a fully formed life, a person who is known and loved by those around her. When this woman dies violently, long before her time, she’s missed for who she was and who she could be ... not for the fetus she carries. Why isn’t that important enough? Why aren’t women important enough? Answer me that, you anti-choice misogynist.

Yes, I know. Another emotional female... who read your intentions like a book.

This has been dealt with at length by many. But the fact is, Mr. Epp, you are trying to squirm past the definition provided by the Supreme Court of Canada. You didn't get your anti-abortion bill and you've found a sleazy way to try and make it work. The ad-men who put this together for you should be so proud because they did something most decent lawyers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.

I suppose, Mr. Epp, that any group of multiplying cells in a persons body requires protection. A man, for example, with testicular cancer has cells multiplying in his reproductive organs. At least, that's what it looks like.

But what if it's the second coming of Christ forming in a man?

Sound silly?

Ya think?!

Work on it. And check your religious beliefs at the door before you start meddling with my secular legal structure.

Readers: Go here and demand that Stephane Dion whip the vote against this odious bill.

Graphic shamelessly stolen from LuLu.