Bill C 484 Unborn Victims of Crime Act is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday. The bill may seem controversial because it acknowledges the value of an unborn child. However, the bill is not about abortion; it’s about protecting women and protecting society’s most vulnerable.
As I understand it, the bill simply ensures that if someone assaults a pregnant woman and harms the unborn child, the offender would be charged with two crimes, 1 for harming the mother, the other for harming the child. This is entirely logical as young women and their children are vulnerable targets from (ex) boyfriends, lovers or husbands who may try to harm the young woman and kill her child over a fear of becoming a father. If this seems far fetched, a simple google news search yielded the recent stories of Tyrone Vesperas, Gil Magira, and Gerard Baker.
Tyrone is a Hawaiian man who allegedly stabbed his son, Tyran, 14, to death as Tyran stepped in to protect his pregnant mother, who was also stabbed. Her unborn child later died.
Gil is a British man, who was terrified of becoming a father and was jailed last week for putting abortion tablets into his pregnant wife's food. Gil Magira crushed the pills into a sandwich which he fed to his wife when she had refused to have an abortion voluntarily after becoming pregnant in November 2006. His wife, Anat Abraham, 38 at the time, felt unwell and went to hospital but the baby survived. The following morning Magira put more pills, which he had bought on the internet "at considerable expense" into her breakfast cereal and yoghurt. Unfortunately, this time Gil succeeded.
Gerard Baker, is a Canadian who killed Olivia Talbot and her unborn child by shooting Olivia 3 times in order to "get rid of the baby."
There are already 37 US states that have similar laws. Such crimes are simply so deplorable that our country must have laws to reflect the gravity of the crime. I trust that women's groups and Members of Parliament will support this measure as a means to increase protection for young women, and their wanted children.
UPDATE: The bill passed second reading and is being sent to committee. My MP Michael Chong was among the MPs who supported the bill.
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On a somewhat related topic: the Canadian Taxpayers Federation website recently revealed that Canada's CIDA gave $18 million over four years to International Planned Parenthood, which is spending $10 million to assist pro-choice candidates in the current U.S. election. So Canadian taxpayers' cash is being used to help mainly Democratic candidates. And the media and opposition are up in arms over the Tories allegedly helping the Republicans, when we are actually funding the election of Democrats.
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