COLUMN: Think Again – The rights of unborn babies matter too

After months of relentless opposition from pro-choice organizations, Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette reluctantly removed a reference to abortion rights from his government’s proposed Quebec constitution.

The clause in question said, “the state protects women’s freedom to have recourse to a voluntary termination of pregnancy.”

It might seem strange that pro-choice advocates would oppose a move to enshrine the right to an abortion. After all, the primary mission of these organizations is to promote abortion rights. But there’s a very clear reason for their opposition to this particular clause—and it had everything to do with being politically strategic.

The reason pro-choice organizations led the charge against a clause enshrining abortion rights was because they knew it would be vulnerable to a legal challenge. Pro-choice advocates prefer the status quo where there is a complete legal void on this issue. This way, they can continue promoting the narrative that abortion is simply healthcare and should be treated like any other medical procedure.

This legal void stems from the 1988 Supreme Court decision on the Morgentaler case. The court struck down the abortion law as it existed at the time and invited Parliament to draft a new law that regulated abortion. However, the government at the time failed to get a new abortion law through Parliament and no government since then has attempted to address this issue.

Hence, Canada has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the world to have no legal restrictions on abortion. Not only is abortion fully legal during all nine months of pregnancy, but there is also no need for a woman seeking an abortion to give any reason other than a desire to terminate the pregnancy. This is significantly out of step with the legal framework in other countries.

For example, while most European countries allow abortion-on-demand in the first trimester, abortion is typically not allowed beyond the 12-to-14-week mark. The exceptions are the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which allow abortions up to 24 weeks. In Canada, a woman can have an abortion right up to the point of birth, even if there is no compelling medical reason for it.

And yes, while rare, late-term abortions do happen in Canada. In 2016, national media outlets reported on the case of a Montreal woman who was initially denied a late-term abortion at McGill University Health Centre because the hospital deemed that neither the woman’s life nor the fetus’s life was in danger. The woman was 30 weeks pregnant when she learned there were physical abnormalities with the fetus. However, the women simply went to another health-care provider in Quebec and obtained an abortion at 35 weeks of pregnancy.

If you want to know what a 35-week fetus looks like, just look at a newborn baby. Other than their location, they are exactly the same thing. If you aren’t comfortable with killing a newborn baby, you shouldn’t be okay with doctors killing a 35-week fetus.

Lest there be any doubt about the abysmal lack of legal protections for unborn babies, Section 223 (1) of the Criminal Code states, “A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, from the body of its mother…”

The reason pro-choice organizations don’t want to open up the abortion debate is because they know that most Canadians would be appalled at what is allowed under Canada’s current legal framework. Even sex-selective abortions are completely legal, which means that women are free to abort as many female fetuses as they want if they would prefer a boy.

Any conversation about abortion must start with the recognition that unborn babies deserve at least some legal protections. Their rights matter too.

Michael Zwaagstra is a teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.