The Last Exile

No where is this more evident than in this bit of proposed legislation. The National Post:

OTTAWA – Insisting his proposal doesn’t violate Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stated opposition to reopening the abortion debate, a Conservative backbencher has introduced a private member’s bill that would make it illegal to “coerce” a woman to have an abortion.

Winnipeg MP Rod Bruinooge told a news conference Thursday he doesn’t believe his bill will reignite a debate on abortion because it doesn’t affect the right to abortion in Canada. Mr. Bruinooge said the bill would only make it a crime to “coerce or attempt to coerce” a woman to have an abortion against her will.

Hopefully, this piece of legislation will die a quick death, and can I say thank G-d, the conservatives don’t have a majority. Herein lies the problem – once the courts interrupt ‘coerce’ it can really mean anything and a whole host of other facts come into play. For example, to be found guilty of an assault in this country does not mean one has to physically strike another person. A reasonable belief by the victim that your intention is to cause physically harm is enough. So coerce or attempt to coerce a female into having an abortion could eventually come to mean a parent’s refusal to support a pregnant daughter or a pregnancy counsellor suggesting abortion is a valid option and how to procure one could come to mean ‘coercion’.

I may have a limited imagination but I can come with a number of scary situations without overtly taxing my brain with this legislation. MP Bruinooge claims his motives are pure for this piece of legislative gibberish:

Mr. Bruinooge said the bill was inspired by Roxanne Fernando, a woman in Winnipeg whose murder in 2007 was arranged by her boyfriend after he failed to force her to have an abortion.
The Criminal Code already makes it a crime to threaten violence against another individual. But Mr. Bruinooge said he wants to send a clearer message that forcing a woman to have an abortion against her will is “wrong and unacceptable in a nation that values human rights.”

The criminal code already has penalties for murder and threatening bodily harm. If that was not enough of a deterrent to give pause to Roxanne Fernando’s estranged boyfriend; this legislative stupidity wouldn’t have stopped him either but what it will do is open up a whole new avenue of criminal prosecutions. Thanks, but no thanks.

I am pro-life but believe in absolute pro-choice. I don’t believe anyone has the right to decide for another woman whether she should have an abortion or not. No one is the keeper of another’s conscience. I have three teenagers and if my daughter (G-d forbid) came home from university and told me she was pregnant and wanted an abortion I would be taking her to the Scott clinic myself. Its her decision. And lucky for us – its just down the street.