Today, September 28, marks the International Day of Action for the Global Campaign for the Decriminalization of Abortion, an effort for organizations to campaign for women’s reproductive rights worldwide. The movement began with the struggle to address the public health crisis of unsafe abortions in Latin America before spreading to include countries and organizations across the globe. This year’s action holds even greater meaning for Canada since it falls on the very same week that Motion 312, which sought to re-open the abortion debate in Canada, was struck down in Ottawa.

In this era of routine political deceit, wise voters are advised to pay attention to what their elected representatives actually do, not what they say.

So when Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative Party of Canada tries to have it both ways on abortion in the debate surrounding Kitchener Centre MP Stephen Woodworth's Motion 312, which would have Parliament "study" the point at which a baby becomes a human being, this strategy should be seen for what it is: an effort to chip away at women's reproductive rights through the Parliamentary back door.

Motion 312 -- a motion put forward by a backbencher from Kitchener Waterloo asks our Canadian government to strike a parliamentary committee to "review the declaration in Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code which states that a child becomes a human being only at the moment of complete birth and to answer the questions hereinafter set forth..."

The questions MP Woodworth would like this committee to "answer" primarily concern medical opinion and legal precedent on when life begins and the options available to Parliament to potentially change that.