I tend to agree. The committee members are split evenly pro- and anti-.
I don't know how a clear amendment / recommendation comes from that. If the committee actually gets around to reviewing the bill.
Still, I think it's important for people and organizations to be engaged as much as possible in this stage.
The composition of this committee is visually stunning to me. More about that later.
[ 09 March 2008: Message edited by: writer ]
It seems to me that on the issue of Bill C484 and its strategic wording to evoke the sympathies of Canadians and MPs for the few full-term fetuses that are victims of crime a small amendment could be a counter move.
Rather than bestowing legal rights on the fetus as this bill implies the issue of legal redress could be shifted back into the hands of the mother.
So for example, by adding a line that states that, if the life of a fetus, which the mother has chosen to bring to full-term, is terminated due to criminal activity, then the mother has the right to seek legal recourse for her loss.
It would seem that such an inclusion sidestep the issue of intrinsic fetal rights and yet allow MPs to avoid be labelled the depraved and indifferent secularists that the religious right like to assert.
The bedrock principle won by women's struggles (in some countries) seems to me to be that, in the eyes of the law, a person's life legally begins at birth.
Any change to that - based on a fetus' alleged life and entitlement to protection of a law - de facto ends women's rights to control of their body, regardless of how nicely it is wrapped. Imagine the horrible arguments from the defense that would fill courtrooms as to women's actual intentions ("Did you really want this child, Mrs. Doe? Let me refresh your memory with words from Exhibit A, your subpoenaed diary...") and indirect responsibility in the "crime" alleged ("No, you chose NOT to leave!")...
[ 09 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]
Long thread...[url=http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=24&t=001355]let's continue here.[/url]
