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Murder of Pregnant Woman in Toronto Ignites Debate on Recognition of Life of Unborn

By John-Henry Westen

TORONTO, October 4, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Tuesday, October 2, 2007 a young 25 year old mother and her child in the womb were murdered in the Toronto suburb of North York. The common law husband and father was charged with only one murder.

Aysun Sessen was seven months pregnant when she was stabbed to death.  Nonetheless, her partner Turn Cocelli was charged with only one murder. 

Sessen's parents know they have lost two children, their child and their grandchild.  "There should be two charges," said Besey Sesen, 53, Aysun's father.

Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of the pro-life movement in Canada has called on all members of parliament to enact legislation to recognize the reality of the child in the womb.

"Two people were killed in this tragedy, mother and baby. The age of the child doesn't matter anymore than the age of the mother," said Jim Hughes, National President of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC).

Conservative MP Leon Benoit introduced legislation last year that would have allowed Canadian law to recognize an unborn child as another human being when violent acts are committed against the child.  Benoit's bill C-291 proposed making it a separate offence to kill or injure an unborn child while committing a violent crime against his or her mother. 

A Freedom of Information request into the affair found that the Conservative Government had quashed the measure even though it was raised by one of their own Members.  Justice Minister Vic Toews was warned in an unsigned briefing note on C-291 from government bureaucrats that, "Any change to the definition of a 'human being' in the Criminal Code could have the effect of criminalizing abortion." The note went on to state, "The government has no plans to propose any reforms in this area of the law."

"If the private members' bill, which was presented to Parliament last year by Mr. Leon Benoit, had passed the child's murder would have been recognized. Campaign Life Coalition supported this bill as a common sense bill which any reasonable person could support," commented Hughes.

Benoit's bill was launched with two similar double murders which occurred in Edmonton.  19-year-old Olivia Talbot and her unborn child Lane as was Liana White with her unborn child.

The Olivia Talbot case is back in the news today as jurors were shown a police video-taped confession by Talbot's assailant. 

Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of CLC, called on Canadians to demand a change in law from their MPs. "The Canadian criminal code must be revised to recognize the obvious fact that the child in the womb is worthy of recognition as a human being," she said.

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