By John-Henry Westen
OTTAWA, March 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood yesterday in the House of Commons to cast his vote in favour of the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. Bill C-484, which passed second reading in the Commons yesterday, was put forward as a Private Members Bill by Conservative MP Ken Epp. Most of Epp’s Conservative colleagues supported his bill; however, four Conservatives opposed the measure.
The bill is a response to repeated calls from the families of murdered pregnant women – and from the public at large – to recognize unborn children as crime victims when they are injured or killed during the commission of an offence against their mothers. Voluntary abortion or any act or omission by the mother are specifically exempted in the legislation.
An Environics poll released in October 2007 found that 72% of Canadians – 75% of women – would support “legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill a foetus during an attack on the mother.”
Even among those Canadians who support unrestricted abortion for the full nine months of pregnancy, 55% support “legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill a foetus during an attack on the mother.”
Despite these figures four Conservative MPs voted against the measure, including:
Gordon O’Connor of Carleton-Mississippi Mills in Ontario
Lawrence Cannon of Pontiac in Québec
Sylvie Boucher of Beauport-Limoilou in Québec
Josée Verner of Louis-Saint-Laurent in Québec
Two of the four are Conservative Cabinet Ministers who also fought traditional marriage and voted to alter the definition of marriage. Cannon is Transportation Minister and Verner is Minister of International Cooperation. Verner, a staunchly pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia MP, was known as ‘Quebec’s impoverished Belinda Stronach’.
While all the Bloc Quebecois MPs voted against the measure, one Member of the NDP – Peter Stoffer of Sackville-Eastern Shore in Nova Scotia – voted to support the bill.
Polling has shown that among voters, the legislation is supported across party lines: 77% of Conservative supporters, 71% of Liberal, 71% of the Bloc Quebecois, 67% of the Green Party, and 66% of the NDP supporters are in favour of “legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill a foetus during an attack on the mother.”