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OTTAWA, March 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A parliamentary committee will announce its decision on the fate of Tory MP Mark Warawa’s gendercide motion on Thursday.

The non-binding motion states: “That the House condemns discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”

The motion was deemed non-voteable on Thursday, and Warawa presented his appeal to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) on Wednesday afternoon.

Attendees at the PROC meeting were surprised that after Warawa delivered his five-minute statement, the committee members had no questions for him and immediately moved to an in-camera meeting. Forty-five minutes had been allocated for the public portion.

“It appears that minds were made up,” Warawa said, according to CBC’s Laura Payton.

Payton reported that after they emerged from the in-camera meeting, committee chair Joe Preston said that a decision had been made but would not be announced until Thursday.

She also tweeted the reaction of committee vice-chair Dominic Leblanc:

A number of pro-life MPs were in the room as Warawa presented his appeal, including Jeff Watson, David Anderson, Rob Anders, Pierre Lemieux, and Harold Albrecht.

Rebecca Richmond, executive director of the National Campus Life Network, attended the meeting too.

“Like the media and other members of the public present, I would have liked to have heard the deliberations, but the meeting went in-camera immediately following Mr. Warawa's five minute statement,” she told LifeSiteNews.

“It was disconcerting that the committee members had no questions for Mr. Warawa and that their deliberations were very short,” Richmond added.  The interviews that members of the committee gave following the meeting did not address their decision but some expressed concerns that Parliament had already 'debated abortion'.  The committee's decision will be reported to the House of Commons tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic.”

M-408, was deemed non-voteable on Thursday by PROC’s Subcommittee for Private Members’ Business, in a joint effort by the Conservatives, New Democrats, and Liberals.

A non-partisan analyst from the Library of Parliament had told the subcommittee that the motion meets all the criteria, but the members argued that the topic of the motion fell under provincial jurisdiction and dealt with a topic already considered in this Parliament (they claimed M-408 and Stephen Woodworth’s M-312 both dealt with abortion).

Warawa accused the subcommittee members of “disregard[ing] the rules of Parliament” and vowed that he would appeal the decision “all the way.”

If Warawa's appeal to PROC fails, then his last resort is an appeal to the House of Commons, which would vote by secret ballot.

Brad Trost, a Saskatchewan Conservative MP, told LifeSiteNews that he thinks the appeal will come down to a vote in the House, which would mean constituents should contact their individual MPs.

“It looked like it was a political decision made at the subcommittee,” he said. “If it was a purely political decision made, I suspect a majority on the broader committee would probably back it. If it’s purely political and not made on its merits. That is my expectation, but I haven’t spoken to any one personally. It’s just an observation.”

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