OTTAWA, October 28, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Early Tuesday evening the Canadian Parliament was finally able to pass its long-delayed reproductive technologies Bill C-13 by a vote of 149-109.
The bill has been strongly opposed by Canadian pro-life organizations and others because it permits destructive research on embryonic humans, permits some forms of human cloning (despite denials) and contains many other serious flaws. It purports to ban such things as cloning, paid surrogacy and the purchase and sale of human sperm and eggs. However, the seemingly deliberate ambiguities and scientific inaccuracies throughout the legislation and the creation of a regulating agency with too much authority has created strong doubts about the credibility of many of the bill’s stated intentions or restrictions.
Liberal MP Paul Szabo, who spearheaded efforts to stop the bill told the CBC, “I have spent two years doing my homework on C-13 and it is my opinion that C-13 is not a good bill, but in fact a fatally flawed one.” The government rejected almost all of many proposed amendments to the bill, even from members of its own caucus. The Liberal leadership was finally able to push through the legislation after recently making a deal with the socialist NDP and some Liberal MPs. Surprisingly, most of the Bloc Quebecois members voted against C-13.
In a final critique of C-13 by Campaign Life Coalition researcher Hilary White, it is stated, “The bill’s evasiveness, ambiguity and scientific inaccuracy on the subject of cloning and the creation of embryos exclusively for experimentation, has opened the door to human cloning. What is worse, is that once the bill is passed the public perception of urgency to prohibit cloning will pass. The procedures used to create clones will quietly go on in research labs protected by the bill’s faulty definitions and unhindered by any further calls for prohibition.”
On the issue of invitro fertilization White states, “In its attempts to regulate the IVF industry, it (C-13) fails even to identify any of the grave ethical or medical problems associated with artificial methods of human procreation.” She continues that “Bill C-13 encourages the growing perception that there is such a thing as a right to parenthood. If this idea is accepted, it necessitates the reduction of the child to the position of property.” Expanding on this White states, “By accepting IVF as a given in Canadian society, Bill C-13 gives the governmental stamp of approval to the reduction of the human person to a thing that may be demanded as a right, donated as research material, purchased, experimented upon, bought, sold or destroyed at will.”
C-13 now moves on to the Canadian Senate for debate and final approval. There is a possibility the Senate may not approve it because of limited time as parliament is expected to rise next week. Should that happen, the legislation will die on the order paper.
Opponents of the bill are strongly encouraging Canadians to contact Senators and urge them to oppose C-13 because of its serious flaws. See the most recent 24 page, detailed, clause-by-clause critique of C-13
See LifeSite’s past reports on C-13 and the stem cell issue here.
To contact Senators see here and here