OTTAWA, February 17, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A refugee claimant from China who worked as a “family-planning manager” has been rejected by a Canadian court, which ruled that forcing women to abort their children against their will is a crime against humanity.
Li Min Lai admitted to aggressively enforcing the one-child policy in her workplace – at one time even camping out in front of a woman employee’s home, eventually coercing her into aborting her seven-month-old unborn child.
Federal Court Justice Sandra Simpson upheld a decision by Canada’s refugee board, which ruled last year that Lai’s role in coercing abortion contravened the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
“It is clear from her own evidence that with her relentless, and highly abusive, tactics she forced pregnant women . . . to have abortions,” Simpson said, as reported by the Vancouver Sun.
In 2000, Lai discovered that the daughter-in-law of the manager of the bus company Lai worked for was 6 months pregnant. She threatened the woman and her husband with job loss and fines, and camped out at their home daily for three to six hours. After threatening her with arrest, the woman finally gave in and aborted the child at seven months.
“The board concluded that [Lai] had ‘forced’ [the woman] to have the abortion using relentless and extreme pressure,” Simpson wrote in her decision.
Campaign Life Coalition national organizer Mary Ellen Douglas applauded the decision, saying that, despite the irony of it, we have to celebrate any decision in favour of life.
The irony, she said, comes in when you consider that Canada has aborted well over two million of its own unborn children. The atrocity is compounded, Douglas emphasized, by the fact that “many women are dragged into abortuaries” -coerced by boyfriends or parents, not unlike the women in China.
Add to that irony Canada’s complicity in China’s coerced abortion policy – Canada increased its contribution to the controversial United Nations population control arm UNFPA in November, adding $67 million over four years to its already allocated $13.1 million annually.
For the past four years, the Bush Administration has denied the UNFPA funding, due to the organization’s collusion with China’s coercive one-child program. Canada made the announcement of increased funding during US President Bush’s visit to Canada last fall.
To determine the extent of UNPFA’s involvement with the Chinese coercive one-child program, the US sent an investigation team to China in 2002. Describing the findings, then Secretary of State Colin Powell said that “UNFPA’s support of, and involvement in, China’s population-planning activities allows the Chinese government to implement more effectively its program of coercive abortion.”
Catholic writer Patrick Coffin has provided to LifeSiteNews.com readers a handy guide on understanding the Canadian Court’s decisions:
I want to abort my child = glorious freedom in a democracy that cares about women, validated by a Canadian court.
I want to you to abort your child = disgusting crime against humanity to be reviled by all freedom-loving people, rejected by a Canadian court.
I don’t want to be aborted = absurd thought to be denied, avoided, suppressed, and rejected by a Canadian court.
I don’t want you to abort your child = infallible sign of far Right persecution of freedom-loving people, hatred of wymyn, deserving of rejection by a Canadian court.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Canada Dumping Tens of Millions into Controversial United Nations Population Control Agency
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