OTTAWA, September 18, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In the few days leading up to the second day of debate on Stephen Woodworth’s historic motion to debate the personhood of the unborn child in Parliament this Friday, the Conservative Member of Parliament says he will continue to fight for the principles underpinning his pro-life motion “as long as I have breath.”
“For the sake of my country, for as long as I can, I will stand up for the ideal of universal human rights and honest laws. … Those are the Canadian ideals that I feel are essential to our Canadian character and for sure I will fight for those for as long as I have breath,” he told Postmedia News.
Noting that despite the groundswell of public support for M 312, “definitely less than half” of MPs support his motion, which is also opposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Woodworth said he has low expectations of the motion passing.
“But when you’re engaged in a good cause sometimes you just have to do your part to try to achieve success and then accept the outcome, however it may be,” Woodworth said.
Woodworth’s motion does not itself propose a change in Canadian law, which permits abortion up to birth without legal restriction. Instead it proposes that a Parliamentary Committee be formed to examine the medical evidence relating to the unborn child, and produce a report outlining the options available to legislators “to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1).”
“I’m not trying to overturn any rulings on women’s rights or anything else that the Supreme Court has issued,” Woodworth said.
However, pointing out that “one does not magically transform from a non-human entity into a human being when one’s little toe pops out of the birth canal,” as the current law states, Woodworth argues that we must not “accept any law that says some human beings are not human beings!”
Speaking at the first hour of debate on his motion on April 26, Woodworth said, “Canadians expect parliamentarians to embody that courage, that strength, that principled quest for the truth. Will we be seen as bold for the sake of truth, or as fearful? We can trust Canadians to embrace the truth with us,” and called on his fellow parliamentarians to “courageously follow the facts.”
In response to Woodsworth’s motion, Campaign Life Coalition has created the “I am a Human Being” website as an educational tool that presents the scientific basis for why every human life should be protected from the time of conception to natural death.
“Campaign Life Coalition fully supports efforts in Parliament that reflect modern-day medical science and provide legal protection for all human beings from conception to natural death,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of Campaign Life Coalition.
Visit the “I am a Human Being” website here.
To express your opinion to your Member of Parliament before the second hour of debate on Friday, September 21, and the vote on the motion scheduled for Sept. 26th, contact information for all PMs is available here.