News

KITCHENER, Ontario, September 13, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The largest private sector union in Canada staged a protest outside the constituency office of pro-life MP Stephen Woodworth on Wednesday.

The Canadian Auto Workers Union (CAW) organized the demonstration against the Kitchener Centre MP to protest Motion 312, according to The Waterloo Record.

They say the motion, which asks the government to appoint a committee to look at the scientific evidence pertinent to the beginning of human life, is a backdoor attempt to initiate a debate on abortion.

“We feel he wants to make abortion illegal again in this country. We feel very strongly that women have the right to choose,” said Yvonne Quigley of CAW Local 1106.

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 committee members examine the medical evidence relating to the unborn child, and produce a report outlining the options available to Parliament “to affirm, amend, or replace Subsection 223(1).”

Woodworth says that section of Canada’s Criminal Code, which stipulates a child only becomes a “human being” once he or she has fully proceeded from the womb,  is a 400-year-old throwback inherited from British common law.

Woodworth has argued that his motion does not focus on abortion but is simply a response to the advances of science in the past decades which prove beyond a doubt that the unborn child is human, thereby calling into question the validity of section 223.

“The one thing we do not do in a civilized nation,” Woodworth told the Record, “… is that we do not pretend someone is not a human being.”

The CAW has been widely criticized by pro-life leaders for the union’s use of mandatory members’ dues to advocate for abortion, homosexuality, same-sex “marriage” and other politically correct social issues that have nothing to do with workplace issues for autoworkers.

This summer the CAW organized demonstrations opposing the “New Abortion Caravan,” a pro-life initiative launched by the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) that used abortion imagery on a caravan of trucks that traversed the country, to force the Canadian public to consider what is in fact being advocated by those who promote “choice.”

The “New Abortion Caravan,” was an appropriation of the infamous 1970 Abortion Caravan that advocated for “legalization of a woman’s right to choose.”

Pro-life Conservative MP Jeff Watson (Essex) said he has received numerous complaints from constituents about the CAW’s actions against the “New Abortion Caravan.”

“The common thread [of the complaints] is that the union should be more focused on issues like job security for its members than to be involved in public issues or social issues,” said Watson. “Workers just want to focus on their job and I think they want the union to do the same.”

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives under Tim Hudak have taken to task the social engineering initiatives of unions like the Canadian Auto Workers by releasing a white paper that calls for “worker choice reforms” that would allow employees to opt out of unions that use their dues to fund non-work-related political campaigns with which they disagree.

Chris Vander Doelen, a columnist for the Windsor Star, said: “Unions have no moral right and should have no legal right to impose their political or anti-religious views on their members — especially without asking democratically, as has been the case with the CAW’s decision to start proselytizing about abortion without first asking permission from the rank and file.”

Contact info:

Canadian Auto Workers
Ken Lewenza, President
205 Placer Court,
Toronto, Ontario M2H 3H9
Phone: 416.497.4110 (ext 6555)
Tollfree: 1.800.268.5763 (ext 6555)
Email: [email protected]