OTTAWA, July 22, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Conservative MP and co-chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus Maurice Vellacott expressed great sadness at the brutal slaying of a pregnant Edmonton woman and decried the injustice made evident by this case. Liana White’s husband, Michael White, has been charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body for leaving it in a ditch. But he is not facing any charges in the death of their unborn child.
Comparing this case to the Peterson case in California, Vellacott said, “If White faces a murder charge against his wife, Liana, he should also face a murder charge in respect to his child, just like Scott Peterson was indicted for two murders: that of his wife, Laci, and son, Connor.” The decomposed bodies of Laci and her unborn son, Connor, were found on the shore of San Francisco Bay in April 2003. In November 2004, Scott Peterson was found guilty of murder in the first degree of Laci and murder in the second degree of Connor.
But in Canada, children do not receive the protection of the law until they have been fully born alive. This is because the Criminal Code defines “homicide” as the act of causing the “death of a human being” and it defines “human being” as a child who has “completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”
“I do not believe the Canadian public supports this archaic form of ‘justice,’” Vellacott said. In fact, in the Peterson case, a public opinion poll in the US released by Fox News showed that 84% of respondents supported a double murder charge against Scott Peterson.
“We cannot continue to exclude vulnerable children from the law’s protection,” said Vellacott. “In the fall, I plan to work with colleagues in the House to introduce a Private Member’s Bill to protect unborn victims of violence.”
Vellacott continued, “This brutal crime highlights the need to address not only the inadequacy of our current criminal justice system, but also the huge social problem of violence against pregnant women.” According to a March 2002 report by the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, “abuse often begins or worsens during pregnancy, when a woman is most vulnerable, and most dependent on her partner’s support.”
Referring to another report published by the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System in February 2004, Vellacott pointed out that women abused during pregnancy are four times more likely than other abused women to experience more serious violence, including being beaten up, choked, threatened with a gun/knife, or sexually assaulted. “We don’t know at this point whether the motive for Liana’s murder had anything to do with the fact that she was pregnant,” Vellacott said, “but it is certainly something we cannot ignore.” He referred to one study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March 2001 which concluded that “a pregnant or recently pregnant woman is more likely to be a victim of homicide than to die of any other cause.”
“This was a tragic and violent crime,” Vellacott concluded, “and my heart goes out to Liana’s family, especially her surviving 3-year old daughter. If there is any good that can come out of all of this, maybe it is that it has helped to shed some light on the social and criminal injustices that exist in Canada today. Maybe it will move us to action, to take the necessary steps to bring about greater protection for Canadian women and their children.”
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