OTTAWA, October 6, 2003 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Friday, the House of Commons continued Third Reading debate on Bill C-13, concerning human cloning, experimental research on human embryos and other reproductive matters.
Government House Leader, Don Boudria rose, making a statement that this legislation had been long debated, “that the question be now put,” and a vote taken to pass the bill. Paul Szabo succeeded in delaying the government attempt to force closure by engaging in a day-long filibuster debate. However, as debate continued in the House on Monday, pro-life leaders fear the badly flawed Bill C-13 will be voted on by the end of the week.
Meanwhile, at the same time, the Canadian delegation at the United Nations is pushing a resolution to allow cloning for “therapeutic” purposes, in contradiction to the Canadian government’s Bill C-13, which would supposedly not allow such cloning in Canada. Two resolutions are being proposed at the U.N. one that would outlaw any form of cloning for any purpose, and another that would prohibit cloning for reproduction but allow it for “therapeutic” uses. “Therapeutic cloning” is the creation of cloned human beings with the intention of killing and harvesting the cloned person’s body parts at any stage from the earliest embryonic stage up to nine months gestation.
Jason Kenney, MP for Calgary Southeast, asked the pertinent question, “If the policy of the government, as reflected in Bill C-13, were to honestly and sincerely ban all forms of cloning as it claims, then why would that the same government, in New York today as reported in newspapers across the country, be advocating in favour of the legalization of reproductive non-therapeutic human cloning? Why is the government today taking the position at the United Nations that we should legalize internationally,—and not just in Canada—through the instrument of a UN treaty, the cloning of human beings for so-called therapeutic purposes?” Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer for Campaign Life Coalition, answered the question. “The Liberals are talking out of both sides of their mouths; on the one hand in this country they are telling people what they want to hear and saying that C-13 will prohibit cloning completely, and at the UN they are leading the charge to allow cloning to create living human farms for spare body parts. Why would anyone believe these people anymore when they say they want to ban cloning? But this is only a tiny part of the problem; everyone knows that C-13 will allow embryonic humans to be created and used for scientific experimentation which kills them. Bill C-13 must be defeated. “