OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – In light of recent inaccurate comments made by several high-ranking Canadian politicians regarding the nation’s abortion “laws,” Canada’s top pro-life group said that the nation needs an actual law to protect children from being “killed in their mothers’ wombs.”
Last week, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Pierre Poilievre, after being called a phony “pro-choice” advocate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, claimed he would not change the “law on abortion.” However, the reality is that no such “law” exists in Canada, as pointed out by Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) communications director Pete Baklinski.
Baklinski also wrote about the September 25 exchange between Poilievre and Trudeau over abortion on the House of Commons that any future legislation regarding abortion must reflect “what science and medical advancements reveal to us about life in the womb, namely, that it is a fully human life.”
“Such legislation, if it is to truly remedy the current wrongs suffered by preborn humans, must restore their legal protection from the first moment of their existence,” Baklinski said.
“Yes, Canada needs a law. It needs a just law the protects children from being killed in their mothers’ wombs.”
Baklinski said the nation will be “judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
“Preborn human children are the most vulnerable among us. These smallest members of the human family are waiting for a day of justice,” he wrote.
For years, Trudeau has professed his support for abortion despite being a baptized Catholic. Since taking office in 2015, his Liberal government has put forward pro-abortion policies such as stripping pregnancy resource centers of their charitable status because they promote life instead of abortion.
His government has repeatedly gone after pro-life MPs, as recently reported by LifeSiteNews.
Baklinski: Former Justices did not want the Canada ‘we live in today when it comes to abortion’
Baklinski observed that the CPC leader’s talk of not wanting to “change” the “law” on abortion shows he is “quite mistaken on this matter.”
“There exists no ‘abortion law’ in Canada,” wrote Baklinski, who then gave an explanation on how Canada’s abortion rules have changed since the practice was allowed in 1969.
Abortion was decriminalized in Canada in 1969 when then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin Trudeau’s father) passed a heavily criticized omnibus bill that amended the Criminal Code to allow abortions to be done in hospitals under permissive circumstances.
This law remained in effect until the Supreme Court of Canada struck it down and labeled it unconstitutional in the 1988 Morgentaler decision. The law was removed on a technicality, with the court ruling that it violated a woman’s right to “security of the person” since it could not be applied equally across the country.
After the decision was issued, the court encouraged Parliament to produce replacement abortion legislation. This effort failed when then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s draft law was dismissed in a Senate tie vote, which happened on May 30, 1990, as referenced in Wilkinson’s video. The law, known as Bill C-43 (An Act respecting abortion), satisfied “neither pro-life nor abortion advocates,” according to CLC.
Since the 1990 Senate vote, Canada has had no abortion law at all, which means the deadly practice is permitted through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason.
According to Baklinski, Canada’s then-Supreme Court justices did not want the Canada “we live in today when it comes to abortion, where a preborn baby can be killed throughout all nine months of pregnancy for any reason or no reason whatsoever.”
“In fact, the court was unanimous in finding that the state has an interest in protecting the lives of humans in the womb. Chief Justice Dickson, with Justice Lamer concurring, wrote: ‘Like Beetz and Wilson JJ., I agree that protection of foetal interests by Parliament is also a valid governmental objective,” Baklinski noted.
“Justice Beetz, with Justice Estey concurring, wrote that the ‘primary objective’ of the Criminal Code’s section 251, which was repealed, was the ‘protection of the foetus.’”
Baklinski said that the justices wrote “The primary objective does relate to concerns which are pressing and substantial in a free and democratic society and which, pursuant to s. 1 of the Charter, justify reasonable limits to be put on a woman’s right [to security of the person].”
Beetz continued, saying, “I am of the view that the protection of the foetus is and, as the Court of Appeal observed, always has been, a valid objective in Canadian criminal law … I think s. 1 of the Charter authorizes reasonable limits to be put on a woman’s right having regard to the state interest in the protection of the foetus.”
Baklinski noted how in issuing a dissenting opinion, Justices McIntyre and La Forest wrote, “Historically, there has always been a clear recognition of a public interest in the protection of the unborn.”
“The majority opinion concluded that the ‘solution’ to the ‘abortion question,’ namely how to balance the rights of the mother with the state’s interest in protecting life in the womb, ‘must be left to Parliament’ since Parliament, the court stated, is ‘elected for that purpose in a free democracy.’”
To date, Canada’s Parliament has “yet to honour the Supreme Court’s invitation that it pass legislation protecting human lives in the womb,” Baklinski noted.
Despite multiple Liberal MPs’ claims that Conservatives seek to enact laws restricting abortion and the fact that several Conservative MPs are indeed pro-life, the truth remains that the current Conservative leader is staunchly in favor of abortion and aligns with the Trudeau government on the matter.
Poilievre has a poor track record on issues of life and family, with CLC having given him a “red light” rating.
According to CLC, abortion has killed over four million preborn babies in Canada alone since its legalization in 1969, which is roughly equivalent to the population of Alberta.