OTTAWA, March 5, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A motion asking the Parliament of Canada to condemn the practice of sex-selective abortions is scheduled to be debated in the House of Commons on March 28, 2013.
According to the Order Paper, MP Mark Warawa motion is thirteenth on the list of private members' business items listed in the order of precedence.
Warawa's Motion 408 does not seek legislative changes to Canada's lack of any abortion regulations, or even a parliamentary study such as proposed by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth in his Motion 312. Motion 312 had sought to establish a special committee to look into the Criminal Code's outdated definition of “human being.”
Warwara’s motion simply seeks a statement from Parliament that it condemns “discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”
Woodworth’s motion had failed by a vote of 91 to 203, but was backed by more than half of the Conservative caucus and ten Cabinet ministers, despite being strongly opposed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
Warawa explained that his own motion came in response to numerous inquiries and concerns his office received after a CBC undercover investigation of 22 private ultrasound clinics in Canada found most clinics allowed ultrasounds to tell the sex of the baby so that the parents could choose to kill an unborn female child.
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A 2011 Environics poll, commissioned by LifeCanada, found that 92 percent of Canadians wanted sex-selective abortions banned.
The CBC sting followed from a report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal calling for measures to combat the deadly practice of sex selection abortion in Canada’s Asian immigrant population.
“Some readers might be skeptical about whether female feticide is in fact taking place in Canada and the United States,” wrote then-editor Dr. Rajendra Kale. “Research in Canada has found the strongest evidence of sex selection at higher parities if previous children were girls among Asians — that is people from India, China, Korea, Vietnam and Philippines.”
The next few weeks will be crucial in conveying the message to all parliamentarians that Canadians support the motion to condemn sex-selective abortion.
To promote support for his motion, Warawa invited Reggie Littlejohn, a leading expert on gendercide and China’s One Child Policy, to meet with Canadian Parliamentarians in early February to urge them to condemn discrimination against women and girls occurring through sex-selective abortion.
Littlejohn has testified numerous times before the United States Congress, the United Nations, the European Parliament and the British and Irish Parliaments. She has briefed officials at the White House, and is a frequent guest on radio and TV programs, including CNN, C-SPAN, and the BBC.
Last year Littlejohn successfully led the international effort to free blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng who fled house arrest in China and gained sanctuary in the US.
“It does not matter whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, no one can accept the atrocities that are inflicted upon women and girls. Stop the violence. Stop gendercide,” Littlejohn told MP's and Senators in meetings on February 7.
“Canada is part of a global crisis,” said Warawa. “According to the United Nations, 200 million women and girls worldwide are missing due to gendercide. In June 2012, a CBC investigation revealed that sex-selection is happening in Canada.
“We as Parliamentarians cannot ignore this reality. 92% of Canadians oppose this practice. All national parties have condemned it. Now is the time for the Canadian Parliament to condemn this form of discrimination against women and girls.”
“I’m hoping that through this debate we will have a revelation that we need to condemn this action that will carry this message not only across Canada but across the world,” Warawa said.
A petition in support of Motion 408 is available for download on MP Warawa’s website.
Campaign Life Coalition has also launched an online petition urging political party leaders and Members of Parliament to support Warawa’s motion.
Sex-selective abortion is “a reprehensible practice that targets baby girls for female gendercide and represents discrimination against women in its most extreme form,” the petition by Campaign Life Coalition reads.
Contact information for your Member of Parliament is available here.