By Dave Andrusko
Pro-lifers in Canada are ramping up a campaign to highlight the discriminatory practice of sex-selective abortions. On Wednesday Conservative MP Mark Warawa initiated a public awareness campaign to promote “Motion 408” which calls on Parliament to condemn discrimination against females occurring because of sex-selective abortions.
At a news conference held in Ottawa, Warawa told reporters that “The issue of female gendercide is being discussed openly across Canada and internationally. We are calling on all Canadians to work together to end violence against women and girls, to send a message of acceptance that women are valued in Canada and to stop this discrimination, protect girls and support M-408.”
Although Canada has no law on abortion, there is widespread support for Warawa’s motion. A 2011 Environics poll reported that 92% of Canadians wanted sex-selective abortions banned.
As reported previously in NRL News Today, Mr. Warawa’s motion was first introduced in September, the day after the defeat of Stephen Woodworth’s motion to set up an all-party parliamentary committee to re-examine the legal point at which an unborn baby is considered to be a human being. That “defeat” has served as a catalyst for renewed pro-life initiatives.
Warawa’s motion came in response to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigation of 22 private ultrasound clinics in Canada, which found most clinics allowed ultrasounds to tell the sex of the baby so that the parents could choose to abort an unborn female child.
There is also plenty of academic evidence that sex-selection abortions are taking place in Canada. According to Kim Mackrael, in a story published in the Globe and Mail in late October, Warawa
“said he was compelled to draft the motion after an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal cited research suggesting women from some communities in Canada were aborting female fetuses because of a preference for males. The author, Rajendra Kale, proposed that health-care professionals avoid revealing the sex of a fetus until about 30 weeks of pregnancy – a point at which it would be more difficult for a woman to obtain an abortion.
“A separate Ontario study published in the journal presented evidence that women born in India and South Korea were significantly more likely to have a male baby than women born in Canada when it came to their second or third child. And news reports have suggested that some sonographers agree to reveal the sex of a fetus before a woman is 20 weeks pregnant.
A Globe and Mail story published Wednesday made clear that pro-abortionists are “in a difficult spot.” Gloria Galloway wrote, “no politician wants to be seen as endorsing the practice of ending pregnancies simply because the fetus is female.” That, of course, did not deter the Canadian Abortion Establishment or pro-abortion Members of Parliament.
The motion “is an anti-abortion vehicle,” lamented Joyce Arthur of the Abortion Rights Coalition, “aimed at getting abortion back in the public discourse and turning more Canadians against the procedure by painting it in a negative light.” Joyce told Galloway, “That opens the door to banning any reason for abortion.”
“I don’t think [sex-selective abortion] is okay, but I also don’t think the state has a right intervening in this issue,” said Liberal health critic Hedy Fry. “It is a medical decision between the physician and the patient. It should be left there as all abortions should be.”
Warawa countered, “I think we have something [in the motion] that everyone should be able to support.”
(See also “The preposterous politics of female feticide.”)