Hey Minister, you ain't foolin' me!

While Canadians are getting pounded by the snow and pounded by news of the US elections, a sneaky and very important Bill is being debated in the House of Commons.

Ken Epp, a Conservative MP, put forward Bill C484, also known as the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act” which “seeks to make it an offence for injuring or causing the death of an unborn child during the commission of an offence against the child’s pregnant mother.” (This was taken directly from Epp’s website).

Translation? Killing a pregnant womyn would legally be considered killing two people: the womyn and the “unborn child”.

On the surface, who doesn’t agree with this? Pregnant womyn are called pregnant because they’re carrying a child! Many pro-choicers argue that a fetus is not a person, it’s a potential person, etc. I am pro-choice and believe that what a pregnant womyn carries is indeed a child. A human being. HOWEVER, I am pro-choice because I believe a womyn’s choice and rights trump those of the child that she carries. Without her, there would be no child, in every literal sense.

Furthermore, pregnant womyn are at an increased risk of abuse and assault and there are various reasons for this that I won’t get into here. But statistic after statistic demonstrates that womyn who are abused are even more abused once they are pregnant. This is a sad state of affairs.

So in a perfect world, I say right on Epp! Sign away on that Bill and let us stick sick, abusive bastards in jail for even longer! However, when you take off your rose-coloured glasses, you see that this Bill is really just a sneaky anti-choicers attempt at taking away a womyn’s right to choose.

If this Bill goes through, we will be forced to re-open the age-old abortion debate. Why?

Well you can’t say that a fetus is a “person” onto itself when it is murdered along with its pregnant mom, but that it’s not a person when a womyn has an abortion. If this Bill passes in the House, the Canadian Government will be saying that a fetus is an unborn child in the case of murder by a stranger. Anti-choicers will shit their pants with glee and then run to the courts calling every womyn who has an abortion a murderer, because “Hey there Judge, you just said they were people and that killing them is a separate offense that should be recognized under the law!”

See where I’m getting at? Now Mr. Epp realizes this and keeps saying that it will not interfere with a womyn’s right to choose and for the sake of the argument, let’s just say he really believes that. Well sorry Mr Minister Man, but we will have a legal contradiction in Canada and you know some Smart Ass lawyer is going to rip it to shreds and open up the legality of abortion. And considering abortion is only decriminalized in Canada, this can of worms very well might open.

Putting aside the abortion issue, how about the implications for the valuing of womyn’s bodies?

So killing a young womyn of reproductive capacity – bad. Killing a womyn who is currently reproducing – very bad. Killing a young womyn is killing a future mom too, isn’t it? But they aren’t actually giving us babies right now, so it’s not that big of a deal, right?

Think I’m an exaggerating feminazi? Well how about the fact that it’s called “The Unborn Victims of Crime Act” and not the Fetus Act? Or better yet, “Pregnant Victims of Crime Act”? It’s obviously not out to address violence against pregnant womyn. It’s about giving fetuses full personhood rights while under the guise of “saving pregnant womyn”. To me, this is a whole lotta “Let’s go save the Afghani womyn!” when really it’s a matter of “I could care less I just want oil for my SUV.”

This Bill is HUGE and very important. And in the world we live in, with anti-choicers waiting on baited breath for any opportunity to revoke womyn’s reproductive rights, Minister Epp is on a slippery slope. And I pray to God, Goddess, Allah, Jehovah, whoever, that he falls down that slope and forgets this whole thing. But I won’t hold my breath.