Speaking of private members' bills...

Telegdi bill proposes Canadian 'Charter Day'.

Gag me with a spoon (after I finish my popcorn & beer and eat my cake).

Our warped moral intuitions - With update

Update - Jeff Allan is covering this issue right now! (9 a.m.)

Jeff says that the mother is #64 on the list of murders - He asks why doesn't the unborn child even qualify as a statistic???

I might add, why are we even referring to her as a 'mother' if the baby doesn't exist?

Brian Rushfeldt of Canada Family Action Coalition mentioned that had the baby who was delivered by Cesarean section drawn a single breath before passing away, then the baby would have been a person. Remember, the baby did have a faint heartbeat after the stabbing.

This is crazy.

* * * *

Quick break from Ontario Election news to discuss front page article in the Post - Murder renews debate on life of fetus.

Reporter Karon Lui reminds us of the Tuesday's tragic details:

Turan Cocelli, 29, was charged on Tuesday with killing his 25-year-old wife, Aysun Sesen, but no charges were laid in the death of the seven-month-old fetus.

Under the Criminal Code, a child is only considered a human being when it has emerged from the mother's body alive.

Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit introduced a private member's bill last year that would make it a separate criminal offence to harm a fetus when the mother is assaulted or murdered, but the bill was defeated in the House of Commons.

This is a highly-charged subject because the situation inevitably evokes the fact that there is currently no restriction of any kind on abortion in Canada. You can see from the comments in my recent post on the Sesen tragedy, that it brings out a great deal of hostility when the subject is even mentioned.

Lui tells us that:

Thirty-five U.S. states recognize the fetus as a crime victim in homicide or feticide instances.

In Canada, however, the issue from the perspective of both sides is whether a fetus can be given personhood status in homicides without touching on abortion issues.

So, I would assume that the American fetus in many states is somewhat more human than any in Canada?

"If we take the position that the fetus is a separate person at viability, then we open up all sorts of issues. All of a sudden, the woman is two separate persons," said Martha Shaffer, an associate law professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in family and criminal law. "Her liberty and autonomy can be greatly curtailed in the interests of the fetus within her.

"If she's doing something that somebody decides to be contrary to the fetus's interests -- which could be eating too much sugar, exercising too hard, smoking or drinking -- it's very dangerous to go down that route to say a woman is no longer a separate, independent person at a certain stage of pregnancy.

Yes, indeed. Because being able to drink and smoke during pregnancy is a right that should not be denied. It certainly trumps anything else.

"...On the other hand, viewing this pregnant woman as two separate persons is potentially more dangerous than saying he can be prosecuted with the murder of the woman here, and that will be a sufficient punishment for what he has done."

Good grief! Does everyone buy into this? We're not just a province of lemmings - We're a country of lemmings!

Very selfish, self-serving lemmings.



Margaret Sommerville sums up this conundrum:

"I'd change the law, not so much that I think these cases are frequent, I'd change it because we're being ostriches with our head in the sand, pretending that the baby doesn't exist," she said.

"It's a separate question in terms of what we'll do in protecting it, where we'll draw the lines in terms of protection as opposed to a woman's right to what she wants to do. Not to draw any lines, which is the case at the moment, or to draw the lines pretending we're not dealing with a human life, warps our moral intuitions."

There now. Get to bashing the 'fetus-fetishists'. I'm waiting for you.

* * * *

Update - As you were: No dead baby here, no sir.

Two heartbeats ended - One murder charge

H/T to Matt for this story - Man charged in pregnant woman's stabbing death.

It really bothers me that someone can murder both a woman and her unborn child in Canada, but only one charge of murder can be laid:

While the woman and her baby were both killed, police can only lay one charge of murder.

"The law in Canada doesn't allow for the killing of an unborn fetus," Grinton said.

The terminology is interesting. The CTV article actually uses the word 'baby'.

But Sgt. Grinton uses the phrase 'unborn fetus'. So can there be a 'born' fetus?

My question is, if the pregnancy is just a bunch of tissue, why even mention in the article that the woman is pregnant? What is the point?

If she had a tumour would they make mention of that too?

Woman and hideous growth murdered in Toronto.



Matt laments that somehow crime isn't an issue this election.

I lament that we can continue to delude ourselves on the subject of pre-born murders.

Remember Manjit Panghali?

* * * *

Update: More outrage here - One charge for murdering two people: Sick!

Wednesday Update: Another Woman Murdered in Toronto.

Violating the Charter vs. Violating Life

Newstalk 570 talkshow host Jeff Allan will be interviewing Lifesite editor John Henry Weston this morning at 10:30. (Oh, yeah, and then Stephane Dion right after... *Yawn*)

Anyway, the subject du jour involves the recent arrest in the "murder of pregnant school teacher Manjit Panghali in B.C. The victim's husband Mukhtiar Panghali as well as his brother Sukhvinder Panghali were both arrested and charged in her death."

Regarding the tragic events, Constable Sharlene Brooks stated:

“Mrs. Panghali and her unborn child have had their lives taken prematurely and very tragically. This type of crime defies comprehension and the value of human life.”

Right to Life wants to see laws in place to protect pregnant women who seem especially vulnerable to these types of crimes of passion, by charging the accused with two murders rather than just that of the mother.

Ironically, yesterday would have been Majit Panghali's due date.


A private member's bill was introduced last June to deal with this matter, but it was judged non-votable by the five-member Subcommittee:

The committee members stated that the bill “clearly” violated the Constitution including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

By pretending to safeguard womens' rights, we have actually put them at greater risk.

How do we go about fixing this mess?