On May 18, Liberal Senator Stanley Haidasz introduced for first reading in the Senate Bill S-16 to give full protection to the unborn. The bill is co-sponsored by Tory Senator John MacDonald. Second reading followed on May 24. Senator Haidasz’s bill is reprinted in its entirety on page two.

The void left by the Supreme Court’s decision of January 28, leaving the unborn without any legal safeguards in Canada is the reason for the bill, Senator Haidasz stated. When by early May it became clear that the Mulroney cabinet – unlike many of the Tory backbenchers – was unprepared to present a true pro-life law to the Commons, Senator Haidasz consulted with the political and legal advisors of Campaign Life Coalition.

Unborn human being

The Bill’s use of the term “unborn human being” to designate the person from conception to birth is a first in Canadian legal tradition. At present, the term “human being” is restricted to those who are born. Senator Haidasz believes that the new term will help the legal system catch up with the indisputable scientific evidence that birth is one stage in the continuum of human life from conception to natural death.

Dr. Stanley Haidasz, a medical doctor, a graduate of the University of Toronto, and a former Liberal MP (Toronto Parkdale), gave an eloquent, well-reasoned speech during second reading in the Senate.

Senator Haidasz had made a similar attempt on Dec. 8 1981, when he tried (unsuccessfully) to move an amendment in the Senate on third reading of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to add a special clause stating: “Nothing in this Charter precludes Parliament from legislating on the rights of unborn children.”

Senator Haidasz says he has a “fairly good chance” with his bill. There are 30 Tories, the balance are Liberals, except for four Independents. He claimed pro-life members of the Tory caucus are only 12 short of a majority in both the House and Senate. The reluctance of many senators who are Catholics to support the pro-life cause saddens him.

The first four Liberal senators that Senator Haidasz approached to second his pro-life bill turned him down! Two were Catholics and two were not. One said, in his defense, that he sat on a board of a hospital that did abortions and it would be hypocritical of him to second it.

Senator John MacDonald, (Cape Breton, N.S.), a Conservative and a Protestant, willingly came to Senator Haidasz’s aid and agreed not only to second the bill but also to speak strongly in favor of it.

Parliament

In a stirring speech, Senator Haidasz told the Senators that 200 to 300 children are being killed in abortion clinics daily. He reminded the large number of Quebec Senators of the precipitous population decline in their province. His bill, he insisted, would not conflict with the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. Parliament, he stated, was not deprived of its power to make laws protecting unborn children.

The Supreme Court, the Senator said, had not made a ruling on the constitutional rights of the unborn. The Borowski’s case still needs to be decided.

The phrase “in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice” keeps alive the right of Parliament to protect human beings in the womb,” Haidasz argued. “It’s a scientific fact that from conception a zygote is a unique human individual with an identity and life distinct from that of either of its parents.”

“We have the power and the responsibility to decide when human life begins and to ensure that from that moment on our laws give that human being full protection.” He cautioned that one should never speak about the unborn as ‘potential life,’ but as ‘life which has potential.’

Some people, he said, argue that many women must choose between abortion and carrying a child and living in poverty. He applauded efforts urging extensive programs of social action to help people with this problem, but he said that we do not allow people to kill those dependent on them because they are living in poverty. We therefore cannot justify taking the lives of the most innocent and the most vulnerable of human beings.

Senator Haidasz said that there are no therapeutic reasons for an abortion, saying that an abortion is not therapeutic for the mother and it is certainly not therapeutic for the baby.

Statistics, he said, tell us that abortions are performed for social and economic reasons or pressure from parents, or boyfriends or husbands. One of the myths he wished to destroy was of “the mother versus the child.” Any medical treatment necessary to save the life of the mother would be allowed by his bill.

“The Hippocratic Oath requires of me and my colleagues,” he said, “to preserve human life and not to destroy it. It is scandalous that doctors have become licensed executioners in our society today. It means a betrayal of everything that we have stood for and sworn to uphold.”

Text

Bill S16, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of the unborn).

Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons, enacts as follows:

1. Section 251 of the Criminal Code and the heading preceding it are repealed and the following substituted therefore:

PROTECTION OF THE UNBORN

251. (1) Every one who, with intent to cause the death of an unborn human being, uses any means to carry out that intent is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for life.

(2) Every one who, in doing anything, or in omitting to do anything that is the duty of that person to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the life or safety of an unborn human being and thereby causes the death of that unborn human being is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for five years.

(3) Every pregnant female person who, with intent to cause death of an unborn human being within her, uses any means to carry out that intent is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for two years.

(4) No one is guilty of an offence under subsection (1) if the life of the unborn human being was ended as a result of medical treatment necessary to prevent the death of the mother of the unborn human being or to remedy a condition that, if left untreated, would cause the death of that mother.

(5) In this section “any means” includes

(a) the administration of a drug or other noxious thing.

(b) the use of an instrument, and

(c) manipulation of any kind

“unborn being” means a human life from the moment of conception until birth, whether conceived naturally or otherwise.”