Ontario

The Crown has finally been given the opportunity to speak in the abortion constitutional hearing that ahs been taking place in Toronto. After 37 long days of pro-abortion arguments by Moregentaler’s lawyers, Morris Manning, Federal Crown Counsel Arthur Pennington, Q.C., began his argument on March 20^th, in a lucid manner, appealing for recognition of the right of the unborn child to be born and to live a full life. He argued that abortion is not an operation akin to removing a cyst, as alleged by Manning, and involves far more than just the interests of the prospective mother.

Mr. Pennington said:

Abortion, no matter how hard you try to disguise it, involves the deliberate destruction of a developing human life. That separates it from the removal of a cyst.

The birth of the baby is truly a miracle, we, the living, are on the razor’s edge between hundreds of thousands of generations into a misty past and all the generations of the future.

In little ways, it is in the community’s interest. People look into baby carriages outside supermarkets. Fathers organize little league baseball. We share in the new life, in the children of the new growing generation.

It is only a stage farther back to know that each of those children, each of those babies in a baby carriage, was at one point a fetus in the womb. We protect them against idle, unnecessary destruction. That is one of our values, the sanctity of fetal life.

In a later argument, Mr. Pennington stated that the government of Canada is not responsible for providing equal access to abortion services. He stated “It is not up to Parliament to provide nationwide abortion facilities … And it is not up to Parliament to require hospitals to set up abortion committees or to establish requirements that will ensure all women in Canada have equal access to abortion committees.” Mr. Pennington went on to say that the federal government does not ensure all Canadians have equal access to other medical services, but that does not make law in other health area unconstitutional. Mr. Pennington also disputed defense arguments that the abortion law is too vague. He said that the accused would have no trouble reading the law and noting that their costs (in operating an abortion clinic) violated the law.

Finally, Mr. Pennington argued that Canada should not follow the U.S. Supreme court, which brought in abortion on demand, starting that the American Courts were wrong in their “decision and their historical, legal and constitutional analysis.” He said that the U.S. Supreme Court decision that changed the abortion law was an example of “judicial activism” and “judicial legislation,” i.e. the courts over-ruling legislators. “They (U.S. Courts) have rendered a dis-service to the political machinery in that country.”

The Crown’s argument s were completed during the first week of April, and are now being followed by a rebuttal by Defense Counsel Manning.