Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

In case this week was lacking anything

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, April 15, 2010 3:44pm - 91 Comments

Conservative backbencher Rod Bruinooge introduces a bill that would make it illegal to “coerce” someone to have an abortion. The Prime Minister’s Office says it won’t support the legislation.

Mr. Bruinooge, who is chairman of the multiparty pro-life caucus on Parliament Hill, said his bill was not inconsistent with Mr. Harper’s stand. ”This bill doesn’t affect gestational limits or access to abortion in Canada,” he said. “It’s something that, in fact, doesn’t reopen the abortion debate. But it does make it a crime to threaten or intimidate a woman into an abortion.”

Tags: abortion, house of commons, Parliament, Rod Bruinooge, Stephen Harper

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John D

I'm no lawyer, but I'm going to take a wild guess that it's already illegal to coerce someone into any medical procedure. Pretty sure "Take that appendix out or I'll shoot" is a crime.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

I'm no lawyer either, but I thought it's already illegal to kill human life. But "Hey, it's still in the womb, so let's kill it" isn't a crime, is it.

Patchouli

No, killing your "it" isn't a crime if it's a foetus in a woman's body.

Pretty sure nobody thought you were a lawyer, Dennis.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Oh, and I've got another one for you anti-lifers. If it's strictly a woman's body, and she can do anything she wants to it, then it's OK if she abuses alcohol and drugs during pregnancy, right? Her body.

Ted

Legally, yes. Morally – the state does not legislate morals in a free society so that is an issue between her and her belief system.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Again, the silliness of some of these arguments is truly astonishing. If we don't legislate morals, then why in the world are murder laws on the books? Or even gay marriage? lol. for crying out loud. Seriously, is this all some of you have in defence of snuffing unborn children?
Ted

Again, the silliness of some of these responses is truly astonishing.

Are you telling me that you can't think of any reason why murder should be outlawed other than some priest or old book tells you it is bad and you will go to hell for it?

LOL. For crying out loud.

Seriously, is this all you have to claim that women should be thrown in jail for life as a result of removing a few thousand cells a few weeks after conception?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Wait a minute, priests of specific religions are the only ones who believe that murder is immoral? This is your 'serious' rebuttal, is it? lol. You leftists spew these knee-jerk one-liners ad nauseum. You don't even know what they mean any more.

"A thousand cells a few weeks after conception"

Who cares how long after conception it is? After birth, we're just a bunch of cells, too? Why not allow them to be killed, too?

Or could it be that human life is far more than that, and you still want it snuffed?

Ah yes, serious argumentation indeed.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

And here's another one.

When people look at ultrasound images of a fetus, and treat it just like a baby, or feel a woman's stomach and admire the life inside, are these people acting like total idiots – simply admiring another part of a woman's body? Or, as common sense dictates, are they admiring the wonder that is a human life inside — a human life that so many of you have no problem being snuffed. You leftists love rights, but not the ones that matter.

Standing By

Dennis, Dennis. Look at your In Box. You aren't supposed to debate abortion.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Douglass Douglass

You don't debate it. You decide it for everyone else. Dennis_F you have no interest in debating this issue, or trying to understand what any of these women trying to make this important decision are going through. Your narrow viewpoint will never change, logic be damned.

You just have to look at the anger in your posts to understand that there is no debating with you.
http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

You just love telling people who want to respect a woman's right to choose that they are just harbingers of death, don't you?

Since when is what a woman does to her own body any of your business?
MacLean's Regular

He has to make what a woman does with her body his business because, from the sound of it anyway, no woman's choosing to make it his business, if you know what I mean.

I think Dennis is 12, by the way.
Gary

BECAUSE WE HELP PAY FOR IT YOU NIMROD!

http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

Here we go……….. again! Can you not just link to your previous identical comments?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Style Style

That's right. There was this court case, with this guy Morgentahler or something, and, yeah, that's what Canada's decided now. If you're really interested, you could read the Court's reasoning in the case – it's all about balancing public interest and individual rights and stuff like that. It's kind of neat.
Dave

I'm no lawyer either,

No kidding.

http://intensedebate.com/people/avr avr

As with any medical procedure, informed consent is required, and coercion goes towards undermining the substance and quality consent. Absent public health laws that obviate the need for consent – i.e. the kinds of provisions you see for TB or other highly contagious conditions – treatment without consent can usually found civil actions for battery, or the criminal charges of assault or aggravated assault.

http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

Up next: A new bill to make kidnapping "extra-illegal" if the victim is kidnapped to Hamilton.

http://intensedebate.com/people/M_A_N M_A_N

To be fair, that already falls under the "Hate Crime" provisions.

Mike T.

How would he feel about it going the other way?
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

In case this week was lacking anything

Nothing like the issue of killing unborn children to amuse leftists on here, is there.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Actually, it's more the issue of forcing a person to donate their body to support something else.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

With the exception of rape, which is an extreme rarity, who is forcing anyone to get pregnant? Again, the logic, or lack thereof, of the anti-lifers is truly astonishing. Makes you wonder how we got here.

officerfarva

Yeah, rape is rare. Good insight Einstein.
http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

You're advocating forcing women to stay pregnant. I fail to see how that puts you on the moral high ground.

Gary

Well, if you can't do the time and all that……………………
Heard of adoption? I know it's a new thing and all!

http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

If only the world were filled with ONLY people who share your views. Paradise.On.Earth.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Halo_Override Halo_Override

Dennis_F, you are a troll and a pig, your comments are a waste of electricity, and you need to get off the fucking internet.

You degrade every thread you touch with your bullshit provocations. You degrade conservatism, you degrade liberalism, you degrade the very concepts of dialog and principle. Your attitude — which must be entirely phony, since anyone in real life acting the way you do here would get punched in the face daily — is most reminiscent of a spoiled twelve-year-old boy with passable grammar and spelling.

Whatever your reasons are for behaving as you do, sincere or calculated, you are wrong. I don't mean your ideas are right or wrong, I mean you have no place conversing with others. Though you have the right, you have not earned it and you do not essentially deserve it, because you abuse it without reservation, and you clearly have no consideration of its value.

I don't mind if I end up getting banned for this statement, someone needed to say it to you. And I'm aware it won't make a dent; I'm not saying it for your sake. It's simply a straightforward attack on you as a person. I don't like you, and I'd be happy if you went away and didn't come back.

"Lol, next."

(Aaron, sorry for contributing to the devaluing of your post.)
officerfarva

Or to keep righties frothing at the mouth and gulping that koolaid.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

I don't think abortion is funny. You leftists do, I guess.

officerfarva

How many unwanted children have you taken into your home? If you have, then you have a smidgen of credibility, but if not, you are a typical right winger, hypocritical and hollier than thou.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

What in the world are you going on about now? lol. This is how you defend the killing of unborn children, is it? By bizarrely asking if I've taken any in? My God.
officerfarva

Yeah, what have you done to ease the burden of unwanted children? This goes right to the heart of the matter.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Why does it get to the heart of the matter, dummy? lol. Next.
officerfarva

You'd need a heart to know, doosh! Don't be so quick on that "next" thing, you always seem to be a step behind in the IQ department.
http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

We'll take that as a "no."
Gary

How many abortions have YOU paid for to relieve the taxpayers who DON'T want to pay for this needless birth control procedure??
Typical left winger, hypocritical and hollier than thou!

MacLean's Regular

Abortions are not funny, per se. They're just fun!

Let's all have one, shall we?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Style Style

It I think this partly refutes your first point, actually.

http://intensedebate.com/people/lgarvin lgarvin

I think you're funny. Especially when you're whining…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Thanks for showing up, Larry. lol. Next.
http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

Ladies and gentlemen – Behold – the one trick pony!
http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

No soup for you!

NEXT!

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

Still playing game Dennis? if you were serious you would have answered my questions for you weeks ago rather than just getting your questions answered and running away.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

Here's how the proposed bill defines "coercion::

“coercion”, in respect of an abortion, means conduct that, directly or indirectly, causes a female person to consent to an abortion that she would otherwise have refused. A person coerces an abortion if he or she knows of or suspects the pregnancy of a female person and engages, or conspires with another to engage in, conduct that is intentionally and purposely aimed at directing the female person who has not chosen to have an abortion to have an abortion, including but not limited to the following conduct:

(a) committing, attempting to commit, or threatening to commit physical harm to the female person, the child or another person;
(b) committing, attempting to commit or threatening to commit any act prohibited by any provincial or federal law;
(c) denying or removing, or making a threat to deny or remove, financial support or housing from a person who is financially dependent on the person engaging in the conduct; and
(d) attempting to compel by pressure or intimidation including argumentative and rancorous badgering or importunity;
but does not include speech that is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Rob Silver provides a summary of the four categories on his blog. Bottom line, the "coercion" is already mostly illegal. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/silv…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

"A person coerces an abortion if he or she knows of or suspects the pregnancy of a female person and engages, or conspires with another to engage in, conduct that is intentionally and purposely aimed at directing the female person who has not chosen to have an abortion to have an abortion, including but not limited to the following conduct:"

I've placed the emphasis on those particular passages for a reason. Those are the sticky wickets that could get basically anybody recommending an abortion for any reason into trouble. There's a large difference between "has not chosen" and "has chosen not"

http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

I agree with your point about the language of the bill. Anyway, the bill itself is irrelevant, since it has zero chance of becoming law.

Ted

Certainly, it is very poorly drafted. Even if the idea of the bill itself wasn't absurd, this particular version of that idea would be a legal disaster.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Douglass Douglass

I caught that too. I hate to use the term 'slippery slope' but indeed it seems fitting.

http://intensedebate.com/people/PeteTong PeteTong

Well I'm not expert in communications, but it would seem to me that with this PMB and the Jaffer/Guergis committee hearings there won't be a single reporter left in Ottawa to cover any issues that matter to Canadians. And that on these two issues the Opposition are prone to making over the top statements that embarass themselves as much as the government…
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

It's a human child, and you're OK with having it snuffed, right? There's two bodies. Again, basic human biology seems to be beyond the abortion lobby.

I was responding to the previous guy's post about being a lawyer, dope. But you go on being angry. Next.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Not a child. Not a separate body. If it was, you could take it out and it would survive no problem. Again, basic biology seems to be beyond you.

wilson

Not a child, if it is a girl baby…….

DianeG

If discussing a wonan's options is considered coercion there's a problem.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

If it's not a separate body, then where in the world did you and I first get one. The stork gave it to us, did he? And if it's not separate, why can it be killed independent of the mother? But you anti-lifers keep brushing up on Biology 101, ya hear?

http://intensedebate.com/people/ZestyMordant ZestyMordant

Hey, weren't you all listening? This doesn't reopen the abortion debate.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Perhaps you've heard of the umbilical cord?
http://intensedebate.com/people/M_A_N M_A_N

Indeed.
"(b) committing, attempting to commit or threatening to commit any act prohibited by any provincial or federal law" seems to be overkill. Under this law, it would be illegal to break the law. Errr, ok then.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Yeah. Next.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

I'm an open admirer of the pro-life caucus, but I don't see the purpose of this bill. Either abortion is child-murder, or it's just another medical procedure. In the first case it's pointless to say "people shouldn't be coerced to do it" when the real issue is that people shouldn't be allowed and helped to do it. In the second case, it coercing someone into it is no different from coercing someone into an appendectomy – wrong, but already illegal.

I can see the value of incrementalism, but this is an increment to nowhere.
wilson

So, gender selection would be coercion?
officerfarva

Actually, it is the fun part that leads to the abortion.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

You're not seriously this disgusting, are you?

officerfarva

No, but my fun stuff is seriously disgusting!
http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

You're not seriously so preachy and absolute in your views, are you?
You're not seriously once again trolling away with your views, are you?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Preachy and absolute. That's interesting. Is that what you are when you say, for example, that gay marriage is an absolute right? lol.

I think unborn life should be protected. You don't. In fact, you probably think that a woman's right to abortion is absolute. Next.

officerfarva

You probably think a woman's rights should be trampled on and rescinded. Hold off on that "next" until you don't come across as so developmentally delayed.

http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

Oh yes he is!

lol. Next.

Standing By

If you amended the Bill to replace the word "abortion" with a "any medical procedure", and replace the word "female" with "any person" it would maybe be a coherent, albeit unnecessary, piece of legislation.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Actually, that's a good example of why it's a bad bill.

Read it with the changes:

"A person coerces any medical procedure if he or she knows of or suspects the condition of any person and engages, or conspires with another to engage in, conduct that is intentionally and purposely aimed at directing the person who has not chosen to have a medical procedure to have a medical procedure, including but not limited to the following conduct:"

Now, when your doctor tells you that you should have any medical procedure, he's in violation of this law. That "has not chosen" is huge deal.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

Abortion as a result of rape, moron. Next.

Patchouli

Are you okay with abortion if the woman was raped? Or if she's a girl of 13 who was raped?

Gary

Yes! Lets all talk about the reason to get an abortion in, say about, .000000001% of cases!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Dennis_F Dennis_F

OK, so you're in favour of killing unborn children so that you can have disgusting sex? This is your agenda, is it?

officerfarva

No, that's my idea of a Friday night!

Gary

In your case, retroactive abortions would be appropriate!

hosertohoosier

The core of the language is this: "making a threat to deny or remove, financial support or housing from a person who is financially dependent on the person engaging in the conduct".

I think it is absolutely plausible that parents of pregnant teenagers will make and have made this threat. Parents may do so with good motivations (fearing that the pregnancy will mess up their daughter's life/schooling), and also for more selfish reasons (fearing the social consequences of a teen pregnant daughter, or wondering whether they will get stuck raising the kid).

The bill could probably be drafted a bit better, but I think the issue it addresses is absolutely important. It really asks the question of whether one is pro-choice or pro-abortion.

Matt

Yes, but if we assume that there is a need to punctuate the crime of coercion against a woman who is making a choice about her pregnancy, then it should also protect women who are coerced into having the baby. If her partner or anybody else threatens to harm the woman who is choosing an abortion, it is no less of an evil, if one is pro-choice. The bill, by what it excludes, is by it's very definition an abortion; it cannot, by its nature, result in anything but the repoening of the aboriton debate in parliament.

http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

You are *exactly* correct – if anything, the bill should outlaw coercion of a woman, either for or against an abortion. It should be illegal to coerce a woman into making a choice she doesn't want to make, *whether anyone else agrees with that decision or not*.

For example, there are at least 200 fake "abortion" clinics operating in Canada that exist solely to coerce a woman into keeping her fetus. For reference, there are only about 25 abortion clinics in Canada. In the US, a common tactic for these "clinics" is to run out the clock so that the pregnant woman who thinks she's at an abortion clinic is delayed until it's too late to have an abortion.

Talk about coercion.

Incidentally, I think it's perfectly appropriate to call this bill an abortion.
hosertohoosier

I agree fully.

cew

I know no one is reading this anymore, but I just wanted to say that I appreciate you saying "asks the question" instead of the almost never properly use, and too often misused, "begs the question."

Matt

Edit: … is by its very definition, an abortion BILL.
http://intensedebate.com/people/TJCook TJCook

Let's not forget the last time a Conservative backbencher introduced a seemingly innocuous bill that had little to do with abortion itself: C-484 sought special penalties for acts of murder that also killed a fetus.

Seems simple enough, and even a Toronto liberal like myself can support the concept.

But uh-oh! Turns out "Dr." Charles McVety had his fingerprints all over that bill, and it sneakily redefined a fetus as a person. This was no accident – McVety's followers had taken to calling it the "Kicking Abortion's Ass Bill". They lied to Canadians about the intent and effect of this bill.

Perfect. Harper could play to his base while still claiming to never have touched the abortion issue.

Never, ever, ever trust the Conservative party to do *anything* related to abortion. And never trust a Conservative backbencher with anything at all.

Oh, and never engage with Dennis_F, he's incapable of good-faith discussion.

http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

Next. (lol)
http://intensedebate.com/people/Style Style

Harper disavowed that bill and introduced a replacement that dealt with violence against pregnant women without assigned any rights to the fetus, based on the approach endorsed by the Abortion Rights Council of Canada. Before attacking this as a Conservative issue, it's worth checking how the Liberal backbench voted on C-484.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Style Style

Actually, the vote to send it to committee shows much more Conservative support than I remembered (nearly unanimous).

The Liberal side still had 27 voting in support and another 13 who couldn't show up for this. In the end, a slim majority of the Liberal caucus opposed the bill (57%).
http://howdtheyvote.ca/vote.php?id=536

wilson

hate to wreck the party, but

Harper won't support Tory MP's abortion bill
Norma Greenaway, Canwest News Service

Read more:http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=29…
http://intensedebate.com/people/tobyornotoby tobyornotoby

One flaw in the Canadian parliamentary system is that government backbenchers really have nohing to do,

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Not true. They have a lot to do.. if the PMO would only let them.

Judy Bell

if this so called reporter has any proof that McVety was involvved let him be honest and bring it forward. Otherwise it is lies and specualtion false reporting really.