a petition to make unborn children human beings

SIGN THIS PETITION TO MAKE A CHANGE!

 Life Canada Petition - to sign click HERE

 A woman with a fully developed, 9 month gestation, baby that is
in the very process of being born may - at any time before the child
is "fully" outside her body - have a doctor KILL that baby.
That is the current state of affairs in Canada
- - and Stephen Harper is completely OK with that. Are you?

In the Canadian Criminal Code, Section 223 states that “a child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

“This sets up a medically and scientifically untenable position,” says Natalie Hudson Sonnen, Executive Director of LifeCanada, “and sets Canada apart from almost every other nation on the planet, with regard to the lack of protection for unborn human beings.”

What is most unsettling about Section 223, is that despite it's archaic language, it is still being applied by the courts. Part 2 of Section 223 states that a person commits homicide when injury is caused to a “child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being.”

The courts have applied this law, most recently with the case of an Ottawa woman who tried to shoot her full-term baby through her own uterus with a BB gun. Despite the bullet being lodged in her son's brain, he survived, but the courts acquitted her because the injuries were inflicted while he was inside the womb and according to the Section, not a human being. Had he died after being born, and in terms of this law, “after becoming a human being,” she would have been charged with homicide.

“How can laws that clearly do not measure up to accepted medical and scientific practice continue to act as a point of reference for such important issues?” asks Hudson Sonnen. “We need to examine whether this law reflects our understanding of human rights, which means that our nation must address the status of the unborn.”