Yorkton – Garry Breitkreuz, MP for Yorkton-Melville, took another bold step in his ten-year fight to protect the rights of unborn children. On March 10, he introduced a Private Member’s Motion M-560 that calls on the government to create a new criminal code offence for the murder of an unborn child. “Parliament must send a clear message to anyone contemplating using deadly force against a pregnant woman,” said Breitkreuz.

Motion M-560 states: That, in the opinion of this House, the government should introduce an amendment to the Criminal Code of Canada creating a new offence to ensure that any person who murders a woman knowing that she is pregnant, shall be charged with the murder of the unborn child.

“I started looking into this issue after reading an article by Mike McIntyre titled ‘Homicide doesn’t apply to the unborn’ in the Winnipeg Free Press,” said Breitkreuz. The news item published on March 1, 2004, stated: In fact, the violent “expiration” of the pregnancies won’t even register as a crime statistic. Such is the law in Canada, where a fetus – even if full term – has no legal standing. “It is an absolute tragedy. These were babies, which otherwise were going to be born alive,” said Dr. Charlie Ferguson, head of the child-protection centre at Children’s Hospital. Ferguson said the abortion debate shouldn’t get mixed up with this issue, because of the fact the mother presumably had every intention of giving birth before her demise. “The idea of pregnant women being killed is about as gruesome as a crime as you can get, the idea two people are being killed but only one is recognized in law,” he said.

“The news story and what I found out with just a few days of research convinced me something had to be done,” stated Breitkreuz. “The Library of Parliament researchers confirmed what the Winnipeg Free Press reporter found out, that Statistics Canada doesn’t even keep statistics on the number of pregnant women that are murdered. However, they did find two reports, one by the Maryland Department of Health that found that the leading cause of death among pregnant or recently pregnant women was homicide, and the second by Peel Regional Council in Ontario reporting that 21% of abused women were assaulted during pregnancy (Statistics Canada, 1994),” reported Breitkreuz.

“I don’t know why Statistics Canada doesn’t collect this important life and death information. But from the research available, it seems that pregnant women are more at risk of being assaulted and murdered. This means that their unborn children are also at risk. I’m not going to wait years for the Liberal government to get its act together. Murderers should face two life terms if they murder a pregnant woman and her baby,” declared Breitkreuz.

(Editor’s note: A Motion, unlike a Bill, simply indicates the will of Parliament. Selection of Motions for debate is based on a sort of lottery. If Mr. Breitkreuz’s name is drawn, he could pick one of his bills or motions for debate, and if he picked M-560 and it was debated in the House of Commons and passed at the vote, it would indicate that Parliament has the will to work on developing such legislation; if it lost, it would be like Parliament saying it is not interested in pursuing legislation on this matter.)