Pregnant Woman’s Murder Stirs Demand for New Law

25-year-old Aysun Sesen and her unborn seven-month baby were murdered in Toronto on October 2. Her husband, Turan Cocelli, 29, has been charged with her death, but no charges were laid in the death of the baby. Under Canada’s Criminal Code, a baby is granted legal status as a person only after it has emerged live from the body of its mother. The case has added weight to calls for a change to the law that would allow separate charges against those responsible for the killing of an unborn baby during an assault on the mother.

The Toronto woman and her child are the fourth pair of mother-and-unborn-child, victims to confront the Canadian public in the last three years. Nineteen-year-old Olivia Talbot was 27 weeks pregnant with Baby Lane when she and her unborn son were shot to death in Edmonton on November 24, 2005. Liana White was four months pregnant when she was killed in Alberta in July 2005. Her husband Michael White, was convicted of second degree murder in her death, but White was not charged with the death of her child. Manjit Panghali, 30, was four months pregnant with her second child when she was killed in British Columbia in 2006, her burned body found by the side of a highway. Her husband is now awaiting trial for her death, but no charges were laid in the death of her baby.

Alberta Conservative MP Leon Benoit introduced a private members bill last year that would have made it a separate crime to kill or injure an unborn baby while attacking the mother, but the bill was declared non-votable by the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Private Members Business. While the subcommittee said the measure “clearly” violated the Constitution, no information was given as to why. Opponents to the legislation argue that such a bill would threaten access to abortion in Canada by recognizing the unborn child as a separate victim from the mother.

Ontario Liberal MP Paul Steckle said recently that MPs from different parties are working on similar legislation that would stand a better chance of passing. Two polls from 2005, one conducted by Robins Sce Research and one by the Calgary Herald, both found that about 80 percent of Canadians would support such legislation.

“To me, this is no longer a fetus, this is a human being, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a double murder—particularly when the pregnancy is that far along,” MP Steckle told the Edmonton Sun October 3. “This is an issue that goes right across party lines and anyone with good thinking would understand that when you take a mother’s life, and another dies as a result, the unborn, there’s a double murder.”

LifeCanada’s annual commissioned poll on abortion issues this fall will ask Canadians where they stand on the issue of unborn victims of violence legislation. The results of the LifeCanada poll will be available by early November on LifeCanada’s website at www.lifecanada.org.