Canada Wrestles With Human Dignity of Child: Does It Depend on Context?

Canadians are wrestling with the ambiguous situational ethics of abortion and infanticide, but have not achieved any clarity as yet.

Mom asks charge of hiding baby's body be dropped
Teens found human remains in March 2007
The Sault Star
by Maria Calabrese

Canada has never come up with a definition of "fetus" or "child," and that is exposing a North Bay mother to a public trial based on evidence that doesn't exist, her lawyer argued Tuesday.

Even the highly charged Henry Morgentaler case that brought abortion rights to the Supreme Court of Canada more than 20 years ago failed to define when the rights of a pregnant woman stop and the rights of the fetus begin, said defence counsel Erin Lainevool.

"We do not put people on trial for doing things we cannot understand, that we frown upon, or that upset us, simply because we want answers," Lainevool told court.

"Public outcry, shock, sadness or the need for answers are not the purview of the criminal justice system unless there is also evidence."

She is representing Tabatha Etches, a 27-year-old North Bay woman linked by DNA to the decomposing remains of an eight-pound, four-ounce baby boy. Two teens found the remains wrapped in a towel in a garbage bag near a walking trail in a wooded area near Laurentian public school March 30, 2007.

A judge acquitted her of infanticide and showing indignity to a human being or human remains, mainly because there is no cause of death or proof the child was born alive.

In Canada, a fetus has no rights and is not legally considered a human being.

That same judge ordered Etches to stand trial for failing to get help with childbirth -- which carries a maximum jail sentence of five years -- and concealing the body of a child -- with a sentence of up to two years imprisonment.

Lainevool asked a higher court to review that ruling, saying the judge overstepped his role by allowing a weak case to go to trial.

Superior Court Justice Paul Rivard will give his decision at a later date whether to acquit Etches on the remaining charges.

While the defence argues the charge of concealing a child's body exposes women to prosecution if they miscarry at home without medical intervention, the Crown says there is other evidence in this case that merits the charges going to trial.

That evidence is currently protected by a publication ban.

Crown attorney Paul Condon refers to the Canadian Labour Code that uses the terms "child" and "fetus" interchangeably, although the defence said that's a different context involving the protection of pregnant women and nursing mothers exposed to hazardous workplaces.

The Crown also refers to the federal Assisted Human Reproduction Act which defines a fetus as a human organism beginning on its 57th day after creation and ending at birth. It does not define "child."

Court heard Ontario's Vital Statistics Act only offers a definition of birth as a live fetus from the mother.

The problem is Canada's Criminal Code is based on English law drawn up centuries before Canada was even a country, Lainevool said.

"We've adopted legislation and simply incorporated it into our system. But the society that existed at that time is very different than the society that exists today in terms of women's rights, in terms of health, in terms of technology, in terms of abortion," she said.

Self-Congratulation Abounds in Canadian Pro-Life Group's Launch of Brand

It remains to be seen whether Signal Hill will ever bear a resemblance to William Wilberforce's dogged antislavery campaign. For now, it certainly doesn't lack self-esteem, to judge by Terry O'Neill's fawning panegyric in the National Post.

It's not off to a good start mining lessons from Wilberforce, who was a 50-year finger nail across the blackboard of amoral British Mercantilism. If Manning and O'Neill think Wilberforce won abolition of British slavery by putting "service before sermons," they are quite mistaken. Wilberforce was confrontational, and he fought on even when his cause was utterly forsaken by his peers.

National Post
A wise new strategy for pro-lifers
By Terry O'Neill

A long-standing legal and moral issue - the mere mention of which causes newscasters both here and in the U.S. to lower their voices an octave - suddenly squeezed its way into the news earlier this month, thanks to some interesting developments on both sides of the border. But perhaps the most significant Canadian event of all involving the issue - abortion - passed with not a single word of notice in the mainstream media. That's a pity, because it involved a prominent former national political leader emerging from his Calgary redoubt to embrace and endorse a new strategy to reinvigorate the pro-life movement.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Preston Manning, the newly emerged champion of a B.C.-based group called Signal Hill. The fast-growing organization intends to help Canada reconsider its acceptance of abortion. Signal Hill's strategy is to put aside impassioned political and moral arguments in favour of service, education and compassion. You might say the group is aiming, not for Canadians' minds, but for their hearts. And Manning couldn't be more pleased.

This past month has seen some fairly significant abortion-related events. A Gallup poll in the U.S. found that, for the first time since the company started asking the question, the majority of Americans considered themselves pro-life.

The news came at the same time as controversy was building over Notre Dame's awarding of an honorary degree to President Barack Obama; protesters said a Catholic university should not be honouring a pro-abortion President. Subsequently, anti-abortion hecklers interrupted Obama's keynote address at the Catholic institution.

Naturally enough, things weren't quite so dramatic in Canada. There was a smattering of stories about the 40th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in Canada, and also some coverage of the national March for Life in Ottawa on May 14. Some of the smaller provincial marches received coverage as well.

If anything, the fact that abortion is still in the news is a repudiation of Jean Chretien's remark of nine years ago: "We have social peace with that [abortion] at this moment."

The dismissive declaration helped slam the door shut on mainstream public discussion about the issue in the years that followed - except, of course, for the odd headhunting journalist trying to trip up a conservative candidate. Nevertheless, anti-abortion diehards have been determined to show there actually is no social peace over the country's lack of a law regulating abortion.

To prove their point, they've staged the aforementioned marches, and Life Canada, for example, has released annual polls showing that most Canadians actually want some restrictions on abortion. More confrontationally, the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform has helped set up graphic displays at universities, likening abortion to genocide.

Pro-lifers in B.C., on the other hand, decided to adopt a different approach. Building on the success of their compassionate Focus on Life television campaign, they made some creative changes last June. They adopted a new name, Signal Hill, and featured a woman-and family-friendly look to their Web site and printed material.

It all goes along with a new educational and service-oriented approach to help women make informed choices when they are in a crisis pregnancy. The Signal Hill moniker was chosen as a way of telling Canadians that the group intended to take the high ground in the abortion debate and that it aimed to separate truth from falsehood. (Full disclosure: I sit on the board of Signal Hill.) Response in the Canadian pro-life community (yes, there is a widespread and active - although somewhat aged - one) has been largely positive. Indeed, some groups in other provinces have requested permission to adopt the Signal Hill brand.

Enter Manning. Back when he led the Reform Party of Canada, Manning always worked hard to keep the hot potato of abortion (opposition to which is closely linked with Christian groups) from landing in his party's hands.

Today, with his Manning Centre for Building Democracy sponsoring such offerings as a "faith-politics interface program," Manning is freer to speak his mind on such big questions. But it doesn't mean that he's in favour of using religious or moral arguments in the public square.

Rather, in a speech on May 11 to more than 600 Signal Hill supporters, Manning repeatedly stressed that pro-life advocates had to be "wise like serpents, gracious as doves." And he drew a direct parallel between the struggle to end abortion and the fight to end slavery in the British Empire.

That latter engagement lasted more than half a century, he pointed out. At first, it was led by Quakers, who advanced well-meaning, high-minded and morally indignant arguments against slavery. They got nowhere. And it was only when a new group, led by the likes of William Wilberforce, adopted a new strategy of drawing attention to the suffering associated with slavery that progress was eventually made.

The lessons are clear, Manning said. Put service before sermons. Broaden one's base. Ensure that your tactics are wise and gracious. And do not let zeal for the cause override your long-term plan. In all respects, he said, Signal Hill appears to be following this path.

Naturally enough, Signal Hill's leadership and supporters are encouraged by Manning's imprimatur. They can only hope their own wise and gracious approach to one of this nation's most vexing issues will prove to be as successful as Wilberforce's.

- Terry O'Neill is a Vancouver writer and editor, and co-host of RoadkillRadio.com.

(c) 2009 The National Post Company.