Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth has not ceased in engaging in the struggle for human rights for all human beings. Here follows his latest press release, a challenge to Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada spokesperson Joyce Arthur.

Press Release

For Immediate Publication

May 17, 2013

MP Woodworth Challenges Putting Abortion Ahead of Human Equality

OTTAWA, Ontario ― Stephen Woodworth, Member of Parliament for Kitchener Centre responded today to Abortion Rights Coalition’s Joyce Arthur’s reported comments about his proposal “that the Parliament of Canada declare that the equal worth and dignity of everyone must be recognized by Canadian law based on their inherent nature as a human being.”

“Women’s rights are enhanced by affirming human equality and dignity, not threatened as Joyce Arthur suggests,” Woodworth said.

Woodworth points out that by focusing on the single issue of abortion protection, the Abortion Rights Coalition is taking positions which are more and more extreme and unreasonable, citing the following:

1. They opposed specifically criminalizing coercion of women.
2. They advocated sheltering Canada’s 400 year old, medieval definition of human being from twenty-first century science and understanding.
3. They sought limitations on the already limited role of backbench MPs.
4. They opposed allowing Parliament the opportunity to condemn discrimination against women through gender selection.
5. They try to suppress the right of MP’s and others to publicly discuss issues.
6. They have caused the repeal of transparency and accountability laws on abortion.

“Now it appears that Ms. Arthur’s abortion group even proposes that their concern with abortion trumps the democratic value of affirming universal human equality,” said Woodworth. “As we have discovered, this approach to abortion mirrors the approach of North Korea and Vietnam. Canadians are catching on to the dangers of such extremist views.”

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In cities across the country, thousands of people took to the streets yesterday to protest Canada's lack of protection for pre-born children.

The theme of this year's March for Life was "End Female Gendercide" and many of the speakers focussed their remarks on this ongoing tragedy in Canada.

We had a presence in both Ottawa at the National March for Life, as well as in Victoria where our campaign director was invited to speak at the March for Life in BC's capital city.

More photos from the National March for Life can be found here.

Photos of the Victoria March for Life are here.

For interviews with participants in this year's March please check out our YouTube channel.

This article by Mike Schouten was published in the National Post on Thursday, May 2.

Abortion data is difficult to find in Canada. And advocates of Canada’s laissez-faire abortion-on-demand status quo like it that way — as the lack of publicly available information makes it difficult for their opponents to build a case.

Currently, two provinces (Ontario and British Columbia) have laws that serve to block the promulgation of abortion-related statistics. Indeed, as of 2010, Quebec has stopped submitting data to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. These jurisdictions ensure that any data pertaining to abortion falls outside the parameters of the Freedom of Information Act.

Even pro-choice advocates should find this situation problematic. If it is true that Canadians support the status quo — i.e., Canada’s status as the only developed nation in the world without any form of abortion law — then surely they have nothing to fear by permitting the publication of relevant data about abortion, especially data pertaining to the gestational age of fetuses.

A few months ago, Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett — a pro-choice advocate — wrote on her blog that she was “fed up” with the alleged misrepresentation of the abortion issue by pro-lifers. She wrote: “No physician in Canada can terminate a pregnancy over 24 weeks without serious indications such as if the life of the mother is at risk, or if the fetus has very serious malformations.”

It would be nice if that were true. But we have no way of verifying the claim, and Ms. Bennett knows it.

We do, however, have means to debunk that claim — albeit only via anecdote evidence.