[Posted at Bene Diction Blogs On, Dec. 15, 2010]
Today is scheduled to be the day that Roxanne's Law goes to a second reading vote in the House of Commons.
This leads Brian Lilley of the National Post to urge that the bill be passed:
"The bill would make it a crime to coerce a woman into having an abortion and is named after Roxanne Fernando, a young woman murdered after refusing her boyfriend’s demand that she have an abortion.
Canadians have complex view on abortion and are not as clear cut as activists on each side would like. But I have to say, I don’t know how people could be against this bill. It is about protecting a woman’s choice to have her baby...."
I can see how pro-choicers could be against this bill, as it is based on a falsehood and seeks to solve a problem that may not exist in the widespread form that the bill's proponents say.
Thus my worry about Mr. Lilley, who is content to take a pro-life press release and run with it.
When I blogged earlier on the subject, I came across this CBC story on the case.
The odd thing is that the CBC story doesn't mention enforced abortions at all. And the following is quite peculiar, if the Roxanne's Law proponents are correct:
In a brief summary of the facts of the murder presented in court Thursday, Crown attorney Mark Cantor said Plourde and the youth hatched a plot to kill Fernando if she wouldn't agree to break off pursuing a relationship with Plourde.
The entire story is about this relationship. The abortion, forced or otherwise, isn't mentioned in the story.
Assuming the story is correct, and I think it is, the crown counsel in the case, who would want to sock it to the accused, didn't seem to argue that the abortion was a big deal.
Is Rod Bruinooge, the MP pushing the bill, unable to find an iron-clad, clear cut case? One where an abortion was corced, complete with a "poster girl" able to smile and tell reporters "They made me do it! Pass this law!"
As I have noted, I am very prolife...but I don't think that a bill based on stretching the truth is ethical.