By Brian Dryden, Canadian Catholic News

[Ottawa] – Only one-third of federal MPs are willing to ban female babies from being targeted for an abortion, but supporters of a private members bill that was snuffed out by a vote in the House of Commons June 2 vow to continue to try and convince Canadian lawmakers to put some regulations in place to protect the unborn.

“It was evident in the debates that while Canadians are having ongoing conversations about abortion, elected lawmakers seem unprepared for it. Most Canadians support common sense abortion restrictions, including a restriction on sex selective abortion. There can be nuance in restricting abortion in a way that many in Parliament do not yet acknowledge,” said Tabitha Ewert, legal counsel for the pro-life organization We Need a Law.

“This is clearly an issue that resonates with Canadians,” said Ewert after only 82 MPs voted in favor of Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall’s proposed Bill C-233, known as the Sex Selective Abortion Act, that would have prohibited doctors from knowingly performing sex selective abortions.

Wagantall and supporters of the bill argue that Canadians support such specific restrictions on abortion, but most MPs, and even the leader of the Conservative Party who was one of the 248 MPs to vote against Bill C-233, have made it clear in the debate surrounding Bill C-233 that there is no path forward at this time in the the House of Commons for any legal changes that would impede access to abortion in Canada.

“The debate around sex selective abortion is necessary and will continue. Women’s rights cannot include targeting women before they are born. Sex selective abortion is antithetical to Canada’s commitment to equality and needs to be prohibited as an unacceptable practice. Until MPs have the courage to prohibit this practice, it remains legal and will continue to happen in Canada,” said Ewert.

“We look forward to when Parliament catches up to where Canadians are already at and accepts a prohibition on such an overtly sexist practice,” she said.

While Conservative leader Erin O’Toole and some other high-profile Conservative MPs such as Alberta MP Michelle Rempel Garner voted against Wagantall’s proposed bill, more Conservative MPs voted for the abortion restriction than voted against it, highlighting the split within the party between the party’s leadership and what is called the social-conservative faction of the party and many of its elected MPs.

“Despite Erin O’Toole’s emphatic pro-choice stance and commitment to vote against this bill, exactly two-thirds of his caucus voted in favour of it,” said a statement from We Need A Law after the vote was held in the House.

As the debate in the House of Commons during second reading of Bill C-233 showed, any discussion of adopting laws in Canada related to abortion runs into a stone wall of opposition within the Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecois parties.

Liberal, NDP and Bloc MPs who spoke in the House on Bill C-233 dismissed Wagantall’s proposed bill as a Trojan Horse attempt to chip away at existing abortion rights in Canada by the pro-life movement.

“The sponsor claims that this bill is to address sex-based discrimination,” Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld said during debate in the House on May 28.

“While I note that the offence is ostensibly aimed at doctors, I must point out that it would also criminalize women as parties to the offence. Make no mistake, Bill C-233 will limit a woman’s right to choose by doing this,” she said. “Criminalizing a woman for seeking an abortion is a violation of the fundamental rights of women in Canada, and it is just plain wrong.”

Bloc Quebecois MP Christine Normandin accused supporters of Bill C-233 and Wagantall of “shamefully” using sexism as an excuse to roll back access to abortion in Canada.

“Unlike what some would have us believe, Bill C-233 does not seek to restore the balance between the situation of young girls and young boys. It is not a bill to combat sexism. It is anti-abortion legislation, period,” Normandin said.

“It is a pretext, a roundabout way for the member to achieve her purpose, an attempt to reopen a debate that we hoped had been closed for several decades now,” she said. “The member is shamefully using and hijacking the discourse on human rights to hide other intentions.”

It is a charge that Wagantall and pro-life organizations such as We Need A Law dismiss as being out of touch with the views of the majority of Canadians, whether they are pro-life or pro-choice.

“As I have said many times during the course of this discussion, the vast majority of those who would like sex selection to be made illegal are in fact pro-choice,” Wagantall told the House on May 28 during debate before the June 2 vote.

“They are not pro-abortion for any reason, but pro-choice. These facts should send a strong message to everyone in this House. We have a mandate from Canadians to act,” she said.

Along with Wagantall, Conservative MP Kelly Block also conceded that most Canadians support women having access to abortions in Canada, but sex-selection is a different situation.

“It is also important to note that while a majority of Canadians support access to abortion, a majority of Canadians oppose sex-selective abortion,” Block said. “The purpose of the bill is very clear. It is not intended to limit access to abortion … it is being put forward to address the inequality that exists between the sexes in their earliest forms.”

And in an Open Letter to MPs written by a board member of Canadian Physicians for Life (CPL), a doctor said Bill C-233 was “a unique opportunity in Canadian politics where all political parties can unite to expand women’s rights and save Canadian lives.”

But the CPL’s Dr. Kiely Williams said that in monitoring the debate surrounding Bill C-233 in the House, she didn’t understand the opposition to the bill.

“During the debate, many female Members of Parliament in particular professed that they could not support sex-selection abortion, but that they were also firmly committed to opposing any legislation which would prohibit this practice,” Williams wrote to MPs.

“The Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois conceded that they do not support sex-selective abortion, yet they joined the NDP in opposition to this bill,” Williams said. “As a physician and a woman, I asked myself how they could adopt such an irreconcilable position.”