Conservative
MP Mark Warawa speaks about Motion 408, the anti-discrimination motion
against sex-selection, on Parliament Hill Wednesday December 5, 2012 in
Ottawa. OTTAWA— A Conservative backbencher’s motion on sex-selective abortions caught the ire of opposition parties Wednesday, with the NDP and Liberal leaders claiming it was another attempt to outlaw abortion, while the MP behind the proposal called it a stand for human rights.
The volleys over Tory MP Mark Warawa’s motion are part of an ongoing tug-of-war between anti-abortion MPs who want to claim the motion for their cause, and advocates who want to keep the proposal distanced from the politically controversial abortion debate.
The last Tory backbencher to have an abortion-related motion, Stephen Woodworth, made similar arguments when his motion on reviewing the country’s legal definition of when life begins was voted down in September by a vote of 203 to 91, with 87 of the votes supporting him coming from the Tory caucus.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper voted against the controversial motion, but 10 of his cabinet ministers broke ranks and supported Woodworth in the free vote. Shortly after the vote, Warawa introduced his motion.
Warawa, the Langley MP, repeatedly told a press conference that his motion, and the online campaign he launched Wednesday to have Parliament approve the motion, was about condemning a practice that sees female fetuses aborted because of their sex — not about criminalizing abortion.
When pressed about how to talk about sex-selective abortion, which Canadians object to, according to public opinion polls, without wrapping it up in the abortion issue, Smith was short: “I’m not getting into this (abortion) issue.”
Warawa is asking the Commons to approve his motion to “condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”
Statistics published in April in the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggested parents from some cultural backgrounds terminate pregnancies because the fetus is female. The statistics were enough for the journal to run an editorial calling on doctors to postpone disclosing a baby’s sex until after about 30 weeks of pregnancy, “when unquestioned abortion is all but impossible.”
“We either condemn this or endorse this,” Warawa said. “It’s happening in Canada and it shouldn’t be.”
A 2011 Environics poll, conducted for an anti-abortion group, found that 92 per cent of respondents opposed sex-selective abortion. A January 2012 Angus Reid poll found that about two-thirds of respondents, including an almost equal number of women, were in favour of laws prohibiting abortion based on gender.
Despite what he saw as widespread support for his motion, Warawa said he wasn’t interested in having the Commons conduct any studies or draft legislation to outlaw the practice. Approving legislation would take months “if not years,” he said, and indicated he wanted to see something done now.
M408 won’t be debated until at least February. It would come to a vote months after that.
Warawa called the motion a “first step,” although he wouldn’t say what the second step is if Parliament approves his motion.
The New Democrats will vote against the motion, said NDP Leader Tom Mulcair. He said Canada’s abortion laws should be maintained.
“We’re not going to be fooled by Stephen Harper and his troops,” Mulcair said. “Mr. Harper swears out of one side of his mouth that he doesn’t want to reopen the abortion debate but he constantly uses his backbenchers to send in new attempts to.”
The NDP has previously said it condemns sex-selective abortion. The Liberals have as well. However, Mulcair said the NDP can’t support this proposal given Warawa introduced it immediately after the Commons defeated the last abortion-related motion.
The Liberals won’t force their members to vote one way on the bill. Interim leader Bob Rae said he won’t be voting with Warawa.
“The notion that there’s a whole group of MPs or Canadians who think sex selection is a good idea — no there aren’t,” Rae said. “We’re a country that’s against discrimination and everybody understands that as well. That’s clear. But I think the way that they’re doing it is an attempt to break down this very basic consensus in the country that this is essentially a private matter.”
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