This motion — which follows Woodworth’s unsuccessful attempt in 2012 to have Parliament examine when life begins — asks that the House of Commons “affirm that every Canadian law must be interpreted in a manner which recognizes the equal worth and dignity of everyone who is in fact a human being.”
Woodworth said the motion is not just about unborn children, but has implications for anyone who is vulnerable due to a physical or mental disability.
But the MP said he was not “highly optimistic” Parliament would adopt this principle because “people are hypnotized by abortion.” He said this motion was far less controversial than his previous motion (321), which addressed subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code that states a child becomes a human being only after emerging completely from the birth canal.
“It is a bizarro world that there should be any debate over this,” he said.
Though his motion has little hope of being debated or voted upon, Woodworth said he introduced it “to draw a line in the sand.”
At a Nov. 21 news conference, the Kitchener Centre MP said Canadians should “never accept any law that says anyone you know to be human is not a human being.”
“The fabric of Canada’s justice system is a seamless tapestry,” he said. “If you pull out one thread you unravel the whole tapestry.”
The new motion is based on a clause in the UN Declaration of Human Rights which reads: “Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,” he said.
“Is abortion more important than this principle?” he asked.
He described subsection 223(1) as “savage and inhumane and a throwback to a more barbarous era.”
Motion 312 would have set up a Parliamentary committee to examine all the best evidence, including scientific and medical, on when an unborn child becomes a human being.
The principle has “implications beyond abortion,” he warned. Academics the world over are redefining human being the way it is done in subsection 223(1) to say parents should have the right to kill their newborn babies. They say the newborns are not human because they are not sentient or self-aware. This same argument could be used against those with severe mental deficiencies or Alzheimer’s disease, he said.
Woodworth said that accepting the human status of the unborn child does not necessarily rule out abortion. He pointed out that Justice Bertha Wilson in the Morgentaler decision wrote that Parliament did have an interest in protecting the life of the unborn child after a certain stage in pregnancy that she suggested might begin sometime in the second trimester.
Even the late abortionist Henry Morgentaler told Parliament in 1967 that he supported that a viable fetus should have a legal personality as a human being and be protected by legislation, Woodworth said. He said there are arguments that can weigh competing rights of the mother and the unborn child based on principles of justice without determining the child is not a human being. Some arguments, though he added he did not agree with them, could be made for abortion this way, he said.
The Catholic Civil Rights League welcomed Woodworth’s initiative.
“We support the goal of legal recognition of unborn children as human beings, and we applaud the ongoing efforts and courage of pro-life MPs to extend basic civil rights to these most vulnerable of human beings,” said executive director Joanne McGarry.