Quebec docs butt in on C-484 debate

Interim Staff

The Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists has come out against C-484, the federal private member’s bill on unborn victims of crime, claiming it is a “back door” assault on “abortion rights.” Conservative MP Ken Epp’s bill proposes to make it a separate crime to kill an unborn human being during a criminal act against the child’s mother. It passed Second Reading in the House of Commons in March.

Gaétan Barrette, head of the federation, told the media, “The back-door objective of this bill is to set in motion a long legal saga that would in the end give rights to the fetus.” He added: “That will allow someone to go to the Supreme Court and say, ‘Look, you’ve passed Bill 484. And because of that, you implicitly gave rights to this fetus. And if the fetus has rights, then abortion should be illegal because it is a murder.’”

However, C-484 specifically includes the provision that it does not apply to non-criminal actions, including abortion. Epp said it would be helpful if opponents of C-484 would “debate the bill and not a misrepresentation of it.”