By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian Catholic News
OTTAWA
Conservative MP Mark Warawa
On Sept. 26, as Motion 312 was defeated in the House of Commons, another Tory MP introduced a motion condemning sex selection abortion that continues the building momentum in the pro-life movement.
Conservative MP Mark Warawa quietly introduced Motion 408 just before the vote on fellow Tory MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312, knowing it would become public the next day. It already has the support of several pro-life groups.
Motion 408 reads: “That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”
Warawa said he began crafting the motion after seeing a CBC investigative report June 12 that used hidden cameras to expose private ultrasound clinics that reveal the sex of unborn children. Most of the time, when the parents found out the unborn child was a girl, they would seek to terminate the pregnancy because they wanted a boy, Warawa said in an interview from his Langley, B.C. riding Sept. 28.
OTTAWA
Conservative MP Mark WarawaOn Sept. 26, as Motion 312 was defeated in the House of Commons, another Tory MP introduced a motion condemning sex selection abortion that continues the building momentum in the pro-life movement.
Conservative MP Mark Warawa quietly introduced Motion 408 just before the vote on fellow Tory MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312, knowing it would become public the next day. It already has the support of several pro-life groups.
Motion 408 reads: “That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selective pregnancy termination.”
Warawa said he began crafting the motion after seeing a CBC investigative report June 12 that used hidden cameras to expose private ultrasound clinics that reveal the sex of unborn children. Most of the time, when the parents found out the unborn child was a girl, they would seek to terminate the pregnancy because they wanted a boy, Warawa said in an interview from his Langley, B.C. riding Sept. 28.
“This is a problem around the world,” he said. “It should not be happening.”
Warawa called the practice “blatant discrimination against females and should not be tolerated.”
“Gender discrimination should not be happening at any time, of any kind,” he said, noting the CBC report “triggered Canadian outrage because people were ending the pregnancy simply because the baby was a girl.”
On June 13, all the national parties came out with statements condemning the practice of sex selection pregnancy termination, as did the Society of Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada, he said. Around the same time Environics conducted a poll showing 92 per cent of Canadians thought it should be illegal, he said.
Warawa had a number of MPs in his office shortly after the program all saying the practice should be condemned, so he went to work to craft language that addresses the issue but will be acceptable to every national political party, he said.
“It’s very simple, and the focus of the motion is quite narrow, to condemn the practice of gender selection in Canada,” he said.
Canada is going to be one of the first countries to launch the Year of the Girl next month, celebrating women and girls, he said. He hopes to get unanimous consent for his motion from all the national political parties so his motion can be passed by the time the Year of the Girl is launched in October.
Warawa said if any parties refuse to give unanimous consent, his motion will come for its first hour of debate in March 2013 about six months from now.
Campaign Life Coalition has launched a petition in support of Motion 408, that calls sex selection abortion “a reprehensible practice that targets baby girls for female gendercide and represents discrimination against women in its most extreme form.”
“Justice starts in the womb,” said Catholic Life and Family director Michele Boulva in an email interview. “If we can't protect females from discrimination before birth, how can we expect justice and equality for women after birth?”
Boulva also called attention to the 96 per cent of unborn children with Down’s syndrome who are being aborted.
“As Christians, we know that God wants and loves every human being who is conceived. We are called to care for all and to love each other as Christ has loved us,” she said.
