Saskatchewan MP’s pregnant women bill leads to controversy
Global News
The bill seeks judges to consider harm against pregnant women as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
A private members bill from a Conservative Party MP out of Saskatchewan has sparked abortion debates in Ottawa.
Known as Bill C-311, the bill would encourage judges to consider physical or emotional harm to a pregnant victim as an aggravating factor during sentencing.
Cathay Wagantall, the Conservative MP out of Yorkton-Melville, said the violence against pregnant women act, which she authored, is solely focused on protecting pregnant women.
“(The bill is) to ensure that the act of knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman and causing physical or emotional harm to a pregnant woman are considered aggravating circumstances during the sentencing process,” Wagantall said.
But the Liberal Party and abortion rights groups feel the bill has an underlying motive, and nowhere in the bill itself mentions abortion.
The Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada is calling on MPs to vote it down.
“How people can get abortion restrictions in place is if a fetus is defined as a person, so that’s where we have issues with this bill,” said Paige Mason with the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada.
The coalition also called the bill redundant, saying it’s not necessary since judges already have the discretion to apply greater penalties for aggravating circumstances.