R
Rosalinda
Guest
Carroll Rees, Ottawa,
Executive director, LifeCanada, Letter in The Ottawa Citizen,Tuesday, August 02,
Re: We need a law on fetal homicide, JULY 28.
I thank the Citizen for reprinting the Calgary Herald’s well-reasoned editorial supporting a law to protect unborn victims of violence. But I want to point out one inaccuracy.
The 1988 Supreme Court Morgentaler decision did not grant women a right to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy as the editorial claims. The four justices in the majority decision, Brian Dickson, Antonio Lamer, Jean Beetz and Willard Estey, found that the law on abortion was unconstitutional, but only on administrative and procedural grounds, such as unequal access for all women to therapeutic abortion committees and hospitals performing abortions, and “the absence of any clear legal standard to be applied by the committee in reaching its decision” as to whether a woman’s life or health was at risk because the law did not provide any definition of “health.”
Two of the seven justices, W. R. McIntyre and Gerard La Forest, found that the abortion law was not unconstitutional.
Only Justice Bertha Wilson was of the opinion that “in the early stages the woman’s autonomy would be absolute.” But even she admitted, as the editorial correctly acknowledges, that at some point during pregnancy, the state’s interest in protecting the fetus becomes “compelling.”
Thus the law was struck down as unconstitutional, but not because the court found a right to abortion – it was struck down because of the administrative and procedural flaws inherent in that particular law. The court left it to Parliament to come up with a new abortion law that would balance the interests of women with that of the unborn child without violating the Charter.
Executive director, LifeCanada, Letter in The Ottawa Citizen,Tuesday, August 02,
Re: We need a law on fetal homicide, JULY 28.
I thank the Citizen for reprinting the Calgary Herald’s well-reasoned editorial supporting a law to protect unborn victims of violence. But I want to point out one inaccuracy.
The 1988 Supreme Court Morgentaler decision did not grant women a right to abortion in the early stages of pregnancy as the editorial claims. The four justices in the majority decision, Brian Dickson, Antonio Lamer, Jean Beetz and Willard Estey, found that the law on abortion was unconstitutional, but only on administrative and procedural grounds, such as unequal access for all women to therapeutic abortion committees and hospitals performing abortions, and “the absence of any clear legal standard to be applied by the committee in reaching its decision” as to whether a woman’s life or health was at risk because the law did not provide any definition of “health.”
Two of the seven justices, W. R. McIntyre and Gerard La Forest, found that the abortion law was not unconstitutional.
Only Justice Bertha Wilson was of the opinion that “in the early stages the woman’s autonomy would be absolute.” But even she admitted, as the editorial correctly acknowledges, that at some point during pregnancy, the state’s interest in protecting the fetus becomes “compelling.”
Thus the law was struck down as unconstitutional, but not because the court found a right to abortion – it was struck down because of the administrative and procedural flaws inherent in that particular law. The court left it to Parliament to come up with a new abortion law that would balance the interests of women with that of the unborn child without violating the Charter.