A Saskatchewan MP’s attempt to criminalize assaults that terminate a pregnancy died in the House of Commons..Bill C-311, a private member’s bill of Yorkton-Melville Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall, was voted down in the House of Commons by a vote of 205-113, with four votes paired..The Violence Against Pregnant Women Act was tabled in the House of Commons January 31 and debated May 9. .“There are more than 80 cases in recent Canadian history of women who have been killed while pregnant. Each of these women was killed by men who knew they were pregnant," said Wagantall in a speech to the House May 9.."The killers intentionally sought to do harm to the pregnant women and, in many cases, end their pregnancies. As it stands at this moment, we in this place have failed them by not requiring sentencing judges to take these actions into account…".“[The legislation would] ensure the act of knowingly assaulting a pregnant woman and causing physical or emotional harm to a pregnant woman are factored in as aggravating circumstances for sentencing purposes. For a perpetrator who has been identified and found guilty, the sentence must be required to match the crime.”.In her speech, Wagantall noted a previous attempt under C-225, called Cassie and Molly’s Law, was supported by Joyce Arthur, executive director of Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada. This time, Arthur sent a letter with six reasons for her opposition to the bill to all parliamentarians except Wagantall, one being a claim the bill was redundant..Wagantall disagreed, saying, “In researching through many references of previous cases, I saw that a judge's discretion in using other clauses or choosing to see pregnancy as an aggravating circumstance is truly wanting.” She followed with two examples from the past four years..Opposition MPs made speeches against the bill at second reading, including Liberal MP Rachel Bendayan (Outremont, QC). Bendayan said the bill was a rehash of Wagantall’s Bill C-225 from 2016 which Conservative MP Michael Chong voted against..“I think this underlines why so many of us in this House think so highly of that particular member,” she said of Chong..Bendayan said she opposed the bill because it seemed to be a “stepping stone towards reopening the abortion debate in Canada, with the goal of conferring rights on the fetus.”.Bendayan claimed courts had a common law practice of imposing harsher sentences for assaults on pregnant women without any law and without any proof required that the perpetrator knew the woman was pregnant, something required by C-311..“I am extremely concerned the bill's proposed aggravating factor could result in sentencing courts refusing to treat a victim's pregnancy as an aggravating factor in cases where there is no evidence that the offender knew the victim was pregnant,” Bendayan said..Bloc Quebecois MP Andreanne Larouche (Shefford, PQ) called the bill “utterly exasperating” and “pernicious” and said it would “grant the fetus implicit legal status. The Bloc Québécois opposes any attempt at such legislation, which would set women's rights back.”.NDP MP Leah Gazan (Winnipeg Centre) said, “no anti-violence organization has asked for this legislation. As somebody who has been on the frontline fighting against gender-based violence for many decades, I find it insulting to conflate an attempt to attack women's reproductive rights with true actions to end the ongoing crisis of gender-based violence.”
