Bill C-484: The “Unborn Victims of Crime” Act.

Allow me to switch hats for a moment from fat acceptance / navel-gazing to reproductive rights in Canada.

*shuffles*

Bill C-484 is a private member’s bill, submitted by MP Ken Epp, which has passed two readings in the House of Commons (this doesn’t mean it’s going to pass; it still has to pass a special committee reading, then two readings in the Senate, to become law). This “Unborn Victims of Crime” act proposes to change the Criminal Code to make it a separate offense to cause the injury or death of a fetus through assault or murder of a pregnant woman.

On the surface, this might seem like a perfectly logical bill. Violence against pregnant women is a horrific thing. Injury or death to a fetus through assault on a woman is tragic. But let’s look a little closer at this.

1. Would this bill actually change anything in practice?
a) Under current Canadian law, jail sentences are served concurrently, not consecutively. Therefore, someone charged with, say, the murder of both a woman and her fetus would serve two concurrent sentences, and be freed in the same timeframe as someone who served one sentence.

2. Is the bill necessary?
Under current Canadian law, there are special provisions for judges and juries to hand down tougher penalties to perpetrators of violent crimes against women (1) when the attacker is her partner and/or (2) when the woman is pregnant. So there are already policies in place to make criminals serve more jail time when a victim of violent crime is pregnant.

3. Why is the bill a problem?
Several reasons.
a) Currently, under Canadian law, a fetus is not legally distinguished from its mother until it is born, alive. Calling the fetus an “unborn victim” of crime and allowing for separate charges to be laid in the case of harm to or death of the fetus would give the fetus legal status and imply its “right to life.” If the legal status of a fetus is equal to that of its mother, it could set a dangerous precedent of pitting the mother’s rights against those of her fetus.
b) If harming a fetus becomes a separate, punishable crime, it opens the door for charges to be laid against pregnant women who are addicted to drugs and are unable to quit, or who drink alcohol, perhaps not even knowing they’re pregnant. Not to mention the slippery slope that will be created on the issue of abortion. Bill C-484 specifies that the harm to the fetus must be against the woman’s wishes (presumably she did not consent to being attacked), but it’s easy to get around that: “Ms. X— did not freely consent to her abortion; she was coerced into it; this contstitutes murder of the fetus.” See how that works?
c) This bill does not in itself criminalize abortion, but it lays the foundation for chipping away at the law by giving the fetus a unique legal status. The use of the term “unborn victims” is an anti-choice tactic meant to give the fetus special status. The bill also refers to the fetus as an “unborn child” or just as a “child,” when elsewhere in Canadian law, the fetus is referred to as a fetus.

Of course a fetus is an unborn potential human being; I would never deny it. A pregnant woman being attacked and the fetus coming to harm in the assault is a horrible thing, but making the harm or death of a fetus a separate punishable crime does nothing to reduce violence against pregnant women, increase jail terms, or deter criminals. What it would do is lay the groundwork for future attacks on the reproductive rights of women in Canada.

The issue is not that the loss of a fetus in an attack is not being properly punished. The issue is that pregnant women are being attacked at all. Pregnant women are more likely to be the victims of violent crime, especially by their domestic partners, yet we don’t see Mr. Epp’s bill mentioning anything about trying to protect pregnant women, only making sure their fetuses are recognized as separate entities. How useless is that?