ONTARIO, Canada, March 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Canadian celebration of International Women's Week, March 7th to 13th was a significant event for our country. Even Canadian history includes an era when our nation failed to recognize women as "persons" under the law. It is important to celebrate our progress, review remaining challenges and discern future steps to achieve equality for all women at every stage of development and every aspect of their lives, including before their birth.
Canadian women were not considered persons in law until October 18th, 1929. We see the oppressive, unjust, discriminatory and arbitrary nature of this clearly in 2010. In deciding the "Persons Case" in 1929, the Privy Council explained: "The exclusion of women from all public office is a relic of days more barbarous than ours, and to those who ask why the word person should not include females, the obvious answer is, why should it not?"
"Alliance for Life Ontario echoes this same question today, with regard to the girl and boy child before birth," says Jakki Jeffs, executive director of Alliance for Life Ontario.
"The science of embryology, amazing technological advances, such as ultra-sound, fetal surgery and intra- uterine photography prove the humanity of the child in the womb beyond any shadow of doubt," continues Jeffs. This scientific evidence has compelled Alliance for Life Ontario to expand its outreach with the launching of its second website, www.personhood.ca. Among other things, the website encourages visitors to sign a petition asking the government to extend full legal protection to every Canadian from their biological beginnings. The signed petitions will be presented in Parliament on Person's Day, October 18, 2010.
Denying the humanity of pre-born Canadians robs them of the designation of person and consequently legal protection. Political ideology, convoluted jurisprudence and societal complacency should not permit the continuation of discrimination towards the youngest member of the human family.
Denying personhood to the preborn child places us in a made-in-Canada time warp of barbarism and injustice. The number of Canadians killed by induced abortion since 1969 is over 3 million. To those who ask why personhood should not be granted to the preborn, we ask, why not?
