I just happened on this website, Duhaime's Canadian Family Law Centre, which has a legal summary of fetal/abortion rulings and laws in Canada. This is only a quick summary, because I know that there's more to it than this.
Here is one tidbit I was not aware of:
A recent development (November, 1996) involves a pregnant Ottawa woman, Brenda Drummond, who tried to kill herself or her foetus by discharging a pellet gun into her vagina. The pellet lodged into the foetus' head and the baby was born alive a few days later. Emergency surgery saved it's life when an x-ray revealed the pellet in the child's head. Attempted murder charges were brought under section 223 of the Criminal Code which says that "a person commits homicide when he causes injury to a child before or during its birth as a result of which the child dies after becoming a human being." The same section defines a "human being ... when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother whether or not it has completely breathed, it has an independent circulation or the navel string is severed." Defence lawyers are saying that this was merely a failed abortion which, as explained above, is no longer a crime in Canada.
That is absolutely cruel.
This is the kind of insanity that is preventing ANY fetal rights legislation in Canada. A woman can do anything she wants to a living, sentient being on the basis that she "owns" this baby, no matter how cruel and inhumane.
So much for standing up for the vulnerable.
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