When men strive
together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is
no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband
shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is
harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for
hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. (Shemot
/ Exodus 21:22-25; ESV)
Many people
are shocked to hear that Canada, where I live, has no laws whatsoever
regulating abortion. Every other nation where it is legal to purposely
terminate pregnancy, except for North Korea, imposes some sort of limits. Usually
those limits include prohibiting the procedure after a certain stage of
gestation (often at twenty weeks of pregnancy). Canada, in all its provinces
and territories, on the other hand, permits abortion through pregnancy all the
way until the baby's body is completely outside of the mother.
This is
based on the Criminal Code of Canada's definition of when a child is deemed to
be a human being as far as the laws against homicide are concerned. Section
223, subsection 1 reads, "A child becomes a human being within the meaning
of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body
of its mother, whether or not (a) it has breathed; (b) it has an independent
circulation; or (c) the navel string is severed." (http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-110.html)
Sounds
pretty clear. By determining that the preborn are not human beings, they are
not under the law's protection. In other words, killing a yet-to-be born child
in Canada is not murder, because he or she is deemed to be a life form that is
not human.
It is no
wonder that pro-abortion activists in Canada are aggressively opposed to any
suggestion that the preborn's humanity might precede birth even though science
says otherwise. A few months ago, a private member's motion to initiate a
discussion over when life begins was soundly defeated in our Parliament. This
was not a proposed law, but only a request for a discussion. This elected
member and his supporters were ridiculed for daring to propose such a thing.
As I looked
into the issue, I was surprised to discover that Section 223 of the Criminal
Code of which I have already quoted has a second subsection that seems to agree
with the verses from the Torah that I started with:
(2)
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.
While in no
way contradicting the previous subsection's definition of what constitutes a
human begin before the law, it clearly states that causing injury to a child
prior to birth that results in death after birth is murder. This agrees with
what God says through Moses: the punishment for causing premature birth is
based on whatever happens to mother and/or child after birth. If the child
dies, then the perpetrator is deemed to have committed murder.
The only
difference that I can see between God's law and Canadian law is that in Canada
if the baby dies pre birth, then the injury to the child is not deemed murder
because he or she is not yet regarded as a human being.
Two
conclusions: First, there is no doubt that God views the preborn as worthy of
protection just like any other person. Second, Canadian law agrees. Somehow our
lawmakers understand the value of human life and the government's
responsibility to protect that life even at this early stage of development.
For it accepts the connection between harm done to the child prior to birth and
the result after birth. Yet it withholds protection by arbitrarily determining
what constitutes a human being. The lack of logic in Section 223 should be enough
to provide the preborn in Canada with the same protection any other person
enjoys in this country. The injustice is self-evident.
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