Debate began Wednesday in the House of Commons on a private member’s bill called the Sex-Selective Abortion Act.
Introduced last year by Yorkton-Melville Tory MP Cathay Wagantall, Bill C-233 would prohibit a medical practitioner from knowingly perform an abortion if the sole reason for the abortion is the sex of the child.
“The opportunity to bring forward something as significant as sex-selective abortion, and that it is so well supported across the nation by the majority of Canadians that it should not be accessible, should be illegal in Canada,” Wagantall said. “that was my premise for doing it and it meant a great deal for me to present it.”
Wagantall cited a poll from Dart & Maru/Blue, conducted in December 2019 and results released last February, to support her claim of many Canadians supporting a law against the practice.
The survey indicated 84 percent of Canadians who participated believe sex-selective abortion should be illegal.
Wagantall says she has received support for her bill from organizations such as the United Sikhs and the Vedic Hindu Cultural Society of British Columbia.
According to Bill C-233, a medical practitioner who performs a sex-selective abortion “is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; or an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than 18 months.”
Resistance to Bill C-233
During the debate, there were multiple MP’s who expressed their opposition to Bill C-233.
Ontario Liberal MP for Oakville-North Burlington Pam Damoff said it is “trying to find a problem that doesn’t exist.”
“Canada is not seeing a disproportionate number of male versus female births. The sex ratio at birth for Canada is consistent with the global average. In fact, I believe this bill introduces considerable risk in stigmatizing racialized communities, which already experience disproportionate police surveillance, over-criminalization, and violence and discrimination at the hands of public officials.” Damoff said in her speech.
Lindsay Mathyssen, a New Democrat MP for London-Fanshawe in Ontario, called the bill “an underhanded attack on women’s choice.”
“Canadian women fought long and hard for the right to safe, legal abortions. Women have been forced to put their private lives under scrutiny in the courts and in the fight for the right to choose.” Mathyssen stated.
Ontario Tory MP for Elgin-Middlesex-London, Karen Vecchio, who in Wagantall’s statement is mentioned as pro-choice, talked about “the need for a rational debate on the practice of sex-selection and Canada’s lack of any law to address it.”
“I support women having a choice and when I speak on this issue, I recognize that there are many Canadians unaware of what our laws in Canada are,” stated Vecchio.
“Many members have decided to stop listening before the conversation even begins. Does this issue deserve to be studied? Is there an issue that is actually occurring here in Canada that needs to be addressed? We cannot know if we are not willing to even start the conversation.”
Abortions in Canada have been legal since 1988.
The next step
Following Wednesday’s first hour of debate, at Second Reading, Wagantall says the second hour of debate in the House of Commons could be around May 24.
“In which case, we’ll have that hour of debate, and then there will be a vote on whether to send it to committee or not,” she noted.
“And that’s what I’m asking is that we’d be able to extend this conversation and bring in the people who are truly stakeholders in the issue from different perspectives, as well as across our medical profession.”