DEAR READER WILLING TO READ, dear Statistical Rarity: HAVE WE EXPOSED MOTION 312 FOR WHAT IT IS? There are many people in this land who will scan the following and shout, ‘Yeah!'
(A) Motion 312 is A devious effort (involving irrelevant pretense about scientific facts) to remove human rights from those who have them. In 2012?!
For some the Motion is exposed by those very words. But there are also many people who believe the exact same thing (the Motion unveiled!) but that it is different words that unveil it. These words:
(B) Motion 312 is a reasoned plea for innocent inquiry into human beginnings.
Friends, these are your conclusions, and it is fine by me that this is what you have concluded, but would you kindly tell us why? Because, sadly - and you know it is true - anyone can make a statement but few can make an argument. So: what is the evidence that (A), or (B), is true?
‘SOCIETY HAS MOVED ON'
You recall, I hope (see issue 9), the EVIDENCE that exposes Motion 312 as (A) a deceptive assault on existing human rights. That evidence involves (1) the FACT that the Motion can have no other purpose than the criminalization of abortion, which is logically the only possible outcome of any change it might prompt.
“M312 is the first necessary step to personhood initiative or abortion restrictions. Why else?"
(2) It involves the FACT that we already know the answer to the question it invites science to settle.
“It's a LIE. It wastes government time and taxpayer dollars searching for an answer that's already universally known."
Just what is already “universally known"? That a zygote or an embryo or a fetus is a human being.
“Now [M312 supporters] think they're scientists, breaking the news that the human fetus is - wait for it - HUMAN! Not dog, not cat, but HUMAN! Wow."
(3) And it involves the further fact that in the context of the Criminal Code there is only one relevant meaning of ‘human being', and that is ‘legal person'. Where the Code is concerned, the only way to answer the question ‘What is a human being' is the way the Code itself answers it: to say that ‘A human being is a legal person', the person we have chosen to protect. ‘Born person' is the only relevant meaning of ‘human being' in relation to the Code. The meaning was set and “society has moved on." An opponent of Motion 312 writes:
“The [Motion's] use of the phrase ‘human being' is unfortunate because it has two distinct meanings, one legal, as in Subsection 223(1), and one biological. One correct [in this context] and one incorrect and just waiting to be exploited."
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It is said that supporters of the Motion have no response to these charges; all they can do is to lie, stamp their feet, insist on falsehoods, and invoke the unshared religious dogma really driving this attack on human rights. Is it true, that the Motion's defenders just want “to brainlessly proselytize," that “They got nothing but semantics and weaselwords, And stomping their little feet"?
“You have nothing but opinionism! Bring facts or go away."
Well, let's see if they can do that. Shall we hear from the defenders of Motion 312?
A QUESTION ASKED
As we have seen, a key question about the Motion concerns its intent. The
primary intent of the Motion (say its suppor-ters) is to answer the question, What is it that the wording of Criminal Code 223(1) now permits us to kill? We all know that the law, given that very subsection, currently does not extend protections to the unborn, and in that sense allows the killing of any unborn human being. Perhaps there might be nuances to observe on that point, but this much is clear to everyone:
“a fetus must be born alive to enjoy rights."
The law has stepped away from protecting the resident of the womb - any unborn human prior to complete birth (both before 16 weeks of pregnancy, when most abortions in Canada are said to occur, and after 16 weeks). And the Motion is asking, what is it that we have chosen not to protect? It's purpose, says the Motion's author, is
“to promote an informed dialogue of that law [Subsection 223(1)] so as to lead to closure of an important issue left open by our Courts."
Have we ever asked the question left un-answered by the Courts in 1988: what is it that the law has refrained from protecting? Or are we just presuming to have done so?
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In 1988 Supreme Court Justice Bertha Wilson, in her ruling in R v Morgentaler (the very decision in which the Court ruled that a fetus must be born alive to enjoy rights), also said:
“The precise point in the development of the fetus at which the state’s interest in its protection becomes ‘compelling’ I leave to the informed judgement of the legislature, which is in a position to receive guidance on the subject from all the relevant disciplines."This remark suggests that, if more of the relevant information were taken into account, the creature in the womb might in fact be considered to deserve protection at some point before birth. Presumably, that desire to protect might hinge on how close the fetus was to born Canadians, might hinge on what it was or had become at this stage or that. And so what the Motion proposes is that Canadians inform themselves about the nature of the being that the law has chosen not to protect.
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The author of the Motion has acknowledged that the law has its reasons for dropping that protection. This section of the Criminal Code, he said, used to have a further part:“The second part of the law went on to say that it was still a serious offence to take a child’s life before birth .... in 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada deleted that second part."It was not an accident, a slip of the pen; the Court had its reasons and set them forth: but, again, the Motion is not asking about those reasons. It asks about something else, about the other issue raised by Justice Wilson: the unexamined
reasons for which we might (if we considered them, and thereafter judged this warranted), think of restoring some degree of protection.
The Supreme Court's reasons for limiting that protection are hardly irrelevant, since they involve considerations of JUSTICE. But if you ask what the Motion asks (What is it that the law in fact permits us to kill?), do you actually threaten the administration of justice? By asking this question, do you gain leverage over legislators or over the Supreme Court, so that now their hands are tied and the March of Injustice cannot be stopped?
So, here is the point of Motion 312. To quote an ordinary citizen,
“If someone on the street carefully cut open my eight-month pregnant stomach with a scalpel, inside they’d find a fully-formed human, a little girl or boy, ready to take on life on the outside. If the same person took a rock and began hammering on my belly you, along with 99 percent of Canadians, would be horrified. Because that’s a living person inside. Yet, if I were to take my 36-week pregnant body to a local abortion clinic, under current legislation, it would be legal for them to dispose of my baby."It is indeed legal, and it was made legal for a reason. But is there anything more to consider, about this situation, which is somewhat odd? Is there anything that is already known, by people we trust, about the nature of that thing in the womb, that we might benefit from hearing? And so the Motion asks, in the language of a Motion, what is it that the law has refrained from protecting?
THE REASON FOR ASKING
But there is no need to ask this, people have replied; there is (contra Justice Wilson's suggestion) nothing for us to become informed about, because it is already clear to everyone what it is that is in the womb.
“Here’s the thing: no pro-choicer I know denies that a fetus is human; we deny that it is a person."
“M312 isn't needed to correct some Widespread Misconcep-tion that fetuses are fish.... Do you have evidence that people think it's a kangaroo? a Cuttlefish?"Perfect! say the Defenders of the Motion, let us test the very claim you have made. Let us indeed look at the “evidence" of what “people think." If you ask Canadians ‘What is in the womb?' what is it that they say? (Judge for yourself whether Canadians are already clear on this.)
(i) Some say it is HUMAN MATTER, like hair or muscle.
“A fetus consists of human tissue and DNA [but this does not make it] a human being.... a flake of dandruff from my head is human, but it is not a human being, and in this sense, neither is a zygote."
“[An embryo is] a tiny gestational sac."
“A fetus is a blob of cells that is part of a woman."(ii) Some say it is an ORGANISM OF THE SPECIES HOMO SAPIENS.
“A zygote is an organism; it is NOT a human being."
“The zygote qualifies as a human organism."(iii) Some say it is a complete INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING, like you or me, only at an early stage of life.
“A zygote who is a member of the species homo sapiens, in plain English, is a human being."
“It is a human being. all the potential for human life exists within it."
“A fetus developing inside a human mother has DNA, It also has a metabolism, Therefore it is a living organism. Since that DNA is consistent with that of Homo Sapiens (Human Beings), it can't possibly be any other species. Since the fetus has DNA which is unique to itself, it cannot be anything other than an individual homo sapiens (human being)."
“It is precisely because some abortions are targeted at female human beings that they are being denounced as heinous [an outrage against human beings - so,] what is at stake in an abortion is the life of a human being."(iv) Some say it is a POTENTIAL HUMAN BEING that is in there, not an actual human being.
“Make up your mind: Is it a ‘human being' or is it a fetus with ‘all the potential for human life'."
“A zygote is a mass of Human Cells with the Potential to be a human being!"(v) Some say it is an INSOLUBLE MYSTERY: no one knows, or can know, what is in there. At different times it might be different things (at first you have “tiny forms that are amphibian," and then, at some point - who knows when? - you
get a human being ... so let's say ‘birth').
“No-one can know when life really begins."
“The mainstream view in science is that we don’t know when human life begins."Are Canadians already clear on what is in the womb? It is quite likely that all these people know that there is human matter in volved throughout, but are any of them confused about other things? Is the one who says “A zygote is not an organism" just as well informed as the one who says “[It] is an organism"? There are people who know what it takes to be an organism.
And - yes - they won't tell us how to value an organism. But we don't ask them to. We already value certain things: what we value even says who we are (we are people who value X but not Y), so all that matters is that we find out whether we have, here, an X or a Y.
And if we did learn the facts, where there are facts to learn (are we gullible? will we take as a fact something offered without evidence, or with ‘evidence' that is invisible to us?) - well, what would happen then? If we did learn the facts, it would help us to understand the IMPLICATIONS of the law, which is the Motion's very rationale. Says its author,
“My favoured outcome of M312 would be that Parliament and Canadians are better informed about the implications of Subsection 223(1)."The IMPLICATIONS of killing Y, “human tissue," are not very alarming (it is just excising some flesh). But the IMPLICATIONS of killing X, “an individual human being" very much like you and me, very much like like a baby, are rather different. The IMPLICATIONS of killing “an organism", or something “we don’t know" the nature of, may not be clear at all - yet even here there are familiar legal issues (is the hunter's plea that he “didn’t know what was in that bush" justification for emptying both barrels into it? In some cases there is a duty to find out.) Is it true that “no one nowhere knows what life is!" Is it true that “No-one can know" what is in the womb at any point - is that really true at all? Or is it true that, at some point - this would be “The point in the development of the fetus at which the state’s interest in its protection becomes ‘compelling’" - we are equipped to know, if we bother?
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Charge (2) was that we already know the answer to the question the motion asks: it is clear to everyone what is in the womb. Is that a fact or is that false?You decide, and as you do you might pay some attention to the very people who have made the charge that there is no “Widespread Misconception" about the fetus that M-312 is “needed to correct." For instance, this person, who has insisted we don't need a special committee to look into our humanity because ...
JJ: “Everyone already knows a fetus is human."
In reply, THE DF asked: “OK - meaning? Human Matter, as my hair; or a Human Being, as in me or you. Camille Paglia says ‘Liberals have shrunk from' saying that abortion ‘results in the annihilation of concrete individuals.' Do you? That's my question."
JJ: “If Paglia said that she's even more of a nitwit than i thought. (By the way, I don't shrink from anything, Jack.)"
THE DF: “(Not accusing; just asking.) so you disagree with Paglia on which point? (A) Liberals don't shrink from it? or (B) There's no concrete individual in the womb?"
JJ: “It's a monumentally brainless statement. I disagree with it in every way possible."
THE DF: “So you WOULD say, then, that there is no ‘concrete individual' who is ‘annihilated' in abortion."
JJ: “Mostly, a fishy looking thing the size of a raspberry is scraped out of your uterus with some other mung and flushed. That's it."
So, here is a person who says “everyone knows a fetus is human" - but would not clarify what being ‘human' means: what that says about the fetus (there are four options, i-iv) - yet could not agree that it is a “concrete individual" - and then switched to the case of embryos (only an embryo is the “size of a raspberry"), evidently considered mere HUMAN MATTER, the category people feel the least concern about killing.
Is it clear to everyone what is in the womb, or might it be that we would rather not know, would rather be freed to believe what is easiest on the conscience, or best for the activism: we would rather not notice that, at some point before birth, ‘human' really does mean a distinct INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING.
What, then, is the purpose of Motion 312? It is to see if, at some point prior to birth, we really do have a “concrete individual" enough like you and me that we would expect the state to consider its welfare, in some way (how it might do so being left open, by the process, to careful judgement).
Charge (2) we have just examined; what about charge (1): is it a fact that the criminalization of abortion is the only logically possible consequence of this motion? Or (here is a different consequence) would the Motion allow us to consider what is universally demonstrable about what is present in the womb - tout court? ‘Ah,' say the critics, ‘but that is just your trick: first you clarify what is in the womb and then you criminalize abortion.' Really? That is a rather surprising admission, for three reasons.
1st: There is, therefore, contra what you have said, another purpose to the Motion: and that is clarifying what is in the womb.
2nd: If this clarifying were done, resulting in the conclusion that the womb contains HUMAN MATTER (as many people insist it does, when they are pressed on what they mean by calling it ‘obviously human'), the implications of killing HUMAN MATTER are not very disturbing. Surely everyone agrees that abortion could not be criminalized if that is what is ‘killed'. So, again, it is FALSE that the criminalization of abortion is the motion's only possible effect.
And, 3rd: People will now say, ‘That will not be the conclusion.' Interesting: what will be the conclusion? ‘That during some part of gestation we have something far more developed than HUMAN MATTER.' Well, if you are already sure about this - that asking ‘what is in the womb' would not show you ‘HUMAN-MATTER-through-all-9-months' but lead to another conclusion: that for some of those months we know that we have something more - possibly a complete ORGANISM OF THE SPECIES HOMO SAPIENS, or even a complete INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING, like you or me, only at an early stage of life - ... then, in that case, isn't it false that criminalizing abortion is the Motion's only possible outcome?
For isn't the outcome now that, We have something quite significant to discuss? Alarms about ‘changing the law!' strangely overlook the idea of revelations of injustice that we have allowed ourselves to uncover and that call for change. Can the outcome not be, seeing we have more to think about? Because if this is what you are already able to predict, what you have predicted is that we might perhaps discover a creature that the state has an interest in protecting.
“If the truth is a danger to the status quo," says one citizen, “the status quo probably needs to be changed."Those who believe that criminalization is so imminent seem to believe that reasoned inquiry would reveal that (to quote Justice Wilson) at some “point in the development of the fetus" we would find something whose killing is not so easy to defend (Justice Wilson had a hunch “that it might fall somewhere in the second trimester"). So another possible consequence of the Motion, which these critics remind us of, is that it might reveal to Canadians an X that, indeed, they already value.
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And the final charge, (3)? Is it a fact that the Motion pretends to invite debate about ‘human beings' when the only meaningful debate in this context is about ‘legal persons'? As we have been told repeatedly by opponents of the Motion, the “legal personhood" or “Moral value" of the fetus concerns a value we confer on it: science clarifies what is so, but it cannot tell us how much to care about it. - And that is precisely why defenders of the Motion keep insisting that the Motion is not about personhood!
It simply does not propose that we ask, HOW MUCH SHOULD WE VALUE what is in the womb? (Personhood.) It proposes that we ask, WHAT is in the womb? (A Human Being?) Is there, in the womb, at any point, a distinct member of the human kind like the rest of us, the kind of thing that we would call, based solely on its factually described actual nature, a Human being? I suppose we might continue to withold from that individual human being the protections now witheld from it, but it would at last be clear what we were witholding them from. (And is it at all clear now? Are people informed?) So isn't it false that in the context of the Criminal Code the only definition of ‘human being' that matters is the one the Code itself lays down: a born person?
It simply does not propose that we ask, HOW MUCH SHOULD WE VALUE what is in the womb? (Personhood.) It proposes that we ask, WHAT is in the womb? (A Human Being?) Is there, in the womb, at any point, a distinct member of the human kind like the rest of us, the kind of thing that we would call, based solely on its factually described actual nature, a Human being? I suppose we might continue to withold from that individual human being the protections now witheld from it, but it would at last be clear what we were witholding them from. (And is it at all clear now? Are people informed?) So isn't it false that in the context of the Criminal Code the only definition of ‘human being' that matters is the one the Code itself lays down: a born person?
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Is the Motion a Wolf - or has it been dressed in the guise of a Wolf by those who are happier if we don't ask the question that Justice Wilson reminded us was never settled:Is Canada, in its treatment of what is in the womb, at any stage of its gestation, witholding protections from an INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING, a being that is in every respect but for this witholding of rights a distinct member of the human kind like the rest of us?I am, etc.