Mr. Speaker, my goal is not to enter into the abortion debate. My goal is to exercise my personal right to reflect my own personal views in spite of the intimidation these days of anyone who wants to speak for the rights of the unborn. We are oppressed on every side to keep quiet and not say anything. Why is that? This is not right. We are being fought because so many understand that what is going on is not right.
There are differing opinions. There is the embryo, the fetus, the baby, the child, the adolescent and the adult. At what point do we say that it is a human being? Maybe I should say that anyone who is not at least 60 does not have the status of human being because I am over 60. Where do we draw the line?
We know and we understand according to science that when a sperm and an egg come together they grow and develop. Scientifically that is life. What is it if it is not human life? If it is human life, what is it and how is it that we can we so glibly dismiss it as garbage? How can we do that? How can we just stick our heads in the sand and say we want our rights?
What if I, a man, impregnated a woman and said “A part of my body is in you. I don't want it there. Adios. Out of here with you, woman.” I know that is a little absurd and that is way over the edge, because that would be taking a human life. Yes, it is funny. It is really funny.
I once read a very old book that stated “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools”. I think we have a perfect example of that when we refuse to look at the reality of what a fetus-embryo-child is: even the definition we have in the criminal code states if it proceeds “in a living state, from the body of its mother”. I used to think that was because once it breathed it then became a human being. I am surprised that it states that even if it has not breathed, even if it does not have its own circulation, just if it is all the way out, it is a human being. I guess, then, that even if the doctor has pierced the skull and taken out the living parts of the baby, what comes out is no longer a human being. I do not understand that. I do not understand how it can be a baby outside and just five seconds before when it was inside it was not. How is that?
How is that? Human life is human life. We need to face this issue. Where does it come from? I happen to believe that we have so very little to do with human life that when an egg and a sperm come together it is not because we have been so intelligent and able to do something that a life is created. It is because a creator is involved that life is there. Life is not given by air. It is given by a creator. For us to deny the fact that this is life at any stage of the development of an embryo or a fetus is absurd. It does not make good sense. Logic is totally gone.
I sympathize with and understand the need for a woman to be able to protect her health. There are considerations there, but let us give some consideration to assigning to life human status when, I believe, the creator has done it.