Mr. Speaker, that was not a point of order, and I hope my colleague will show the courtesy of letting me finish my speech. First of all, his bill is unconstitutional. He should at the very least have the decency to listen to his fellow parliamentarians.
Yes, there are similarities between the infraction he is proposing, which relates to killing an unborn child, and abortion. All the same, I think it is my prerogative in this House to express the point of view I wish to air on behalf of my party.
In the current state of the law, the fetus has no rights while in its mother's womb. That decision was handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada, is reflected in the Criminal Code, and is the state of the law. That means that a parliamentarian cannot question that definition through a private member's bill. I think it would have been interesting if our colleague had provided us with a legal opinion submitted by the Minister of Justice, who acknowledges that the bill is unconstitutional. It is worth noting that the minister has the same background as the member who introduced the bill.
That said, I do not wish to deny our colleague's right to draw the attention of this House to such a question. He is entitled to his point of view, and all of the members of this House have heard it. This is how things should be done in a Parliament like ours.
On the topic of rewriting history on the question of when life begins, with respect to the rights of the unborn and abortion rights, I was saying that, since 1777, there have been provisions that did not appear in the Criminal Code—since the Criminal Code did not exist until the end of the 19th century—but that protected the sanctity of human life. Later, certain changes were made. The most important change was made in 1969. At that time, we maintained criminal sanctions against abortion, except if a therapeutic committee, made up of three doctors, authorized an abortion for health reasons, linked to the mother's health.
As several members have said so far, there were a number of court challenges.
Therefore, in 1969, Parliament made several important amendments to the Criminal Code, at the time referring to section 273, which specified the time when an abortion could legally be performed. Then it could be performed with the recommendation of a therapeutic committee made up of three doctors.
The section set out criminal sanctions for doctors who did not respect the strict rules that I outlined. These rules required authorization from a therapeutic abortion committee at an accredited or approved hospital and that the abortion had to be performed at an accredited or approved hospital.
The therapeutic abortion committees had to consist of at least three doctors, none of whom could be performing abortions. That very year, in 1969, Dr. Henry Morgentaler opened his first clinic in Montreal where he performed abortions without approval from a therapeutic abortion committee. As we all know, this resulted in a legal drama—probably the most famous controversy ever.
Then 1982 saw the advent of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which included an article on the right to physical integrity, the right to life, liberty and, of course, security of the person. This is from article 7 of the charter, which talks about life, liberty and security of the person. This would be the legal recourse by which it would be decided, in a legal manner, that women must have control over their own bodies, and that it is not in keeping with the values in the charter to restrict the right to abortion, as the provisions in 1969 did.
That is why decisions have been handed down, which prompted the lawmaker to define what life is, when a fetus becomes a fetus, and at what point a fetus must be recognized as having rights.
I will remind the hon. members that neither the Quebec civil code nor the major existing statutes respecting women's health recognize that, as long as it is in the mother's womb, the fetus is not considered a human being. Whether we agree or not, the fact remains that such is the current state of the law.
Our colleague's bill was deemed unconstitutional because clause 2, as amended, states, “It is not a defence” to a person charged with an offence set out in the Criminal Code, namely causing the death or injuring the unborn child of a pregnant woman, “ that (a) the child is not a human being; (b) the accused did not know that the person was pregnant”.
Can hon. members see how profoundly incompatible this bill is with the Criminal Code and the courts of law—