Mr. Speaker, 19-year-old Olivia Talbot from Edmonton was 27 weeks pregnant when she was brutally murdered on November 23, 2007. Her killer, Jared Baker, fired three shots into her abdomen and then two shots into her head. During his trial, Baker told the court he aimed the shots directly at her torso to “get the baby”.
The attack on Olivia's baby boy, Lane junior, was not treated as a crime. Although not yet born, baby Lane was alive before Olivia was murdered. Although not yet born, baby Lane was wanted and loved and anticipated before Olivia was murdered. Yet Lane junior was not recognized by our criminal law, our justice system, and our government as a victim of a heinous criminal act.
Lane junior was very much a wanted child. Olivia was very much a willing mother. Just ask Mary Talbot, the mother of Olivia and the grandmother of the baby, Lane. She has been campaigning since 2005 for a change to our law to allow charges to be laid in the injury or death of an unborn child when the child's mother is the victim of a crime.
More recently, Aysun Sesen from Toronto was eight months pregnant when she was stabbed to death by her husband. No charges were laid in the death of her daughter, Gul. Like Mary Talbot, Aysun Sesen's brother-in-law, Aydin Cocelli, has been campaigning for a change to our laws.
We have found at least 15 similar cases since 2004 where wanted unborn children were killed as a result of attacks against their mothers. Canadians are aghast to learn that no charges can be laid today in these deaths.
Bill C-484 would make it an offence to intentionally or recklessly harm or kill a pregnant woman's unborn child while committing a criminal offence against the child's mother.
This is a bill that families of slain women are urging members of Parliament to support. This type of legislation has wide-ranging support among all Canadians across party lines. A poll released in October 2007 found that 72% of Canadians and 75% of women would support legislation making it a separate crime to injure or kill an unborn child during an attack on the mother. Voter support was as follows: Conservatives, 77%; Liberals, 71%; Bloc, 71%; and NDP, 66%.
Why the strong public support? Because the vast majority of Canadians see this bill for what it is: a law that recognizes that a crime has been committed. This is a bill that is right and good and necessary in a just and compassionate society. Such a law hopefully would act as a deterrent to committing violence against women when they are most vulnerable.
Surviving family members are asking for separate charges to be laid in these situations. From what we have seen from letters, emails, and signed petitions rolling into MPs' offices from Canadians across the country, this is also what the Canadian public is demanding. That is because it is obvious to Canadians and especially to the surviving family members that there are two victims in these crimes and the law needs to recognize this by allowing two charges to be laid. As for the family members who are left behind to cope, their grief goes unvalidated. They try desperately to mourn a death that our law refuses to recognize in that there are no charges to be laid in the injury or death of an unborn child when the child's mother is the victim of crime.
The Supreme Court of Canada has consistently said in numerous rulings that it is not up to the courts to decide what level of protection to give the unborn child, that it is up to Parliament. In fact, in the 1988 Morgentaler decision which struck down Canada's abortion law, all seven Supreme Court justices were unanimous in finding that the state has an interest in the protection of the unborn child. Justice Beetz said:
I am of the view that the protection of the foetus is and, as the Court of Appeal observed, always has been, a valid objective in Canadian criminal law.... I think s. 1 of the Charter authorizes reasonable limits to be put on a woman's right having regard to the state interest in the protection of the foetus.
In this ruling, the Supreme Court was looking at the issue of controversial abortion. Even in that context, all justices agreed that the criminal law had a role to play in protecting the unborn child and the court left it to Parliament to figure out how to do that.
Therefore, if the court is acknowledging that the state should protect the child in some circumstances, even when the mother wants an abortion, then how much more appropriate is it for the state to protect the unborn child when the woman does not want an abortion? If the state cannot step in and protect the wanted child from a brutal third party attack against the mother's will, then just when can it? What cases would the Supreme Court judges have in mind if not the cases where a pregnant woman and her wanted child are victims of a criminal act of violence?
Our current law, which fails to recognize a woman's unborn child as a separate victim of criminal act, amounts to telling those people who abuse women that since society places no value on human life growing inside of them why should they. If the state has no interest in protecting a woman's unborn child, why should they?
By our failure as a society to recognize any worth whatsoever in the baby, who the pregnant woman wants and is trying to protect, we are only encouraging abusive behaviour toward pregnant women. We must all share in the blame of the consequences of children maimed or killed in their mothers' wombs.
As for the family members who are left behind to try to cope, their grief goes invalidated. They try desperately to mourn a death that our law refuses to recognize because it refuses to recognize that a living baby ever existed at all.
Responding to the coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, who has publicly misrepresented both Bill C-484 and the intentions of the member who introduced this bill, last week Mary Talbot said:
I hope you never have to experience the pain and anguish and sense of injustice of losing a beloved family member to violence, only to learn that no crime was committed, only to learn that the one your heart breaks for, was of no worth.
I hope colleagues in the House would also demonstrate this respect in a concrete way by voting on Wednesday in favour of sending Bill C-484 to the justice committee to be studied further.