Canada – Conservative MP’s bill on violence against pregnant women revives abortion debate

Activist groups believe bill could lend itself to a legal argument for fetal rights

Laura Osman · The Canadian Press
Posted: May 09, 2023

A private member's bill from a Conservative backbench MP is stirring up debate over abortion in Canada, even though the proposed legislation does not mention it once.

Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall's bill would encourage judges to consider physical or emotional harm to a pregnant victim as an aggravating factor during sentencing.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/private-members-bill-violence-against-women-abortion-rights-1.6837875


A social conservative group plans to force the Conservative party to change its position on abortion. Here’s how

By Alex Boutilier, The Star, Ottawa Bureau
Mon., March 8, 2021

OTTAWA—An anti-abortion group is planning an end-run around federal Conservative brass to force a vote on the party’s abortion stance.

In an email to supporters, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC) — an influential social conservative group — said it hoped to push the party to abandon its pledge that a Conservative government would not support a law regulating access to abortion.

Continued: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/03/08/a-social-conservative-group-plans-to-force-the-conservative-party-to-change-its-position-on-abortion-heres-how.html


How Canada’s growing anti-abortion movement plans to swing the next federal election

How Canada’s growing anti-abortion movement plans to swing the next federal election
Anti-abortion lobbyists cheered Ontario’s election as evidence of success. Next up: an ambitious strategy for 2019.

Anne Kingston
Sep 12, 2018

When Doug Ford, newly minted as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, took the stage at the party’s leadership convention last March, he conspicuously thanked one person standing behind him: Tanya Granic Allen, an outspoken social conservative and leadership hopeful. Ford spoke of his intent “to return our province to where it belongs” before making a show of shaking Granic Allen’s hand. It was a small gesture with big import that would have been missed by many: Ford’s debt to “socons” and, specifically, the anti-abortion lobby that enabled his win.

Granic Allen was the top choice of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a national group that works to nominate and elect candidates who oppose abortion at all levels of government, CLC vice-president Jeff Gunnarson tells Maclean’s.

Continued: https://www.macleans.ca/politics/how-canadas-growing-anti-abortion-movement-plans-to-swing-the-next-federal-election/