Dear Editor:
Re: “Wagantall bill dead with 209-76 HOC vote” (Yorkton This Week, November 3, 2016).
Politics may be the tool with which we determine how to deal with the truth, but the existence of that truth is not determined by politics.
As we watched the MPs vote on whether or not to protect a woman’s right to choose to carry a child to term safely, we couldn’t believe how many chose to perpetrate a lie.
Some MPs felt that because violence is usually domestic Mrs. Wagantall’s bill was unnecessary. To them Cassie was an “exception” and her choice to carry our daughter Molly was one that they were alright with discriminating against.
Other MPs simply refused to acknowledge that there is any problem here at all. To them a pregnant woman is no different than one who isn’t. The Liberals are especially great at talking about choice – but when it came to protecting what choice truly is - one option or the other - they balked at the opportunity to do something substantive to actually protect it.
Ralph Goodall, the Minister of Public Safety, was one of those MPs.
Parliamentarians treated the bill as if this was a partisan issue. The reality is they are out of line with where Canadians are at on this. Polls show that the large majority of “pro-choice” Canadians support legislation such as Cassie and Molly’s Law. This is not a polarizing issue, yet two thirds of MPs made it into one - two thirds ignored the national support.
They treated it as if convenience was their primary objective. They dismissed the poignant reality that in Canada it is not a criminal offence to terminate a woman’s pregnancy against her will. They played politics. They avoided the issue. They stayed comfortable while we suffered.
Truth exists independently of politics – and those MPs who did not support Mrs. Wagantall’s bill betrayed that truth at every turn.
Jeff Durham
(Molly’s father)
Windsor, ON
