The Editor,
Re: "Clinic: Early baby scans a 'Chinese' thing," News, June 15.
Although the practice of aborting babies because they happen to be girls is disgusting to many of us Canadians, it should not come as a surprise that it happens here.
Did you know that Canada is the only nation in the western world that does not have an abortion law. It is an embarrassment that our country, along with prominent human rights violators, China and North Korea, provides no legal protection for pre-born humans, at any gestational age.
In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Section 251 of the Criminal Code. They ruled that the old law was unconstitutional in that it did not provide equal access to hospitals performing abortions.
They clearly stated that it was up to Parliament to come up with a new law, which would balance the rights of the child in the womb with the rights of the mother. Since then, several attempts have been made to pass an abortion law, but these have all failed and consecutive governments have been too cowardly to reopen the abortion debate.
And don't think that late-term abortions, which most Canadians find morally unacceptable, don't happen here, either.
They do happen in Canada. All our international counterparts have laws preventing this outrageous violation of human rights, and it's time that Canada had a law restricting them as well.
Caroline Macken Richmond
