Time Immortal

In opposition to Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, Bread and Roses, a feminist website, is launching the “One Body. One Person. One Count.” campaign. What an outright lie.

Don’t see it, O Reader? It’s the first sentence of the campaign’s header.

A quick note first: I’m actually not taking issue with the “One Person.” sentence, since that is a truthful statement of the status of unborn children under Canadian law — legally speaking, a fetus is not a person, the same way that women were not considered persons at one point in Canadian history (and could in fact, for some time after they were designated as persons under the law, legally be raped by their husbands), and the same way that Jews were (and, in some countries today, are) not considered persons at various stages in history (and were murdered in droves as a result).

And as disgusted as I am at the prospect of how Canadian law has set up this legal loophole by which the murder of thousands of Canadians every year through the procedure called abortion can be effected, I have to say that I do find it darkly ironic that “personhood” — a designation that early feminism fought long and hard to win for women in Canada — has become the tool by which modern feminism continues to justify the murder of the unborn and the continued oppression of women through it.

But let us come back to the lie, shall we?

“One Body.” It’s a patent falsehood, as any thinking person ought to be able to understand, because the unborn child — while dependent on its mother for nourishment and protection — is a separate and distinct being from its mother. The unborn child — a human being, homo sapiens, by species — contains unique genetic information, distinct and different from that of its mother. Yes, she contributed approximately half of the child’s genetic information, but the father contributed the other half — and in that combination, unique genes emerged that belong to the child, and only to the child. In that way, it is distinct from the mother — its body is not hers.

Even physically, there are two bodies, one within the other — anyone who has viewed an ultrasound can understand that much.

Look, it’s not that I don’t think pro-choice feminists (a phrase which always strikes me as being slightly oxymornic, but nevermind that for now) should have the opportunity to voice their opposition to Bill C-484. Obviously, they have that right, and should be free to exercise it.

I just wish they didn’t have to lie through their teeth when doing so.

* I’m speaking here, O Reader, not only of the way that abortion tends to benefit men more than women, but also of the way that even in Canada, abortion is used by many people as a method of gender selection (a system in which female fetuses are more likely to be aborted)