To the Editor:
As a young woman, I am enthused and applaud the bill known as Roxanne's Law championed by MP Rod Bruinooge.
This bill is designed to protect the right of women to safely carry their child to term if they so choose. This bill would make it a criminal offence to coerce or attempt to coerce a woman into having an abortion.
The bill was named in memory of a woman named Roxanne Fernando, who in 2007, was coerced by her boyfriend to have an abortion. When she backed out on her decision, Roxanne's boyfriend chose to have her killed. On December 13, members of Parliament will debate this bill and two days later, they will vote and decide if it goes to committee or if it dies.
I feel like even the mention of the word abortion causes a spread of panic within the masses. Let it be said that this bill is not intended to bring intimidation, this bill exists to protect women and we should not allow emotion to dictate what is simple logic.
There is something inside the heart of a woman when she conceives and there is a fight that happens as she chooses to keep that baby and dreams of what their life might become. Her heart and her fight must be protected. There is very little that would be more traumatic to a woman than being forced to kill her own child whether through the mechanisms of violence, manipulation or abuse. We live in a society where all these things are still realities, but we can now rise to say this has a to stop and this matters to us.
I know that one day when I am carrying a little one, I want to know that if I was threatened, if I was attacked, if I was coerced; that my legal and political system would be standing up for me to say, "This is not okay."
Guaranteed as you read this you can think of a woman who is pregnant right now, maybe it's your wife or your sister. Can you, for a moment, feel the injustice of all that being taken from her? Yet, you are helpless, unable to offer more than consoling, because the law chose silence; our leaders chose to say nothing.
So say something. Let your members of Parliament know that this matters to you. Let's make a statement that we are committed to allow women to safely live out their pregnancies and we honour the heart of motherhood that has shaped this nation time and time again.
Lives are in the balance.
Ashley Beaudin, Grimsby, ON.
