Last March, Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, passed second reading in the House of Commons. This bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code and to create a separate offence for causing the injury or death of an “unborn child” should a pregnant woman be the victim of a crime.

The adoption of Bill C-484 would introduce a huge change in our law that would result in massive intrusions in the lives of pregnant women, as has been the case in those states in the U.S. that have adopted similar legislation.

It is important that we take a stand now to defend women’s reproductive rights. This is a question that goes to the heart of women’s equality, dignity and human rights.

Attached is a call to action, a backgrounder on Bill C-484 and a template letter to your MP. Please join the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) and register your opposition to Bill C-484.

On December 13th, 2007, federal Conservative Member of Parliament, Ken Epp, tabled Bill C-484, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code (injuring or causing the death of an unborn child while committing an offense)”. The Bill is usually cited by its short title, The Unborn Victims of Crime Act. The Act has now passed its second reading in the House of Commons.

Bill C-484 would allow charges to be laid in the death of an “unborn child” if the mother is a victim of violent crime. As a result, many believe that it opens the door to giving de facto legal personhood to a foetus. The granting of such status could conflict with women’s rights and undermine the current legal understanding by the Supreme Court of Canada that a woman and her foetus are considered “physically one,” and that the foetus is not a separate entity. By separating the two in his new bill, Epp is advancing a position that runs counter to that of the Supreme Court and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Women’s Court of Canada (WCC) is an innovative project bringing together academics, activists, and litigators in order literally to rewrite the Canadian Charter equality jurisprudence. The WCC grew out of a LEAF-sponsored colloquium entitled “In Pursuit of substantive Equality,” held in September 2003 and February 2004. Taking inspiration from Oscar Wilde, who once said “the only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it,” the WCC now operates as a virtual court, and ‘reconsiders’ leading equality decisions, rendering alternative decisions as a means of articulating new conceptions of substantive equality. The WCC is engaged in an ongoing critique and re-envisioning of Canadian case law in order to invigorate the equality debate by bringing new voices to the debate and encouraging new thinking about equality issues to the benefit of legal education and the broader public across Canada.

As part of a two piece series reporting on the 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) that was recently held at the United Nations in New York from February 25 – March 7, 2008, Sarah Rosenhek from the Association of Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) wrote this informative report.

Two recent studies carried out in Ontario schools, one conducted by Toronto’s School Community Safety Advisory Panel and the other by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), found that sexual harassment and sexual assault of girls are occurring at alarming rates.The Panel stressed that the problem requires immediate attention.

“Canadian women make up half the electorate and almost half the nation’s income tax payers. They contribute $42.4 billion in personal income taxes to the well-being of all Canadians. Despite this heft, the 2008 budget is written as if women are afterthoughts, mere asterisks in the larger Canadian.”

In the report “Budget 2008: What’s in it for Women,” the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives explores the gender impact of the 2008 federal budget. It highlights how the budget does virtually nothing for Canadian women struggling to balance family and work life, and how its heavy emphasis on tax cuts are strongly tilted in favour of high income men.

The paper also examines the federal government’s priorities laid out in this government’s last three budgets and finds an approach that rewards the rich, but does precious little for the rest of us. Despite availability of huge surpluses, women’s concerns are almost invisible.

Violence against women is an issue that cannot wait. At least one out of every three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime. No country, no culture, no woman young or old is immune to this scourge.
-UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Please join us in sending a message to Prime Minster Harper.

FAFIA and Oxfam Canada invite you to their International Women’s Day event, “Taking on the Big Boys: Women in the Global Economy,” this Friday, March 7th between 4 – 6 p .m. at the Sheraton Hotel (Albert Street) in Ottawa.

Please join FAFIA to launch the Canadian chapter of the international report “Social Watch Report 2007: in dignity and rights.”

The Zonta Club of Ottawa, Canadian Federation of University Women/Kanata and UNIFEM Canada welcome you to a public forum “Human Trafficking: At home and abroad.”

Last March, Bill C 484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, passed second reading in the House of Commons. This bill seeks to amend the Criminal Code and to create a separate offence for causing the injury or death of an “unborn child” when a pregnant woman is the victim of a crime. This would mean that the murderer of a pregnant woman could be accused of a second murder, that of the foetus.

Mobolize, Network, Energize, and Deepend the Roots of the Young Feminist Movement Across Canada!

Québec Native Women (QNW) is organizing a peaceful protest to urge the Canadian Government to change its current opposition to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and vote in favor of the Declaration on Sept 13th at the next session of the UN General Assembly. The UN Human Rights Council passed the Declaration in June 2006.

A petition is being circulated across Québec by the Bloc Québécois,
calling on the Prime Minister to honour his commitment to uphold women’s human rights by: 1/immediately re-establishing the Court Challenges Program; 2/re-instating the previous criteria for the Women’s Program; and 3/re-opening the twelve regional Status of Women offices that closed on March 31.

One of the most important leaders of the women’s movement in Canada, Doris Anderson passed away recently at age 85. Join us in remembering the strides she made for all of us in Canada, especially women and girls.

(Ottawa) Canadian human rights organizations called on the federal government today to immediately implement the recommendations of the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The recommendations were issued by the Committee at the close of its session in Geneva, during which it reviewed Canada’s 5th periodic report on its compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.