Nearly 1,000 people gathered at Lahaie Park in the Plateau Mont Royal in Montreal, Canada last weekend to express their concern over a proposed bill that attempts to label a fetus as its own person.
The women were against a recently proposed Canadian bill that has the potential to rollback reproductive rights. Bill C-484, referred to as the “Unborn Victims of Crime Act,” would qualify any attempt to “injure, cause the death of, or attempt to cause the death of a child before or during its birth while committing, or attempting to commit, an offense against the mother,” as a punishable crime. The bill was designed by Ken Epp, a self-described “pro-life” Conservative member of Canada’s House of Commons.
“It refers to a fetus as a child and that’s dangerous,” said Anais Bertrand, a student at UQAM who attended the protest, according to United Press International.
Gaetan Barrette, president of the Quebec Federation of Medical Specialists, also publicly opposed C-484, explaining that the bill acts as “a maneuver to go in the direction of re-criminalizing an abortion” as well as “the first step in giving rights to the fetus,” according to Canada’s Gazette.
C-484 has already passed two stages of Parliamentary readings.
