Tory MPS split over abortion as fetal-rights motion defeated
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative MPs have been left seriously divided over the issue of abortion after a controversial motion was defeated in the House of Commons Wednesday evening.
By a vote of 203 to 91, MPs defeated the motion by Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth instructing parliamentarians to study whether a fetus is a human being before the moment of birth.
But in a surprise development, the vote revealed the deep split among Tory MPs over the issue. Eighty-seven of the 163 Tory MPs supported the motion.
And although Prime Minister Stephen Harper had made it clear he opposed the motion as critics accused him of having a hidden agenda to recriminalize abortion, many of his cabinet ministers did not take his cue by voting with him.
Eight ministers and two min- isters of state voted in favour of Woodworth’s motion.
They included Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, International Trade Minister Ed Fast, Revenue Minister Gail Shea, Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Peter Penashue and International Cooperation Minister Julian Fantino.
Harper was in the Commons Wednesday evening and voted against the contentious motion.
It came amid a political uproar over whether the motion by Woodworth was part of a plan by Harper’s government to reopen a national debate on abortion.
The government denied that charge as a ridiculous assertion and said that MPs were merely being given their right to put forward their own motions and to vote on them.
But NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said that Harper has been giving contradictory “signals” — publicly promising Canadian voters in the last election that an abortion law would not be part of the government agenda, while privately telling his own MPs in caucus that they can pursue that agenda on their own.
“Mr. Harper can’t have it both ways,” said Mulcair.
“It’s a fundamental question of women’s’ rights.”
Most MPs in the 35-member Liberal caucus voted against the motion. Four were in support of it. On the NDP benches, all the MPs who voted were unanimously opposed to the motion.
Ever since Woodworth introduced the motion last spring, it was deemed highly unlikely that MPs would approve it.
But it created sharp debate in the Commons and prompted various Tory MPs to regularly come forward with petitions of support from their own constituents.