Denounces defence in case of baby shot while in womb

Letter appeared in the St. Thomas Times-Journal

Letter to the Editor by John Van Eyk
President, St. Thomas Evangelical Library

I write in response to the CP article in the Times-Journal, July 22, "Important Legal Questions Surround Case of Baby Shot in Womb."

Important legal questions surround case of baby shot in womb The Canadian Press OTTAWA (CP) - Brenda Drummond has spent the last month in a psychiatric hospital accused of shooting her son in her womb. The mother of two daughters seems far removed from a debate about her case, which could set an important legal precedent. Her lawyer appears in court today in nearby Smiths Falls to set a date for a time when he can argue that the attempted murder charge against his client should be thrown out because a fetus is not a human being. "There's no offence," says Lawrence Greenspon, who will not be accompanied in court by Drummond, 28, a postal worker. Crown attorney John Waugh maintains the case will "raise important issues on what we mean by human being, child and fetus." Medical lawyers can't agree on the law. A few previous judgements are confusing and contradictory, an indication of the skittishness of courts and governments on the subject. Drummond is accused of trying to kill her son with a pellet gun on May 28 - two days before she gave birth alone in the bathroom of her home in Carlteon Place, about 40 kilometres west of Ottawa. Jonathon Drummond is in stable condition on hospital where he's been since a lead pellet was removed from his brain June 2. Prof. Tim Caulfield, a medical lawyer at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, says the charge against Drummond can't stick. "There is no legal status for a child in utero," he says. "Having said that, it's still viewed as unique. The law also says that while it's perhaps not human, it is something special because of its potential to become a human." Prof. Bernard Dickens, a medical law expert at the University of Toronto, has a completely opposite interpretation of the law. He has said action on an unborn child that results in a baby's death, or was intended to cause death, is indictable as homocide or attempted murder. "What matters is that the child was born alive and therefore became a human being." Under Sextion 223 of the Criminal Code, a child becomes a human being after it has completely left the mother's body. Because Drummond's child was still in the womb, her lawyer says there's no victim.

The lawyers plan to have the attempted murder charges against her thrown out, because by law the baby wasn't considered a human being, show not only man's ignorance, but his sinfulness. George Orwell said, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." And people don't want to hear about this issue of the right to kill in the womb, for it reveals, as the Bible says, that "the heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately wicked."

The Criminal Code says a child only becomes a human being after it has completely left the mother, so the lawyers argument is that since Brenda shot the baby while he was in the womb, that there was no victim. The same law and argument is held in abortion - that it is permissable to kill in the womb, but not outside it. Abraham Lincoln rightfully said, "No law can give me the right to do what is wrong." The law of God says, "Thou shalt not kill" and it has never been annulled.

So the current law says a fetus is not a human being. Try to convince a child of this, and in this day of medical science, saying that is absurd. In the past, slaves and women weren't considered humans either. It is time to declare that human life is precious regardless of age, gender, or place of residence. There is a growing mentality that the most compassionate thing you can do for your unborn, unwanted child is to kill it. And thus one in five Canadian children die in the womb. Over 100,000 abortions last year alone.

Pregnancy is not a disease that must be terminated, but it terminates itself after nin months with the birth of a baby. This case and where we stand on this issue will reveal the state of our hearts and society. We live in a society that is fast throwing out the Law of God and would throw Him out, if it could. And what are we reaping in its place but immorality, lawlessness and heartache. It is high time that some John the Baptists would arise to call men back to God's Law and standards.

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