REALity Volume XXXV Issue No. 6 June 2016
It must be tough being pro-abortion. Pro-abortionists can never rest as if the issue is finally settled. Because it is not. The issue keeps on surfacing and it is getting more and more difficult to stamp out endless eruptions or wild fires. Since 1988, there have been more than 40 bills or motions advanced, attempting to protect the rights of the unborn child. This has provoked ongoing debate on the issue.
Even the courts are struggling to come to grips with the reality of the human being in the womb.
On April 21, 2016, Mr. Justice Shore, of the Federal Court handed down a decision dealing with the unborn child. In his decision, Judge Shore overturned a decision of the Immigration Appeal Division, that it could not consider “the best interests” of an unborn in an immigration appeal case because the “best interests of a child” applied only to a born child.
Judge Shore, however, decided that the “best interests” of a child should be extended to the unborn child. This conclusion was based on the obvious fact that the unborn child becomes a born child, usually before judgment is handed down, and this means that the court must review the “best interests” of the unborn child. According to Judge Shore, the Immigration Department’s decision failed to demonstrate that it was “alive, alert and sensitive to the then unborn child” which should have been very much a consideration in making its decision.
The case arose when an immigrant, a citizen of China, arrived in Canada on a student visa in 2002. He married a Canadian citizen for the sole purpose of convenience in order to be sponsored as a permanent resident. He divorced his wife of convenience, and then entered into a genuine marriage with a Canadian citizen. The Canada Border Services Agency determined that the immigrant was inadmissible to Canada because of his misrepresentation, and a removal order was made against him.
The applicant appealed on humanitarian, compassionate grounds to the Federal Court, on the grounds that he was now well established in Canada and his wife was five months pregnant. The baby was born in October 2014 before the case was settled.
In his decision, Judge Shore referred to the 2006 case of Hamzai v. Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, which had concluded that there were no distinguishing factors that would make the case of an unborn child any different from that of a born child. The “best interests” of the born child were that of the unborn child, because they were one and the same individual.
As a result, Judge Shore concluded that the applicant should be allowed to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds on the basis that the applicant, his wife and new born child bring a positive contribution to Canada. Also, it was determined that the failure to consider the best interests of the unborn child in the departmental order for removal, was improper.
One has to deal with the reality of the presence of the unborn child in real life, and Judge Shore did just that.