'Sneaky bill': 'Abortion is Health Care' billboard aims at Yorkton MP's Bill C-311

A new 'Abortion is Health Care' sign has been put up, this time in Yorkton.

The location was no mistake either, according to founder and executive director of Abortion is Health Care Signs Inc., Megan Johnston.

Johnston and her team chose Yorkton after seeing a bill tabled by Yorkton - Melville Conservative MP Cathay Wagantall.

“She introduced the bill on the premise that she wants judges to have to give higher sentences if someone knows a woman is pregnant, and attacks her, hurts her, or causes her harm in any way,” Johnston told CTV News.

Johnston believes the wording could lead to more restrictions on abortion access, if passed.

The amendments to the bill are as follows:

“Whereas Parliament wishes to denounce and deter violence against pregnant women by explicitly including pregnancy as an aggravating circumstance for the purpose of sentencing;

• (ii.2) evidence that the offender, in committing the offence, abused a person whom the offender knew to be pregnant,
• (ii.3) evidence that the offence caused physical or emotional harm to a pregnant victim.”

Wagantall responded Wednesday, calling the bill “simple,” and adding it is only “two lines.”

Johnston worries that the bill aims to grant personhood to a fetus, and adds that currently, judges do have the ability to grant aggrevating circumstances if a victim is pregnant.

“It’s kind of like this, sneaky bill, this first step bill that comes from the anti-abortion movement” she said.

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Wagantall said the bill is not about limiting access to abortion.

“The two are not linked. There is nothing associated,” she said.

“These are people who have lost a loved one to someone who knew they were pregnant, and in a lot of cases, it is intimate partner violence.”

Within Wagantall’s petitions on Bill C-311 to the House of Commons, there is a nod to the bill’s ties to abortion.

“Canada has no abortion law. This legal void is so extreme that we don’t even recognize preborn children as victims of violent crimes,” a bullet point states within the petition.

Within the last seven months, Wagantall has tabled six petitions to the House of Commons, all relating to abortions and the claw back of charitable organization designation for pro-life organizations.

None have more than 48 signatures.

As for the billboard, Wagantall said it is “free speech,” and only raised an issue with “misinformation” coming from the Liberal government, creating the blowback on the bill.