VANCOUVER—A violent attack on a pregnant woman has a Windsor community demanding the resurrection of a bill that recognized unborn children as victims.
Cassandra Kaake, 31, died of blood loss caused by severe trauma and was found at the scene of a house fire. She was seven months pregnant with a girl she had already named Molly.
“My nightmare has revealed a flaw in our country’s law,” wrote Molly’s father, Jeff Durham, in an open letter to Conservative MP Jeff Watson. He said Molly’s family was eagerly anticipating her birth and had painted her room pink.
“It is without logic and compassion that her life, a life that mattered so much to us, will not be accounted for in the charges against the accused.”
He calls for Bill C-484, known as the Unborn Victims of Crime Act, to make a comeback. Conservative MP Ken Epp had introduced it as a private member’s bill and it had passed second reading before it died because of an election in 2008.
“It is difficult to comprehend that the bill that would have prevented this insult, at a time that was already indescribably difficult, was never enacted,” he wrote.
Kim Badour, a Windsor resident, started a petition in favour of Bill C-484 after Kaake’s tragic death.
“Had this law been passed, it would have made it a criminal offence to a pre-born child during the perpetration of an offence on the child’s mother,” she explains.
This means “should someone cause harm to a pregnant woman and cause her death resulting in the death of her baby, they’d be charged with a double murder.”
Mike Schouten, campaign director of the pro-life group We Need a Law, says this is a case of a gap in the law that must be addressed.
“Because there’s no law, our courts cannot promote a full sense of responsibility and foster an acknowledgement of harm done,” he told The B.C. Catholic.
To resurrect Bill C-484, an MP could put it forward as a private member’s bill, or the government could pick it up as a government bill. Schouten was quick to add that it would do nothing to change the status quo on abortion in this country.
It “would exclude any possibility that a pregnant woman can be penalized in any fashion for any harm done to her pre-born child. Such a law would exclusively and only be directed at third-party perpetrators who knowingly inflict violence against a pregnant woman and her pre-born child.”
John Hof, president of United for Life B.C., has signed Badour’s grassroots petition, and he urges others to add their names.
“As it stands today, criminals get a free ride if they harm pre-born children while attacking the mother of that baby. This needs to be addressed by our elected lawmakers in Parliament,” he said.
By press time, Badour’s petition on change.org had garnered 6,803 signatures.
Matthew Brush, 26, was arrested in February and is facing six charges, including one count of first-degree murder, in Kaake’s death.
