Canada Pro-Abortion Group Slams Poll Showing Support for Bill to Protect Women 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 20, 2008
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) — A leading abortion advocate is attacking the results of a new poll showing 70 percent of Canadians support an unborn victims bill pending the nation’s parliament. The poll found Canadians across the nation don’t think the bill will affect abortion though one activist continues to claim otherwise.
Bill C-484 holds criminals accountable for killing and injuring both mother and child when they violently attack a pregnant woman.
They are charged for killing or injuring both victims instead of only receiving a punishment for attacking the mother.
The Vancouver-based Angus Reid Strategies conducted a national poll last week and found 44 percent of Canadians strongly support the bill while 26 percent moderately support it.
Although pro-abortion groups have attacked the bill saying it would be used to stop abortions, just 24 percent buy their argument that it is a veiled attempt to prohibit abortions. The rest understand it’s a measure to protect women and children.
That upsets Joyce Arthur of the Pro-Choice Action Network who claims the poll was "oversimplified" and says the bill will lead to stopping abortions.
"Feminists who are politically aware hear about this bill and immediately know what the problem is," Arthur told the Vancouver Straight newspaper.
The pro-abortion activist appeared to indicate she didn’t think Canadians were able to understand the legislation enough to answer questions about it in a poll.
Because the supposed link between the bill and abortion is "complicated’ Arthur said Canadians "more than a simple statement [in a poll] to explain it."
Angus Reid Strategies’ director of global studies, Mario Canseco, talked with the Vancouver newspaper and said the poll was unbiased and not financed by any outside party with an interest in the results of the voting on the bill.
Canseco said Arthur’s reaction to the poll is "normal" from people who are disappointed the results don’t support their position.
"This is one of the ways people react to surveys that show that not everyone agrees with them," he said.
The poll found 74 percent of women and 66 percent of men support the bill.
Residents of the Atlantic provinces were most likely (82%) to support the bill along with those living in Alberta (79%) and Manitoba and Saskatchewan (79%). Canadian citizens in Quebec and (63%) and British Columbia (64%) were less likely to support the bill but still felt Parliament should approved it.
The United States and 36 tates have similar unborn victims laws in place and they have never been used to prosecute abortions.
