B.C. Court of Appeal upholds bubble zone law

By MICHAEL MARKWICK
Special to The B.C. Catholic

Nelson pro-life activist Jim Demers has been dealt a setback in his ongoing challenge of British Columbia’s “bubble zone” law.

In a unanimous decision, the British Columbia Court of Appeal upheld the province’s prohibition of protest in the vicinity of abortion clinics, as well as at the homes and offices of abortionists.

The Access to Abortion Services Act makes it illegal to “engage in sidewalk interference, protest, beset, or physically interfere” with abortion services.

Demers was charged in 1996, while standing blindfolded in front of the Everywoman’s Clinic in Vancouver. He held a sign that quoted the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 6, section 1: “Every human being has the inherent right to life.”

He was convicted in 1997 and received a suspended sentence in 1998. At the time, Demers told The B.C. Catholic, “In the past I’ve fouled it up procedurally, but I’m getting better at it.”

The action is part of a history of related events. Demers has been arrested in Nelson, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Seattle since 1984. In 1985 he destroyed a machine used for abortions at Nelson’s Kootenay Lake District Hospital, converting it into a display trolley for pro-life literature.

The Court of Appeal’s Jan. 17 ruling rejected Demers’s argument that the unborn child must be included in the meaning of the word “everyone” in Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section, Demers argued, guarantees children the right to life, liberty, and security of the person while in their mothers’ wombs.

In the reasons for judgement, Justice Richard Low noted that such a finding would render abortion unconstitutional.

“To interpret the Charter in that manner,” he wrote, “would require clear and unambiguous language within the Charter itself and no such language is to be found in the Charter.”

At trial, Demers’s lawyer, Prof. J.C. Tuomala of Montgomery, Ala., argued that a proper interpretation of Section 7 should be based on divine law.

“He says that God’s law dictates that the human fetus is a person with a right to life confirmed by s.7 of the Charter,” Justice Low wrote. “It is implicit in this argument that the god referred to is the Christian god.”

Demers sees this interpretation of the Charter as a threat to the framework of human rights as a whole.

“They have said that the ‘God’ referred to in the preamble of the Constitution is absolutely meaningless,” Demers stated. “So does that mean therefore that the ‘rule of law’ referred to in the preamble is also meaningless?”

Demers said that people must understand that “it’s not just the unborn child’s rights that are at stake here; it’s every human right that we considered to be part of our culture, part of what we believe and hold true. We have no grounds of human rights if we adopt their reasoning, and that’s what they are asking us to do.”

A father of five, Demers acknowledges his campaign has rested on strong support from his family, and he is steeling himself to take his argument to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Courts have only been dealing with the autonomy rights of the woman without dealing with the rights of the child, he said.

“I’m hoping that the Supreme Court of Canada will provide a detailed analysis of how they arrive at depersonalizing a whole class of humanity. I want them to reiterate for the whole country that the rights of Canadians don’t come from ‘small-g’ god.”

Campaign Life spokesman John Hof also hopes the Supreme Court will grant leave to appeal. At the same time, he believes the latest Demers decision underscores the role legislators are called to play.

“They have refused to draft a law in this country that would even give any semblance of protection to the unborn,” Hof said. “When the legislators are afraid to make law, then our judges inevitably make laws of their own.”