Surely nobody seriously believed that Conservative MP Stephen Woodworth's bill concerning the definition of life would receive majority support in the House of Commons.

It may have been intelligent, informed, and balanced, and Woodworth may be a gentle, eminently civilized man, but we discovered long ago that anything even remotely related to abortion activated the grotesquely misnamed pro-choice lobby into screaming fanatics.

This happened after Woodworth's bill was presented. Liberal and NDP MPs reacted as though someone had asked Parliament to deny the Holocaust.

The most absurd, even hilarious, spectacle was NDP deputy leader Libby Davies, an obsessive "anti-Zionist" who has also delivered petitions to Ottawa speaking of a 9/11 conspiracy, demanding that Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose resign because she had dared to vote in support of the bill.

Irony abounds. A woman with an independent mind and strong character, who has long championed women victims in the Islamic world decides to vote in a specific way and is condemned for betraying women because she did not do what she was told.

Now the paradox of the abortion movement is taking a further step towards insanity, since MP Mark Warawa of Langley has tabled a private member's motion condemning sex-selection abortions. He claimed he had no choice after reading an editorial in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association demonstrating that such abortions were quite common in various immigrant communities in Canada.

Well of course they are, and even more common in the Asian countries where those communities generally originate. Archaic misogyny mingles with new technology, and if an ultrasound reveals that a little girl is in the mother's womb, an abortion will take place almost immediately.

As actor Sasha Baron Cohen said in the execrable movie The Dictator, "Is it a boy, or an abortion?"

But here's the point: why is this an issue, why does it matter, and who cares? If the unborn child is a fetus, mere tissue, a totally dependent non-human with no rights, privileges, or dignity, and if the mother is the sole arbiter in deciding whether that non-person is ever born, how can it be relevant if gender is the reason for the kill?

Catholics oppose abortion on three levels. Science tells us that life begins at conception because at that startlingly early stage the baby has a totally distinct DNA and genomic character, and that no other beginning point for life is scientifically credible.

Morality tells us that the more vulnerable the life, the more we have to protect it, and that those who are powerless require the protection and not the indifference of those who do possess power.

Christ tells us that we are all made in the image of God, and that the soul exists even in these tiny unborn children.

Pro-aborts dismiss all of this, of course, but then become terribly upset when the choice for abortion is based on the child not being a boy. They should be reminded that abortion because the baby is disabled in some way is even more common, and that minority women are often under extreme pressure to abort as well.

The latter two obscenities haven't moved feminists and liberals yet, largely because they can't personalize them. With gender-based killing, however, it all becomes poignantly immediate.

It might be repugnant, but I'd have more respect for them if they were consistent in their error, and defended abortion for any reason. But they simply can't have it both ways, and this is what makes this particular subject so significant for the pro-life movement.

Most people, even beyond gender feminists, viscerally know that opting to end a life of an unborn child because she is a little girl is putrid. Once they assimilate that, they have to conclude that life exists in the womb, and that death due to gender is no less horrible than death due to race, ability, or the convenience or even fear of the woman carrying that child.

These are fascinating and encouraging times for those of us who care about life, and frankly I didn't think we'd get here yet. The hypocrites will doubtless defeat this bill as well, but every attempt pushes the war closer to the enemy's gates, and obliges the neutrals to ask where they really stand.

Michael Coren can be booked for speeches and his books can be purchased through his website: www.michaelcoren.com.