Letter to Editor from Chris Howell

Published on February 7, 2012 in The Record

I am astounded by a country that says a child is not a person until they’re born. The whole issue really hit home on Jan. 22 when I helped deliver my baby girl.

Holding her just out of my wife’s womb, she was the most perfect, most innocent, life-sustaining person I’ve ever seen. However, according to the laws of this country that I love and have served and would lay my life down for in an instant, had my baby girl been allowed to continue to full term she would not have been a person.

I have to ask why this is. The doctors and medical staff at Grand River Hospital clearly felt that she was capable of breathing and sustaining life on her own. Otherwise it would have been reckless of them to induce labour. She was born at 8 pounds, 9 ounces; therefore she was a good size baby. The problem with the current law as it stands is that it defines personhood based on the location of the baby. Had my baby girl stayed in my wife’s womb for another four weeks she would not be a person, even though she was fully developed and fully capable of living on her own.

I, for one, wholeheartedly support Kitchener Centre MP Stephen Woodworth in his initiative to have the personhood laws of this country reviewed, changed and updated as we are in dire need of. I applaud him in his efforts and implore the rest of Parliament to follow his leadership.

Chris Howell
Kitchener