“There’s a particular country that we’ve come across. They’ve taken a segment of their population – children below a certain age, that live in a certain location – and they refuse to give them human rights. They label them as non-humans, so that anything anyone wants to do with those children is completely permissible. How do you feel about that?”
This is how Miles Driedger begins conversations with four different strangers on the street in the short documentary, Four.
Early in the conversations he reveals that the country is Canada and the population segment is the unborn or partially born children. According to Subsection 223(1) of the Criminal Code, a child becomes a human being at the moment of complete birth.
MP Stephen Woodworth’s Motion 312 calls for an evaluation of this 400-year-old definition of a human being. He believes the legal definition of a human being does not match the majority of Canadians’ feelings about the nearly-born babies in their lives, and proposes a study with the benefit of twenty-first century evidence.
“The more people I talk to, the more I realize that Canadians find it absurd to define our unborn as less than human,” says Driedger, who is the lead coordinator of PASS 312. The group is asking Canadians to contact their MPs and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to encourage them to vote in favour of the motion. Their website, pass312.org, helps Canadians find their MP’s phone number based on their postal code.
It also gives Canadians an urgent timeline: make your two calls by September 25, 2012. The vote happens September 26.
According to pass312.org, most political parties oppose Motion 312, and Harper has indicated he will vote against it. The group’s hope is that even though many MPs currently oppose Motion 312, they will respond to the requests of their constituents.
“We tell everyone who comes on board to share the message shamelessly, after all we have nothing to be ashamed of,” says Driedger. “All we have is the protection of countless children in the balance.” The message is spreading quickly over the internet and through “Street Teams” who are spreading the word about the critical vote happening next week.
Visit pass312.org for more information about the motion and how to get involved.