Families join fight for The Unborn Victims of Crime Bill

A grandmother, brother-in-law give voice to murdered unborn babies

- CCN photo by Deborah Gyapong Aydin Cocelli, left, and Mary Talbot, right, shared their tragic stories with MP Ken Epp, in support of his private members’ bill.

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

Two years ago, an Edmonton man murdered Mary Talbot’s daughter Olivia and her unborn baby.

During his trial, Gerard Baker admitted taking three shots at Olivia “to get the baby,” Talbot told a Feb. 14 news conference on Parliament Hill.

Not only did Baker kill Talbot’s beloved “baby girl,” he killed their “beloved grandson.”

She was able to hold baby Lane Jr. briefly after his death and “he was perfect in every way.”

But Baker faced no penalty for the death of Lane Jr, though he was found guilty of murdering Olivia.

Stabbed to death

Aydin Cocelli of Toronto shared a similar story. In 2007, a man stabbed his sister-in-law Aysun Sesen, who was eight months pregnant, to death. When the family heard of her death, their immediate concern was, “How’s the baby?” he said.

“The baby died already,” they were told. Cocelli said the family had already known she was a girl. She had even been named while still in the womb.

“I hope no one ever goes through this again,” he said.

Show support

Cocelli and Talbot came to Ottawa to show their support for Conservative MP Ken Epp’s private member’s bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. Bill C-484 will get its second hour of debate on March 3 and come to a vote on March 5.

If it passes, the bill would go to committee.

Over the past three years, about ten families have faced similar Epp said. Under Canadian law there is “absolutely no recognition of the life of the unborn child which had been taken.”

The bill is narrowly focused to protect the life of an unborn baby when the mother has chosen to bring the child to term. He stressed the bill would have no impact on legal abortion, only on criminal acts.

At the news conference, a journalist asked him if the bill was a back door to recriminalization of abortion.

“I am very, very distressed about the issue of abortion,” he said.

“It keeps coming up when we are talking about a person who has chosen not to have an abortion.”

Woman’s vulnerability

“Studies show that women’s greatest vulnerability to being attacked is while pregnant,” he said, citing a study done in Maryland to investigate the leading causes of death of pregnant women.

Though murderers often serve concurrent sentences for multiple victims, Epp pointed out that if a woman survives an attack but her unborn baby dies, the baby’s murderer can only be charged with assault on the mother.

Epp pointed to an Environics survey last fall that showed overwhelming support for such a bill.

Among women support was as high as 75 per cent, he said. He hopes the bill will receive widespread support in Canada because it is “constitutional, rational and compassionate.”

Cocelli promised if Bill C-484 does not pass, he and his family and friends would walk from Toronto to Ottawa in protest.

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