Roxanne’s Law: To Protect Women From Coercion to Abort
On February 15, 2007, 24 year old Roxanne Fernando went on a Valentine’s date with her 19 year old boyfriend, Nathanael Plourde. Roxanne was a lovely young woman whose friends had nicknamed “Apple.” They described her as “happy and joyful, with a warm smile, bright eyes, and a bright future.”
Nathanael gave Roxanne a stuffed animal and a heart shaped box of chocolates. He took her to a park. There he had two accomplices waiting to help him beat his girlfriend to a pulp. Together the three of them threw her in a ditch, covered her with rocks, and left her to bleed to death in the icy water.
What could possibly motivate a young man to do such a despicable thing? The 24 year old woman was pregnant with his child. He convinced her to have an abortion, but then she changed her mind and told Nathanael that she wanted to keep the baby.
Winnipeg Free Press Crime Reporter Mike McIntyre wrote that Plourde complained that Roxanne was obsessed with him and would not leave him alone. McIntyre quotes the 19 year old as saying, “In my fears, she’ll come back in nine months with a kid or something,” he said. “I don’t understand why she liked me because I didn’t like her. I’m just a young punk. I showed no interest in her.”
What? He showed enough interest in her to get her pregnant! But then he lost interest in her, and he was scared of what his family might think or say. He didn’t want to throw away his future, paying child support for the next eighteen years.
So instead, Nathanael Plourde committed first degree murder, and will be spending the rest of his life behind bars, with no chance of parole for 25 years. His two accomplices were charged with second degree murder.
Roxanne’s story struck a chord with Conservative Member of Parliament Rod Bruinooge, who believes that Roxanne was killed because she refused to have an abortion. He has tabled a bill in the House of Commons called “Roxanne’s Law.”
If passed, Roxanne’s Law (Bill C – 510) would empower Canadian women who are being coerced by their boyfriends, husbands, parents or anyone else to have an abortion when her choice is to keep the child. Anyone who threatens or intimidates a woman in an effort to coerce her to abort could be charged under this law.
Bruinooge is convinced that if Roxanne Fernando had been empowered to take legal recourse when she first found herself facing coercion to abort her child, the situation might not have escalated to violence.
Roxanne’s Law has met with an inordinate amount of opposition by pro abortion protesters who fear that any law to protect pregnant women and their pre-born children as a threat to take away choice and ban abortion in Canada. The Canadian abortion law was struck down in1987. Since then at least 34 pieces of legislation dealing with abortion have been introduced, and so far none has passed. Our current Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stated repeatedly that the issue of abortion is not on his agenda. Abortions are funded by medicare in Canada.
Written by KarenGross
Related posts: