Thread by @matttomic

1. The Canadian Parliament's voted on two bills that would attempt to limit abortion in some form over the past six years. One motion was supported by 68% of sitting Conservative MPs, and the other by 96% of Conservative MPs.

Let's talk about those bills:

2. Canada's Conservatives outwardly says all the right polite, genteel Canadian pro-choice things. Canadians, after all, are overwhelmingly (70-80%, per polls) pro-choice. But even if Tories can't be overt, they still try to sneak in anti-choice legislation through the back door.

3. In 2016, the Tories sponsored Bill C-225, "Protection of Pregnant Women and Their Preborn Children Act", a bill that would add additional penalties for murdering a pregnant woman. Branded as a "pro-woman" bill, just play through the next steps in your head:

4. Bill C-225 was defeated 76-209 - the opposition saw through the bill's branding as a law to "protect woman" as a Trojan Horse designed to form a legal precedent for criminalizing abortion - but 76 out of 79 Tory MPs, most of which are still in office, supported the bill.

5. Next in 2020, the same vocally pro-life Conservative Saskatchewan MP Cathay Wagantall sponsored Bill C-233, which would ban a medical practitioner from providing "sex-selective abortions", marketed by the Conservatives with a vaguely feminist spin of protecting girls

6. Couple things about banning "sex-selective abortion":
-They're incredibly rare in Canada
-The bill would set the legal precedent that doctors can ask reasons for an abortion, and decide, personally, to withhold treatment
-The bill opens the door for overt racial targeting

7. Bill C-233 also failed, 81-209, but once again, the majority of Conservative members of parliament voted for this Trojan Horse bill designed to get their foot in the door so that certain niche aspects of abortion could be criminalized, and then they could go from there.

8. Tories, even if publicly they'll continue to say they're "not opening that discussion", continually show us they're more than happy to sneak a little wedge into that discussion when given the chance, particularly when they can dress up that wedge in a faux-feminist veneer

9. Be suspicious of any Conservative attempt to "protect woman" that's actually a disguised attack on their rights. The abortion debate isn't "settled" in this country, it's just waiting for a crafty way to sneak its foot back into the door.