GUEST ARTICLE: Canadian town grants trees ‘right to life’ while preborn humans remain unprotected

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this guest post are solely those of the author.

A small town outside Montreal, Québec, legally recognized the rights of trees on June 9. Eco Jurisprudence Monitor reported that Terrasse-Vaudreuil is the first municipality in the world to adopt the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Tree.

The town’s resolution states that a tree is a “sentient being,” and that humans “must act in fraternity and solidarity with trees.” Furthermore, the motion declares that trees are “living entities deserving of protection, including the right to life.”

Terrasse-Vaudreuil Mayor Michel Bourdeau went as far as saying that “a tree is like a human being. It breathes, it lives, it takes in water.”

While this town granted trees legal rights, another classification of living beings in Terrasse-Vaudreuil has no legal protection: preborn human beings.

A legal vacuum

This came about in 1988 when the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Morgentaler stripped preborn children of all protections under the law. The decision deemed the existing 1969 law, which permitted abortions while offering some protection to the preborn, “unconstitutional.” The judges struck down the legislation. This created a legal void that left preborn babies defenseless.

The Supreme Court justices, however, called on Parliament to establish a new law that would grant the preborn child some protection while respecting a woman’s right to the security of her person. However, each proposed attempt failed.

The result is that Canada is now left with a legal vacuum in which abortion is permitted throughout pregnancy—without restriction. The country’s Criminal Code allows for abortion at any stage, including late-term, by unscientifically holding that “a child becomes a human being...when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

Accordingly, if the head of a child is revealed during birth, but not the whole body, the child could legally be killed, because he or she is not yet considered a “human being” and has no legal protection. 

Worthy of human rights

Though preborn children are not legally considered human beings worthy of human rights in Canada, science conclusively indicates that human life begins at fertilization. At that moment, a new human life is formed with a unique genetic code that directs the child’s growth and development from within. This DNA helps determine countless biological traits, including sex, hair color, blood type, facial features, body structure, and many inherited characteristics.

Only three weeks after fertilization, the preborn baby’s central nervous system begins to form. During the fourth week, the young child’s heart begins to beat. Then, eight weeks after conception, the child forms visible fingers and toes.

Even in their smallest form, human beings are part of nature and are worthy of protection. Humanity is the highest form of life on Earth, and all human beings have intrinsic value.

Humans are created with the capacity to love and to be loved by others. They have a strong capacity for empathy and compassion toward not only human beings, but other creatures as well. Human beings are also unique among all other higher life forms in that they frequently follow systems of selfless morality.

In addition, humans use reason and logic. With these faculties, along with their capacity to act freely, humans are able to build, create, and cooperate with one another toward a common good. Humans also have a wide array of skills and talents that set each person apart and can benefit society.

Is it not the greatest moral contradiction that a town recognizes the “right to life” of a lower form of life, namely a tree, but disregards that of a higher form of life, namely a preborn child?

Humans before trees

Instead of endorsing a declaration on the rights of trees, the town would do better to look to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declares that “everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of the person.” That right should include the preborn.

In response, Canadian pro-life group Campaign Life Coalition has launched a petition to the Prime Minister of Canada calling on Parliament to introduce legal protections for preborn children. The petition urges Canadians to reject the moral contradiction of publicly recognizing a tree’s “right to life” while leaving children in the womb without legal protection. “Humans must come before trees,” the petition states.

Human beings are the pinnacle of creation — the highest form of life in nature. If a Canadian town can recognize the value of a tree, it can recognize the humanity of a child. Should human beings not have greater protection than trees?