Quebec to allow victims impregnated by sexual assault to decide if father recognized

The Quebec government wants to ensure a victim who becomes pregnant from sexual assault and keeps the child, does not have to put the perpetrator's name on the birth certificate or give him any legal rights as a parent.

"The mother will be able to say, with Bill 12, 'no, I don't want that guy in the life of my child,'" said Simon Jolin-Barrette, Quebec's justice minister, on Thursday.

Jolin-Barrette introduced the bill earlier in the day, saying avictim wouldbe able to ask the civil court not to recognize the father once the child is born.This would not require a criminal conviction, and the mother wouldstill have the right to financial compensation from the father.

The law aims to leave the choice up to the victim how she would like to proceed with parental responsibilities or involvement, he explained during a news conference.

Sophie Gagnon, the executive director of the legal clinic Juripop, said the current law recognizes that it is not in the best interest of a child to be in close contact with a parent who is also an abuser.

The issue was that the victim parent had to wait until the child was older before proceeding with removing the abuser'srights to the child in court, Gagnonsaid.

"What the bill changes is we won't have to wait any longer," she said."Those requests can be heard as soon as the child is born.The hope is that this will result in less trauma to the mother and child."

Gagnon said the proposed legislation would not require a complaint to the police, but "we'll have to demonstrate on essentially a 50 per cent plus one of probability that a sexual assault occurred."

The Quebec government's decision to introduce Bill 12 was inspired by a high-profile case that emerged last summer. An 18-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by her roommate, became pregnant and kept the child while the perpetrator was convicted of the crime.

In prison, he petitioned the court to be recognized as the child's legal father. He wanted his name on the birth certificate, and certain other parental rights. The judge ruled in his favour.

Under existinglaw, the circumstances of how a child is conceived are not taken into account when considering parental rights and that's what Jolin-Barrette said he is looking to change.

Lawyer and feminist researcher Suzanne Zaccour said she is interested to see how this plays out because "it is very common for judges to grant custody to violent fathers" who abuse either the mother or the children.

She said it would be better if mothers could automatically quash the legal rights of violent fathers rather than having to ask a judge.

Zaccour said it's often a spouse or an ex who perpetrates the sexual assault that leads to pregnancy, rather than a one-time assault by a stranger.

"This is generally the way sexual assault is committed by somebody who is known, or is a partner or an ex partner of the victim," she said.

The law needs to do more to address violence within a conjugal relationship, she said.