A Conservative backbencher is staging a screening of the Christian-themed, anti-abortion film October Baby today on Parliament Hill.

“It’s a gripping and powerful, life-changing story of difficult forgiveness,” Maurice Vellacott told Post Media.

The film, released in 2012, is based on the story of Gianna Jessen who survived to birth after her mother attempted to have her aborted. 

Vellacott, who represents the riding of Saskatoon-Wanuskewin, sent a letter to the RCMP in January that cited Statistics Canada figures that state 491 abortions performed after 20 weeks gestation between 2000 and 2009 resulted in live births.

“Therefore, based on Section 223(2) of the Criminal Code, there should be 491 homicide investigations or prosecutions in connection with these deaths,” Vellacott said.

Vellacott is not the only Conservative backbencher to attempt to reopen the abortion debate against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s advice. In September, MP Stephen Woodworth put forward a private member’s bill asking Parliament to study the point at which a baby becomes a human being. NDP MPs Olivia Chow and Françoise Boivin vocally opposed Woodworth’s bill, while Liberal MP and medical doctor Carolyn Bennett called it “despicable.”

Vellacott says he plans to challenge the prime minister on the topic of abortion during question period. 

October Baby trailer 

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry read an open letter to Richard Mourdock Oct 27, criticizing the Republican Indiana senate candidate's comment regarding rape and abortion.

"I believe life begins at conception . . . The only exception I have, to have an abortion, is in that case of the life of the mother," Mourdock said during a debate Oct 23. "I've struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from god. And even when life begins at that horrible situation of rape, that is something god intended to happen."

A survivor of sexual assault herself, Harris-Perry said she is not against a woman choosing to keep her rapist's child. "I do not doubt the compassion or judge the choice of a survivor who carries a rape pregnancy to term."

She continued, "But the whole point is choice, consent. You see, Mr Mourdock, the violation of rape is more than physical. Rapists strip women of our right to choose, of our right to say no, of our right to control what is happening to our bodies. Most assailants tell us it is our fault. Tell us to be silent. Sometimes they even tell us it is god's will. That is the core violation of rape -- it takes away choice."

Mourdock is facing off against Joe Donnelly to replace the incumbent, Senator Richard Lugar, on Nov 6. 

Watch Harris-Perry read her letter below.

While a knitted uterus is nice, defeating motion 312 would be even better.

Today, feminist pro-choice group Radical Handmaids are staging a protest on Parliament Hill to coincide with the vote on Conservative backbencher Stephen Woodworth's anti-choice motion, which many see as an attempt to reopen the abortion debate.

"It's important for us to be there today, while the vote is happening, to symbolically demonstrate to Parliament that we are watching. Regardless of whether or not this motion goes through, we intend to follow up with everyone who has voted yes in support of the motion," Radical Handmaid co-founder Julie Lalonde says.

Pro-choice supporters across Canada have been knitting uteruses for quite some time yet didn't know what to do with their femme fabrications. Radical Handmaids will accept the handmade protest pieces and send them along to anti-choice supporters.

Lalonde says the group was formed because she and her pro-choice friends wanted to make their voices heard in an unconventional way.

"We thought, let's do something a little satirical, a little performance art to make fun of the ridiculousness of the whole thing. From there it turned into making fun of The Handmaid's Tale and making fun of what some of these MPs are saying."

If motion 312 is defeated, Lalonde says, it's not the end of the Handmaids.

"We absolutely want to stick around and do pro-choice organizing. This is not the end of us, even if it is the end of motion 312." 

Visit the Handmaids' official site, Facebook and Twitter.