Article content continued

“Our goal is to ensure an environment of tolerance and uphold the right of individuals to advance their views openly,” she said.

Mr. Woodworth — who gave a third of his talk before a woman in a red dress commandeered the podium to award him a trophy as “Kitchener-Waterloo’s Nastiest Misogynist” — said it is “a mark of extremism to take disrespect of others as a virtue.”

“I couldn’t outshout the shouters. I’m not there to engage in a shouting match,” he said.

After the talk was cancelled and the protesters left, Mr. Woodworth said he was able to stay and have a discussion with a few people.

He was speaking about the section of Canada’s Criminal Code that, in the context of defining homicide, says a child “becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.”

His legislative effort to have Parliament study the definition of “human being” failed in a House of Commons vote last year, despite support from eight cabinet ministers, including Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney. It cannot be revived in this Parliament.

“What we’re really getting at is at what point do we say that an individual has equal worth and dignity,” he said in an interview. “You can’t do that arbitrarily, you can’t do that without regard to the nature of the individual… Would you be justified in taking someone’s life simply by pretending they weren’t a human being?”