OTTAWA—A Conservative MP is defying his party’s leadership with a move to rewrite Canadian laws to extend human rights to unborn children.

Kitchener MP Stephen Woodworth is taking aim at a section of the Criminal Code that defines a child as a human being only when it can breathe on its own and is severed from the umbilical cord. He says the law was first drafted in Britain in the 1700s but is based on “limited medical knowledge” that needs to be updated.

“Don’t accept any law that says some human beings are not human beings. Nothing justifies it,” he told reporters Monday.

Woodworth filed a motion in the House of Commons asking for a special committee to review medical evidence about when a child can be considered a human being separate from the mother. He also wants that committee of seven Tory MPs, four New Democrats and one Liberal to examine the legal impact of denying full human rights to an unborn child.

His motion will be debated in March, then again in June, followed by a vote of the Commons. The NDP criticized the motion in the Commons Monday, calling it another attempt by Conservatives to re-open the debate on abortion.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson also sent out an emailed statement Monday saying that while the government had no power to influence motions from individual MPs, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised not to re-open the debate.

Harper has promised to rally the votes to defeat initiatives designed to repeal abortion rights.

It is an edict that backbench Tory MPs seem unwilling to accept.

“Mr. Harper will speak for himself. He does it very well. I, of course, speak for myself and I know that I’m very comfortable as a Member of Parliament proposing private members’ business on this issue,” Woodworth said.

The MP is decidedly less comfortable putting forward his opinions about what point in the gestation period the unborn child should be granted full human rights. He refused to say whether he believes that life begins at conception or at some later point in development before birth.

“I would like to hear all of the evidence. I have gone out of my way as I should in initiating any conversation to not say, ‘This is the way it’s going to be,’ ” he said.

The proposal received the backing of the Campaign Life Coalition, a prominent anti-abortion group that urged people to lobby their MP to support the motion.

“Scientific evidence is clear that life begins at conception,” said spokesperson Mary Ellen Douglas. “We trust Parliament will recognize and protect all human life from conception to natural death.”

Woodworth did acknowledge that his proposal, if it succeeds, would have implications on abortion rights in Canada but he wouldn’t speculate on how it might help the pro-life movement.

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“Once we decide whether or not a child is a human being before birth then we can have an honest conversation about all of the other issues, weighing rights and interests and this would be the subject of another parliamentary debate or maybe a court investigation,” he said.

“It’s not something that one can really even begin to address until first we decide whether a child is a human being before birth.”