But abortion does need to be talked about.

Since 2012, We Need a Law has existed with a mission to build support for legislation to protect pre-born children in Canada. Canada is the only country in the world without abortion legislation. The increased attention on pre-born children has raised awareness that our lack of a legal framework protecting pre-born children is largely the result of inaction by our political leaders.

Abortion should absolutely be a key topic of debate in every election cycle – and in the intervening four years. But the focus should be on measures that will be implemented by each party to protect these smallest members of the human family. Most Canadians agree that it is discriminatory to abort a healthy girl because you wanted a boy. Most Canadians are also disgusted at the idea that a child can be killed even when he is developed enough to survive outside of the womb.

But unfortunately, these were not the topics our leaders discussed. Instead, they viewed pre-born children as a political tool, either to scare people away from voting for one party or to reach out to an assumed support group with vague assurances. All parties seem to view pre-born children as merely part of a political strategy, not as human beings being denied their most basic human right.

What can we do differently?

As we analyze the results of this election, we must be wary of falling into the same trap. We need to avoid the polarizing drama or the partisan games when they cause the focus to move away from the pre-born child and the need to have legal protection for the child. We Need a Law is non-partisan. One of the reasons for this is because we understand abortion to be a human rights issue, not a partisan issue. We focus on getting Canadians to start the conversation with their representative regardless of the party. We want you to develop a relationship and influence your leaders to start honestly seeing the human victim of abortion – the pre-born child.

This isn’t merely a numbers game of getting the most MPs from a particular party. There is a culture that needs to change. A culture in Ottawa in the way they discuss this issue, and a culture across Canada. One change that needs to happen is a shift to talking about actual legislation rather than focusing on whether someone personally holds a correct opinion. Pro-abortion Parliamentarians have had it easy, never having had to counter actual abortion legislation; abortion legislation like what the rest of the world has managed to implement, abortion legislation that most Canadians would support.

For too long, we’ve allowed the political conversation to be about personal opinions and vague ideas. This needs to change. We need to see real abortion legislation on the table, and MPs need to have a real conversation about what it would look like here in Canada.

Canadians are already having very real, serious, nuanced conversations about pre-born human rights. Our politicians do us and pre-born children an inexcusable disservice by refusing to engage in the debate in the same way. It’s time for our politicians to engage in a serious conversation about legislation that would, at the very least, bring our country into line with other Western democracies. We need a framework around late-term abortion, sex-selective abortion, and pre-born victims of crime. We need to recognize the humanity of our own children before they exit the womb.

This weekend, we had the honour of planting 100,000 flags on the lawn of the Supreme Court of Canada to draw attention to the ongoing injustice of abortion in Canada. The sea of pink and blue flags is a humbling and sobering experience, as we consider that each flag represents one pre-born child whose life was taken, unprotected by our law. It is also a valuable opportunity to make visible those our society would like to forget.

We chose the Supreme Court location for the display because this is the court that struck down Canada’s abortion law in the 1988 Morgentaler ruling. This is also the Court that looked to Parliament to create a new law protecting “fetal interests,” or pre-born human rights. Parliament has failed to do that. This display and location gave a wonderful starting point for conversations, as we explained to people what happened at the Court and could then literally point to Parliament, within view, as we talked about the laws we would like to see enacted.

The far-reaching and devasting impact of abortion was evident on Saturday, as those going by somberly considered this ongoing injustice in Canada. This included one young couple who asked to plant their own flags. It also included one young woman who talked about being the daughter of a sexual assault survivor.

It was a beautiful opportunity to see hearts and minds changed about the status quo on abortion. So many people we talked to were unaware that Canada has no law restricting abortion, and our conversations affirmed polls, which say the majority of Canadians support some restrictions on abortion.

More than 60 volunteers joined us from various parts of Ontario to plant the pink and blue flags (truth be told, we didn’t fit the full 100,000 flags on that lawn and had to keep some in the boxes – that alone is a sad testimony to just how many lives have been taken). Many stayed all day to engage with their fellow Canadians on the issue of abortion, and help with clean up at the end of the day.

In Canada, we consistently see our leaders try to shut down debate about abortion and the humanity of the pre-born. But our experience continues to be that most Canadians are open to the discussion in a way our leaders are not. Our lack of laws is not reflective of Canadians, but is due to Parliament’s inaction. For this reason, we continue to talk to Canadians and to visibly display the massive number of lives lost to abortion each year.

This law against sex-selection recognizes a potential abuse of reproductive technology, and addresses potential inequalities by eliminating the risk of sex-targeted fertility treatments. However, should IVF be successful and a pregnancy result, there is no law against aborting that same pre-born child based on its sex. When pregnancy with multiples – twins or triplets – results, it is not uncommon to decide to “reduce the pregnancy” by aborting the child or children of the undesired sex. This dichotomy sends a mixed message on whether life really is valued equally, whether male or female.

Dr. Albert Yuzpe, co-founder of the Genesis Fertility Centre in Vancouver, says the demand for sex-selection during IVF is ongoing in Canada. American websites regularly advertise to Canadians, knowing they can provide options that are illegal in Canada. For example, Overlake Reproductive Health offers payment options for Canadians, has connections with clinics in British Columbia so some appointments can be done in Canada, and promotes their “family balancing” services. Canadian clinics are feeling the pressure, and some may be bowing to it in the interest of increasing business.

In the U.S., where sex selection in IVF is legal, one doctor says that 85% of his patients come to him so they can choose the sex of their baby. This is not IVF as a means of getting pregnant when other means have failed – this is IVF as a means of attempting to control life.

The Assisted Human Reproduction Act of Canada bans sex selection of implanted embryos.  The UK and Australia have similar laws. These laws show a basic understanding that we should not determine who gets to live based on their sex. But our lack of abortion law contributes to and confuses the issue, especially when we see that girls are aborted at a much higher rate than boys in some parts of Canada.

We can’t stop prospective parents from traveling to the U.S. and elsewhere for sex selection.  But we can and should use law and public dialogue to promote the notion that in this country, both sexes are equally valuable. This includes the need for a law banning sex selective abortion.

Many in Canada were surprised by the acceptance of the law in New York, but, in a video from the Christian Association of Pregnancy Support Services (CAPPS), Dr. Laura Lewis points out that it makes New York no different from Canada. With no abortion law in Canada’s criminal code, viable babies can be aborted at any point if a doctor is found willing to do it.

It is important to note, in the context of late-term abortion, that there is no medical reason to abort a baby in the third trimester to save the life of the mother. If health concerns arose, the baby could be delivered prematurely and cared for in the best way possible, a much different approach than deliberately killing the baby in the womb.

Dr. Lewis also stresses the caution needed in assuming the value of a human life based on a prenatal diagnosis. These diagnoses, which generally come to light later in pregnancy, are often the reason cited for choosing late-term abortion. This vastly underestimates the contributions and lives of those with disabilities, as well as ignoring the high rate of inaccurate diagnoses.

Canadians should never look at New York and feel superior. We set the example they chose to follow, of complete disregard for human life in the womb. There is no good reason for this disregard there, and no good reason for it here. That is why we continue working to change hearts and minds on the value of human life in its earliest stages, and to impress on our elected leaders their responsibility to defend children in the womb.

Read our position paper on why abortion is never medically necessary, and should never be considered health care.

This summer we are running a national billboard campaign that has garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative. Funded by our grassroots supporters, the goal of our simple billboard message is to take the abortion debate back to the basics. Polls show that the vast majority of Canadians are unaware that Canada has no abortion law. In fact, most are quite convinced there IS a law. With a name like “We Need a Law” this obviously makes discussions pretty challenging for our organization so, first things first, we need to set the record straight.

Abortion has been legal in Canada since 1969. In 1988, all remaining restrictions were struck from the Criminal Code. The Supreme Court justices made it very clear that they were striking an unconstitutionally obstructive law in the assumption that Parliament would craft a new one.

Parliament did not, and so Canada is the only democracy in the world to have no law regarding abortion. We even have a section in the Criminal Code stating that a child gains the rights of a person “when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother.” This means that the status quo on abortion extends far beyond the crisis pregnancy situation most people picture when they think of abortion. This means that when a pregnant woman is murdered, her child is not considered a victim, no matter how far along she was in her pregnancy. It means parents who find out they’re expecting a girl when they’d rather have a boy, can (and do) request and receive an abortion.

This is the status quo in Canada.

Abortion rights advocates are calling for the removal of the billboard ads and recruiting people to complain. A lawyer called the ad “misleading” while at the same time admitting that Canada has no abortion laws. This is a message abortion activists have been using for years, but they are upset to hear us say the same thing, and clearly flummoxed on how to debunk their own claim. Joyce Arthur, spokesperson for the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, has taken many opportunities to tout the fact that Canada has no abortion law, and their website declares this clearly. And yet, she describes the ad with words like, “demeaning, discriminatory and degrading.”

What is demeaning is to think women, or anyone, want anything less than the truth.

The reaction to our simple billboard tells us a lot about where the abortion debate stands, and affirms the need for this return to the basics. What we really want is for people to get past the polarizing rhetoric and think.  Think of the last pregnancy you witnessed, whether it was your own, your friend’s, your partner’s, your neighbour, your employee, your sister, your daughter, or the cashier at your grocery store. At what point was that child worthy of protection? Would the mother agree with your perspective? What is it about wantedness that gives value to a human life? What about the women who grew up in poverty and abuse and keep hearing the message that they would have been better off aborted?

This debate gets personal fast, as evidenced by some of the shocking, ugly messages sent our way over the past weeks in response to these billboards. But if this ad is unacceptable, what ad on abortion would be acceptable? We should be able to challenge opinions and question the status quo without hateful backlash and fearful censorship. How will we grow, debate, change, and develop in an environment that shuts down controversial debate? We can all drive past billboards selling us burgers, trucks, and vacations, but not a billboard that challenges us?

We are better than that.

This ad takes it back to the basics. It doesn’t offer solutions, it doesn’t address the myriad social structural failures we need to address. It simply asks people to think about whether they are ok with this status quo. If they are not, we’d love to join with them in starting somewhere, for women and pre-born children, because human rights should apply to all human beings.

Of course, it is also true that many elected lawmakers view pre-born children as a political liability and this has most certainly contributed to a thirty-year void when it comes to regulating abortion in Canada. But we do need to acknowledge that the pro-life movement carries some of the responsibility for the political failures in the past three decades. Yet, in the six years our organization has been active, we see plenty of reason for hope!

Breakenridge asserts that

“[t]he pro-life movement seems to be holding out for an unattainable goal of classifying abortion as murder and ending it altogether, rather than focusing on a much more reasonable and attainable goal of reducing the number of abortions.

While polls show that most Canadians support a woman’s right to choose, it doesn’t mean that Canadians are enthusiastically pro-abortion. A goal of a lower abortion rate would have a fairly broad appeal and support. And it’s one the pro-life movement will never embrace.”

With these two short paragraphs Breakenridge shows he is dead wrong.

A growing part of the pro-life movement recognizes that the all-or-nothing approach has resulted in exactly that – nothing. New, young, politically-motivated pro-lifers are embracing opportunities to reduce the abortion rate. Our organization, We Need a Law, advocates for incremental laws that focus on the common ground the majority of Canadians stand on in this debate. We understand that it’s better to save some than none.

By working on bills that, at the very least, would bring Canada into line with nearly every other democracy in the world when it comes to regulating abortion, we are focusing on prudence, wisdom, and a heartfelt desire to protect as many pre-born children as we can. Even if these bills do not pass the first time around polls indicate that there is a broad base of support for some abortion regulations. For example, banning sex-selective abortion, which typically targets girls, would have support from more than 90% of Canadians. We also believe, with the majority of Canadians, that pre-born children who are killed in an act of violent crime, such as murder or assault of the mother, should be viewed as victims. Another area we focus is the gestational age at which abortion can no longer occur. Approximately 80% of Canadians mistakenly believe we have law that prohibits late-term abortion, and are shocked to discover abortion is legal through all 9 months of pregnancy.

We have studied abortion laws in other countries and are inspired by democratic nations similar to ours such as Germany, France and Spain. These, and many others, limit abortion to the first trimester, and offer counseling and time for a woman to make the challenging decision about abortion.

We hear over and over again how many women felt like abortion was their “only choice” – that’s not a choice at all, and something the pro-abortion movement should be equally concerned about. We all care about women. The difference is that pro-lifers also care about children.

The comment section was full of weeping emojis, angry red faces, and hate for poachers. Words like “heartbreaking”, “unbelievable”, and “disturbing” are repeated over and over. And it’s true: this little rhino was a victim of poaching no less than her mother. But why should it bother us so much when we allow the same thing to happen to human fetuses killed when their mother is victimized?

We observed something similar just a few short years ago right here in Canada. As the result of a selfish act, Cassie Kaake was murdered, along with her 7-month old pre-born child. There was national outrage that someone could commit such a heinous crime, and genuine shock that our laws did not recognize Cassie’s child (who she had already named Molly) as a victim alongside her mother. When MP Cathay Wagantall had an opportunity, she put forward legislation that addressed this void in Canadian law. Her bill recognized Cassie’s choice, and honoured it by recognizing Molly as a victim too. Ms. Wagantall, and the family of Cassie Kaake, worked hard to ensure that the outrage manifested was translated into meaningful action.

Unfortunately, many lawmakers are only about words, not meaningful action to effect change. Cassie and Molly’s law, as Ms. Wagantall’s private member’s bill was called, was voted down in Parliament.

Just as this baby rhino does not count in poaching statistics, so Molly did not count in the murder charges laid against the perpetrator in her mother’s death.

When we see this rhino, perfectly formed, no one hesitates for a moment to call it a rhino, a baby, and a victim. Where is the disconnect of political correctness that makes this ok for a rhino, but not for one of our own kind? Why can we not recognize the humanity of the pre-born child, and value it accordingly?

I was not the only one to feel the painful irony here. Commenter @rhettmoffett stated, “Imagine how sad it would be if it was a human baby rather than a wild animal.” Another, @bmoneyjo16, said, “Interesting because you’ll say a baby rhino was lost but won’t consider a baby in the womb to be human. Double standard.”

Commenter @whycantibejohnyoung gets more direct: “Maybe if half of you people actually saw a human fetus in a jar after an abortion you might think twice about shedding your fake emoji tears on this post. There are no words that can describe the magnitude of the moral hypocrisy I’m seeing here. I challenge Nat Geo to put equal spotlight on human fetuses, and I challenge each one of you to observe.”

Among multiple pleas to be kind to animals and the planet, one commenter added, “We are their only voice.”

We are called to be a voice for the voiceless, defenders of those weaker than ourselves. One commenter writes, “I think this is the saddest photo I’ve ever seen. Maybe spread this across the world.” As @lishlange states, “It’s all wrong – human babies & animals being poached.”

Every day, babies’ lives are terminated in the wombs of their mothers, often for the same reason as this rhino: simple human self-interest. National Geographic knows the power of pictures, and they do an incredible job advocating for so many of the earth’s voiceless inhabitants. It is our job to continue to do the same for our pre-born neighbours. When people think of abortion, may their first responses also be weeping, anger, and a righteous demand for change.

Taking a page out of federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s playbook, Mr. Gallant continues to misinterpret the law. This morning Premier Gallant was quoted as saying that he is eliminating Regulation 84-20 “in order to respect our legal obligations under the Supreme Court of Canada ruling and the Canada Health Act.”

But Mr. Gallant is misinformed. The Supreme Court has never ruled that it is illegal for the provinces to implement safeguards and regulations for medical procedures.

In addition to misinterpreting the law, Mr. Gallant is also willfully putting vulnerable women at risk. Lowering the standards and safeguards by, for example, removing the requirement for a specialist to perform the procedure, cannot be considered ‘pro-woman’.

The Canada Health Act R.S.C., 1985, c. C-6 only requires that medically necessary services performed by a physician be provincially funded. Prior to today’s announcement the government of New Brunswick had restricted the use of taxpayer dollars for the purposes of abortion. Abortion is an elective surgery, and thus medically unnecessary – hence the moniker “pro-choice”. Abortion is one choice of many available to women with unplanned pregnancies.

Weakening the requirements whereby an abortion can be carried out will increase the likelihood of abuse by unscrupulous doctors who might approve an abortion on the basis of patient request rather than true medical necessity.