This year marks 50 years since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau first legalized abortion in Canada. From there, remaining restrictions were removed in 1988. Ten years later, in 1998, Campaign Life Coalition organized the first March for Life on Parliament Hill. Now, many cities join every year with local events on the same day, adding their voices to the cry to protect unborn children.
This year, Toronto will host its first-ever March for Life, giving an opportunity for those in the GTA to add their voices to the national call for human rights for all human beings. The Toronto March for Life will feature workshops following the march, giving attendees the opportunity to equip themselves for confident everyday activism. These workshops aim to get people plugged in to active pro-life organizations in their own cities, and to equip them for conversations with friends, family, and colleagues.
More than 20 years since it began, the March has grown significantly, and the pro-life movement has grown significantly – but protections for pre-born children have not followed. The government seems not to care about numbers or consistency, and each year we march against a backdrop of the only western nation still with no restrictions on abortion.
We march anyway.
We do not march to put on a show, or to boast in our events. We march because 100,000 children are lost to abortion annually in Canada. We march because we understand the deep injustice of abortion, the lack of respect for the right to life, the disregard felt for humanity. Our hearts ache for these lost children, and for our lost country.
We do not march to make sure the government hears us; we march because it is the right thing to do. Rather than worry about who is hearing the message, and how loudly, we worry about who is not hearing it, and how to keep the message going beyond this single day of activism. We use the March to be encouraged by our fellow pro-lifers and to spur each other on to action that lasts all year, not just for one day.
Canadians need to know the status quo, and they also need to know why it is unacceptable. This is a message best carried locally, and personally. This year Toronto’s March for Life will give thousands more people the opportunity to be a voice for the voiceless. Maybe more cities will join next year, and the year after that. Maybe one day every city in Canada will host a March for Life, attended by those who make life a priority all year long.
Maybe then the government and pro-choice Canadians will hear and answer, and maybe they won’t. Either way, we will still march, and then we will go home to live every day in a way that honours life.
As we approach our 150th birthday this summer, we shouldn’t be resting on the laurels of a renowned human rights record. Instead, we should be engaged in serious reflection and self-examination. How can we do better?
The number one way in which we can do better is in relation to our most vulnerable. Pre-born babies continue to be discarded by the tens of thousands every year. Politicians are scared of the topic – Liberals because they could lose their jobs if they talk about it, Conservatives because they’re told they may not get the job if they talk too much about it.
In our apparent attempt to maintain an international reputation as tolerant, progressive, and accommodating, we have ended up with special interest rights trumping human rights. “Reproductive rights” have somehow trumped the right to life, and suggesting that human rights should trump women’s rights is not going to win me any popularity contests.
It is only a matter of time, however, before everyone has to admit that the emperor has no clothes. Science has never been clearer regarding the intricate humanity of life in the womb. The pre-born child is unequivocally a separate, living human being. It is dependent on its mother, yes, as is a newborn or toddler. Also like a newborn or toddler, the pre-born child has its own DNA, and can even be operated on separately from the mother.
In the blur of plummeting birth rates and newfound sexual freedom that came with widely available birth control, we as women somehow came to believe that we were the masters of conception. Not one of us would ever again have a child against her will; we would decide whether life lived or died within us. This belief led us to fight tooth and nail against any suggestion that pregnancy might just be something we couldn’t always control, and we’ve managed to convince a lot of women to cling to that control regardless of the consequences. By doing so, we’ve also allowed men to step back from responsibility, to expect control, and to turn a blind eye to consequences.
The rights to life, liberty and security of the person were matters of life and death to our forefathers. They founded our nation on these values because these values mean something. We cannot be casual about these terms, or the associated implication that human rights trump individual rights. The right to life, the primary human right, is violated every moment that abortion remains legal in Canada. We need to stand up and say this is not about bodily autonomy or fighting patriarchy, this is about life. So women, men and children from all ages and stages of life, all backgrounds, all with their own stories, beliefs, and reasons for being there, will march. We march for, and stand for, the right to life for all members of the human family.
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