Thousands of Canadians Will March Against Abortion in Ottawa Thursday
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
May 8, 2007
Ottawa, Canada (LifeNews.com) — Several thousand pro-life advocates are expected to participate in the March for Life in Canada’s capital city on Thursday afternoon to protest the allowance of abortion. In May 1969, the Canadian government approved the passage of a bill that took off the books many of the protective laws the nation had in place.
Then, in January 1988, the nation’s abortion law was struck down from the Criminal Code by the Supreme Court of Canada resulting in full legal abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy.
As a result, there have been more than 3 million abortions in Canada, resulting the death of babies before birth and injuring countless women.
Last year, the majority of the marchers were under the age of 25 and organizers expect that to be the case again this time around.
Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) executive director Joanne McGarry says younger people are turning out more because technology has made it easy to see that the unborn child is a human being who deserves rights.
"Technology has made it possible to understand prenatal life much more," she told CCN. "A fetus can get a blood transfusion."
"The right to life from conception to natural death is the most fundamental of human rights," she said.
The group is a co-sponsor of the March for Life with other leading Canadian pro-life groups.
At this year’s event, the producer and lead actor in the award-winning film Bella will be speakers at the sold out Rose dinner that accompanies the march.
Bella won the People’s Choice Award at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival and producer Lee Severino and actor Eduardo Verastegui set out to make a hard hitting abortion film that focuses on an unconventional and emotional presentation rather than shouting or rhetoric.
The march begins with Mass at 7:30 p.m. May 9, followed by a candlelight vigil at the Human Rights monument, and an all-night adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
On Thursday, Father Frank Pavone, the director of Priests for Life, will speak at St. Patrick’s Basilica to start off the march.
At noon, marchers will gather on the lawn of Parliament Hill for the event.
