Why I am Pro-Life: New Canadian Caucus Leader Expands on Abortion Opposition
by Rod Bruinooge
January 5, 2009
LifeNews.com Note: Rod Bruinooge is the Conservative MP for the riding of Winnipeg South. He was recently elected chair of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus.
I think it is essential for a society to value its unborn citizens. The importance we give our offspring pre-birth affects the importance we place on them post-birth.
In Canada in 2008, our citizens have no legal value while in the wombs of their mothers. We are completely alone in the world in this regard.
Most Canadians would agree that you should not be able to remove your kidney and sell it on eBay to the highest bidder. Although it’s your body and your kidney, this would not only be a poor bioethical choice, but it is in fact illegal under our laws.
Most Canadians would also agree that an unborn child in the ninth month of gestation, moments away from delivery, should not be eligible for an elective abortion. However, regardless of the fact that this would be an extremely poor bioethical choice, it is in fact legal. As such, Canada has far greater protections for human kidneys than we do for human fetuses.
By assigning no legal worth to our unborn children, we set the stage for a society that continues to lose out on natural community growth. The study of demographics in our country speaks clearly on this topic, and the numbers are stark. Is there a correlation between our nation’s collapsing birth rate and our legal and social devaluation of the unborn? Of course there is.
Obviously, the greater number of terminated pregnancies there are the greater the population decline. And more subtly, by valuing a kidney more than an unborn human, we are educating our citizens to believe that there is little importance in enhancing the growth of the next generation of Canadians.
This mindset is not sustainable, nor is it psychologically healthy. Can it be changed in the short term? And will Canada be open to revisiting our views on the status of the unborn?
Being aboriginal and having grown up in post-Morgentaler Canada, I find I enter this public discourse with a context that I hope will be beneficial to the multi-party Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus, which I now chair. I believe Canada’s indigenous people have a unique perspective on many subjects including the unborn. My aboriginal elders have taught me that the cycle of life honors both birth and death, and respect for the unborn is a foundation of this philosophy.
I have no choice but to advocate for the unborn and seek to have their value restored in my Canada. Our collective future depends on it.
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