March for Life takes aim at government’s pro-abortion agenda

Campaign Life Coalition is calling on Canadians to emulate the United States in extending rights to all human beings, particularly those in the womb.

Taking aim at the federal government over its abortion agenda in a May 10 press conference on Parliament Hill, the day before the 2023 March for Life, Josie Luetke, Campaign Life’s director of education and advocacy, said that while the pro-life debate in the United States is “lively and flourishing,” the Liberal Party in Canada is doubling down with its pro-choice agenda.

“Canada should be looking to imitate the United States in its progress towards extending human rights to all human beings,” said Luetke. “Instead, Canada is offering to kill the pre-born babies that the United States won’t. Apparently, our quote-unquote pro-choice government don’t find it enough to be killing pre-born babies domestically and in developing nations.

“In the wake of the overturn of Roe V. Wade, Karina Gould, Canada’s minister of, ironically, families, children and social development offered women from the United States to come here to have their abortions. She reiterated this offer last month as U.S. courts considered whether to restrict the use of mifepristone, which kills a growing embryo by cutting off blood and nutrition.”

Young women and men stood in a line behind Luetke and other guest speakers carrying circular signs with pro-life messages including, “I am equally human and equally valuable,” “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” and “stand firm,” which is the theme statement of this year’s March for Life. 

Jack Fonseca, Campaign Life’s director of political operations, provided an overview about how the first Trudeau prime minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, in 1969 ignored the perils of decriminalizing abortion.

“(He promised) Canadians it was intended primarily for life-threatening pregnancies and rare cases such as rape,” said Fonseca. “The elder Trudeau denied all warning signs at the time about any potential slippery slope. Look where we are today with 100,000 children killed by abortion every single year almost exclusively for reasons of convenience, as a lifestyle choice.”

Fonseca said Justin Trudeau is following a very similar trajectory on legalizing euthanasia. In 2016, the Canadian public was assured that “the law was intended for the terminally ill — those who didn’t have long to live anyway.” 

Again, any concerns of a “slippery slope were brushed aside as conspiracy,” but the fears were warranted with MAiD due to expand to people solely with a mental illness on March 17, 2024. 

Ruth Robert, regional coordinator for Atlantic Canada, declared the reasons why thousands of Canadians descend on Parliament Hill each May.

“The National March for Life will see thousands of Canadians coming to witness that life is valuable from the moment it begins to the moment that it naturally ends,” said Robert. “Thousands will be marching here to reject our government’s insane belief that they have the right to decide which among us gets to live and who among us gets to die.

“Thousands will be marching here to say that we will be the Good Samaritan who will come and help you when you are vulnerable. Not the many self-righteous who walked by and said they felt compassion, but at the same time upheld the so-called-rights of the thieves and would-be-murderers to come after that victim.”

Robert spotlighted the ongoing legislative threats to pregnancy care centres. She said the term pregnancy centre is “somewhat of a misnomer,” because these institutions not only help a child in the womb, but also the child in a mother’s arms.