In an April 22 statement, COLF notes seven years have passed since Andrea Mrozek first reported in the now-defunct Western Standard that sex-selective abortion is taking place in Canada.
“In some Canadian cultural communities, for every 100 females brought to term, roughly 120 males are born, as compared to the biologically predictable 106 males for every 100 females,” said COLF. “The ironic truth is that in Canada and other developed countries the same ultrasound technologies which have heightened our appreciation of the humanity of the unborn child are being used to identify and target females.
“In other instances, involving assisted reproduction, female embryos are selectively destroyed while their male siblings are implanted,” COLF said. “In Canada, the ‘war on girls’ is fueled by deeply held cultural biases, which favour and privilege male heirs, and advanced by technology.”
Though many justify abortion by saying they are merely ridding the body of a “clump of cells,” sex-selective abortion breaks through the denial and “all but the most hardened among them are given pause,” COLF said.
“The individual or couple, who chooses to abort their female child precisely because she is female, clearly knows that they are not dealing with a ‘clump of cells.’ Would the same individual or couple contemplate aborting a male child?”
COLF noted that 100,000 unborn Canadian children die as the result of abortion every year.
“The truth is that we have become a people whose highest value is that of ‘choice and autonomy.’ But, we must ask ourselves, whose choice?”
COLF called for the support of all human life, from before birth until natural death and the building of a culture of life.
“In a culture that values males more than females, unborn females are more at risk for abortion,” COLF said. “The overwhelming majority of Canadians are offended by the thought that a female could be targeted for abortion just because she is, in fact, female.”
COLF called for Catholics to join this year’s National March for Life in Ottawa or similar marches in other provincial capitals.
“Let us march in the name of equality, in the name of female equality and of human equality,” COLF said. “Let us march knowing that gendercide will end only when we abandon the notion that our needs and desires are in competition with those with whom we live.