A new coalition for abortion on demand is organizing activities throughout the country to pressure Members of Parliament to vote against any restrictions. The announcement came at a news conference in Ottawa in October. Some 25 groups belong to the Coalition, a number of them tax supported. Among them are the following organizations: Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL), Quebec Coalition for free abortion, Pro-choice Action Network, National Action Committee (NAC), National Council of Women, National Association of women and the Law, Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund, Canadian Daycare Advocacy Association, Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Auto Workers, business and Professional Women’s Association, Canadian Union of Public employees (C.U.P.E.), Planned Parenthood of Canada, Canadian Civil Rights League, YWCA, New Democratic Party, Physicians for choice.
The first step of the Coalition was to sponsor the pro-abortion rallies scheduled for 30 Canadian cities on October 14.
Attendance
Attendance at the Toronto rally on October 14 was below 1800. The Toronto Star reported “over 4000” with “police estimates of 3500” and the Globe, more accurately, with “police estimates of 2000.” A Campaign Life Coalition delegation of two dozen was present and did an actual count after the speeches were over and the March began. Total: just over 1700.
The Globe claimed that across Canada “more than 17,000 pro-choice advocates gathered in at least 31 cities to protest against the federal government’s plan to introduce abortion legislation this fall.” But if Toronto’s inflated figures were any indication that total too, should be cut in half.
The low turnout in Toronto could not be blamed on the weather (it was a beautiful sunny day) or on any lack of advance notice from the media. Even as late as Saturday itself the Toronto Star reminded its readers of the event. Encouragement also came from columnist Michelle Landsberg who proudly announced in her very first column for the paper that she would be attending the rally.
The day was in the planning for months, the Star noted, because the “pro-choice movement…wanted to show up the well-organized pro-life activists known for their large rallies.” Well, they didn’t. If attendance means anything them the much heralded ‘day of mass rallies” was a failure.
Participants
Participants in the rally were a sorry ragtag group of pale faces with unkempt hair, lesbians, homosexuals, Trotskyites, communists, socialist workers, radical feminists and a sprinkling of others.
Girls wore tee shirts in the parade that read: “Love Carefully,” (they really meant something else). One man held up his hand lettered sign: “Abort God.” Another young girl carried her sign: “If You Don’t Want to Get a Woman Pregnant, F- a Man.” Another woman had a sign: “Women are More Important than Fetuses.”
There were the usual tired ditties like: “Not the church – Not the State – Women Will Decide Their Fate” and, “Campaign Life – Your Name’s a Lie – you Don’t Care if Women Die.” All in all, a sad group of people and in no way whatever representative of society at large.
NDP
One of the sponsoring agencies, the NDP, used the opportunity to confirm once more its complete dedication to the right of every woman to kill her unborn baby.
All seven contestants for the NDP federal leadership were in Toronto on Saturday, October 14. On the previous evening a candidates’ debate had produced little but rhetoric. One of the seven, Saskatchewan MP Simon de Jong told the audience that his province has devolved into the “politics of hate.” We have a premier who goes out of his way to kick gays and lesbians,” de Jong said of Grant Devine.
At noon Saturday all seven attended the Queen’s Park pro-abortion rally to show their support for “Choice”. Bob Rae addressed the crowd, which as mentioned already, consisted chiefly of young men and women in their twenties led by the Morgentaler honour guard yelling and chanting such refrains as, “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, born-again bigots go away.”
Rae reiterated every woman’s right to abortion, as he had done many times previously at similar gatherings. “No politician, however well-meaning or all-knowing they think they are, has the right to tell women hat to do with their bodies,” he said to applause and cheers. Later on in the day, seven speech makers spoke at another candidates’ meeting. Audrey McLaughlin, 52, MP for the Yukon, the only woman among the candidates, made abortion a central part of her statement. According to the Star, she stated: “Women are under attack. For the first time we are fighting to keep something we have gained, choice over our bodies and our personal sovereignty.”
Roger Lagasse, a school teacher from Sechelt, B.C. and the only bilingual candidate was reported to feel abortion to be a dilemma. His wife is pro-life, he said. He himself thought abortion an issue for women only, but he supported the party’s pro-abortion platform nevertheless.
CCLA for abortions
Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association also committed his organization to the pro-abortion cause once more. Borovoy has admired and promoted Henry Morgentaler for years.
Borovoy spoke at the October 2 Ottawa news conference held by the coalition of pro-abortion groups in favour of abortion on demand as a national policy for Canada.
There is no rational way to determine when life begins, he stated. “But even if we were to assume that it begins at conception, as some say, it does not follow…that that person should have the right to commandeer the coercive power of the state to keep it inside the body of someone who doesn’t want it there.” (Globe, October 3)
One wonders why a single person is allowed to place a national organization on the pro-abortion bandwagon. Are all members of the CCLA pro-abortion?
