Pro-life supporters from across Canada are encouraged to attend a march for life in Ottawa commemorating the 29th anniversary of Parliament’s legalizing abortion.

Scheduled for May 14th, the event will mark what the pro-life community describes as the most tragic event in Canadian history. Parliament’s action of May 14, 1969 to amend the Criminal Code and allow for abortion has to date resulted in the deaths of more than two million Canadian children.

In addition to remembering those lost to abortion since 1969, the march for life is organized to call for a restoration of justice for the unborn.

The rally is set to begin at 12 noon May 14 with prayer and protest on Parliament Hill. Speakers expected to address the gathering at the time include representatives of Campaign Life Coalition, other leading pro-life activists, spiritual leaders, and prominent pro-life members of Parliament.

Following the opening prayer and protest, participants are being urged to visit their individual MPs to voice concerns about the need for legislation protecting the preborn child. Participants planning to arrange meetings with their MP are invited to contact Campaign Life Coalition at 1-800-730-5358, or 416-368-8479 for help.

The action day will also include attendance at the afternoon Question Period in the House of Commons, the celebration of mass and Protestant services and a concluding meal.

No real restrictions

Pro-life officials have emphasized the significance of the 1969 law change which opened the door to widespread abortion in Canada. Although the law called for the establishment of therapeutic abortion committees to determine if continuing a pregnancy endangered the life or health of women, it became little more than a rubber-stamp process for women seeking abortion.

The law was overturned by the Canadian Supreme Court in January, 1988 leaving the country with no meaningful restrictions on abortion.

In a 1979 pamphlet, former Interim publisher Father Alphonse de Valk described the 1969 decision as “the worst legislation in the history of this country.”

Father de Valk said  the appeal to practicality as a rationalization for the 1969 abortion law opened the door to a diminished respect for life across the social spectrum.

“The key to the mounting attacks on various phases of human life … lies in the 1969 legislation of abortion in Canada and its equivalents in other countries,” he said. “This legislation put in doubt what had been firmly held, it muddied and confused what had been clear; namely, that society has no right to declare any part of the span of human life or the human family less valuable than any other part.”

In concluding  that the 1969 abortion law was a black mark in legislative history, Father de Valk pointed to the relative ease with which abortion came to be excused. “(The 1969 amendment) symbolizes Canada’s participation in the new holocaust. The amendment’s own cruel irony is most evident when we remember that its sponsors intended this law to be restrictive. In reality, it opened the door to abortion on demand.”

Campaign Life is making a bus available for Toronto-area pro-lifers to take part in the May 29 rally. For more information contact Campaign Life at one of the two telephone numbers listed above.