Alberta pro-lifers claimed a victory Oct., 21 when Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party roundly defeated an NDP private member’s motion that called for increased access to abortion. Kenney joined other UCP MLAs to vote down Motion 506 by a 43-11 margin.
Proposed by St. Albert MLA Marie Renaud, Motion 506 stated, “Be it resolved that the Legislative Assembly urge the Government to conduct a thorough review of access to abortion services and reproductive health services in Alberta, take action to remove barriers to these services, and ensure access to safe, timely, and equitable services in all communities across the province.”
Speaking before the vote, Renaud referenced Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, telling her colleagues the Canadian author recently said the 1985 novel’s resurgence in popularity is because of “the bubbling up of regressive attitudes towards women.”
Albertans are “surrounded by wealthy special-interest groups intent on removing and restricting” a woman’s “right” to control her body, claimed Renaud, who described access to abortion in rural Alberta as “dismal.” “Although we’re not Alabama yet, the focus is clear. We now have a rabid anti-choice Minister of Education (Adriana LaGrange) and a premier who’s been fighting to remove and restrict the right of women to exercise freedom and control over their bodies and lives for decades,” she declared. “This new reality in Alberta is why I’m introducing this private member’s motion.”
The Alberta-based Wilberforce Project and national political lobbying group Campaign Life Coalition were among the pro-life associations to galvanize supporters to lobby against the motion. “By seeking to ‘remove barriers’ to ‘abortion services’ in Alberta, the NDP seeks to transform abortion into a critical ‘healthcare’ item, and to force hospitals across the province to commit abortions,” Campaign Life national president Jeff Gunnarson pointed out in an Oct. 17 action alert. “We need to cut this agenda off at its roots, before it grows into a towering weed!”
Cam Wilson, political director for The Wilberforce Project, echoed these concerns in an Oct. 17 email to supporters. “This motion calls on the government to ‘increase abortion services’ across Alberta. Not surprisingly, the real purpose of this motion is to promote abortion in rural Alberta, instead of spending those scarce healthcare dollars on real health care,” said Wilson.
A longer version of this article originally appeared Oct. 21 at LifeSiteNews and is used with permission.
