The phrase has sort of odd ring to it. It seems peculiar that Canada, the true north strong and free, would be associated, at least in recent decades, with something as troubling as a day of infamy.

On the other hand, we’ve heard stories from the past; stories about the internment of foreign nationals, or the harboring of war criminals, or CIA-sponsored brainwashing experiments on Canadians, or involuntary sterilizations, or tainted blood, or …

Well, we’ve moved beyond all that. We’re now living in a brave new world, don’t you know. The UN says so – Canada’s the number one place to live in the world. And, as one recent review of a book on post-centennial Canada pointed out, we’ve progressed so, so far from where we were prior to the 1960s, and the accompanying sexual revolution.

Yes, we can rejoice now that we have free sex, the morning after pill, your choice of birth control, easy sterilizations, abortion on demand, abortion paid for by your government, abortion for minors without their parents’ knowledge, partial-birth abortion, legal protection of abortionists while pro-lifers are jailed, condoms in school washrooms, art blaspheming Christ and denigrating religious leaders, an easily accessible (thanks to the CRTC) Playboy channel, open homosexual demonstrations of pride right on Main Street …

Break open the champagne! Did we miss anything? If we did, just chalk it up to progress and the increasing enlightenment of our post-Christian society. Let’s celebrate!

Not.

The truth is, something – a lot of things – have gone dreadfully wrong in our society. Pope John Paul II calls it the culture of death. Whatever you want to term it, we’re dying spiritually, morally and – as the bodies of hundreds of thousands of unborn babies will attest – physically.

You can see it, among other places, in increasing crime and divorce rates. You can see it in the increasing estrangement people feel from each other as exhibited in the latest mass murder-suicide, road rage, or a shooting committed by a youngster. You can see it in the decline of our cultural institutions and the quality of entertainment.

You can see it in schools empty of students who would be there had they not been aborted out of existence. Or you can see it in the aging population, and the fact that there are so few young people around to provide a healthy tax base, drastic measures have to be taken to preserve the Canada Pension Plan.

That’s what our governments and elites have wrought for us. And we can trace it all back to May 14, 1969, the day of the passage of the federal government’s omnibus bill that legalized abortion, though then for “therapeutic reasons” (whatever that meant) alone.

Those who forget history, it is often said, are bound to repeat it. That’s what seems to have happened that spring day 29 years ago. The smoke from Nazi concentration camp ovens had by then dissipated both materially and in people’s minds. Pol Pot was still to come in Cambodia and the Rwandan genocide wasn’t even a thought. Black marks of various sorts on the Canadian record – the internments, sterilizations, experiments and so on – were yet to be uncovered and publicized at large.

Abortion legalization seemed like the thing to do among the improperly educated and misinformed masses. Throw in the spinelessness of various social, cultural, political and, dare we add, religious figures, and the unborn didn’t stand a chance.

They still don’t.

The culture of death is strong and as firmly ensconced as ever. What more than a few people have called a conspiracy against life continues unabated. The courts, education systems, media, governments and medical professions seem intent on ensuring the culture of death is unthreatened and, in fact, expands.

Pro-life advocates now face the daunting task of trying to turn back 29 years of steady decline. It’s a mammoth project that won’t succeed overnight, but will require patience, persistence and long-suffering that borders on the supernatural. A good way to start, though, is by remembering.

By marking May 14 each year, we can make it clear to society at large that it is not a day like any other. We can make the point that some of us – many of us – lament what happened and will work ceaselessly to see the injustice reversed. We can show that there is still a large, caring constituency in this country, intent on seeing that our voiceless brothers and sisters in humanity get a voice in public policy and the discussions over whether they will be allowed to exist or not.

How can you take part? You say you’re already doing what you can in support of the pro-life cause. You go to meetings, take out memberships, contribute funds, help in fundraising. How about going a step further and joining people from across the country in Ottawa this May 14? You may never be the same and, who knows, this country may never be the same.

Future generations of unborn Canadians are counting on this country not being the same for much longer.