Halton Pro-life held its 8th Annual Silent Candlelight Vigil at Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital in Burlington on the eve of Mother’s Day. Two hundred and twenty-five citizens concerned about abortion gathered at the hospital to mourn the lives of the 545 babies destroyed in the four hospitals in the Region of Halton. (The four hospitals were: Joseph Brant, 300 abortions; Georgetown & District, 26; Milton & District, 30; and Oakville Trafalgar Memorial, 189.)
Women from Halton also aborted their babies at McMaster in Hamilton or in Toronto hospitals, but the number is unknown.
Prayers were offered for the babies whose lives were taken through abortion, for the fathers and mothers of these children, and for the doctors and personnel of the hospitals. The hymns This Little Light of Mine and To Be Alive were enthusiastically sung prior to the address by Dr. Ken Post, President of Hamilton Right to Life. The group then silently holding lighted candles, stationed themselves outside the hospital for 15 minutes of silent prayer.
Dr. Post spoke of the witnessing of those present to the greatest horror of 1984 – the slaughter throughout the world of innocent human beings by abortion:
Forced abortion, forced infanticide, systematic slaughter of entire population groups, and human experimentation of the worst sort are commonplace.
The Pro-Life movement warned that when the slaughter of the innocent is permitted by governments, the loss of other human rights occurs in quick succession. A case in point is the Soviet Union, one of the first countries in the world to permit ‘abortion on demand.’ What we see in our own great country is abortion leading to the loss of parental rights to prevent the abortion of one’s children; abortion leading to the legalization of suicide; abortion leading to infanticide and murder of the retarded, handicapped and the powerless; abortion leading to the loss of freedom of speech.
But above all, abortion has led to the greatest single horror and atrocity of the 20th Century. In Canada alone since 1969, 6,000,000 unborn children have been murdered.
No nuclear bomb has taken so many lives. No series of wars have taken so many lives among the same nations now performing abortions. There is no problem and no horror greater in 1984. Not the threat of nuclear war; not hunger in the Third World; not war in Ethiopia, Afghanistan, El Salvador or Iran. Governments, societies and individuals will slaughter more human beings through abortion than through any of these other events.
Today Dr. Post said, we are bearing witness to the truth; that innocent human life is being snuffed out like a candle; that innocent human beings are being slaughtered with the consent of a state bent on preservation of power at any price; that the least of these our brethren are being torn apart mercilessly within the walls of hospitals. As their bodies are ripped apart so are the justice, rights and barriers to ruthlessness which preserve our society.
Dr. Post ended his speech by asking that candles be lit for the babies and for truth in a society which uses its wealth and power to hide the truth. “Light a candle,” he said, “to defy the darkness which cannot overcome the light. Pray for our forgiveness as we walk in witness of the murder of our children.”
