Last month, part one of this article traced the history of legalized abortion from 1969 to 1988.
The 1988 Regina vs. Morgentaler decision, which left Canada lawless with regard to abortion, has come back to haunt our current Supreme Court Chief Justice, Antonio Lamer. Justice Lamer shocked Canadians last winter with his admission that he voted to strike down Section 287 of the Criminal Code 10 years ago because he thought “it was what the public wanted.”
At the University of Toronto in February 1998, Justice Lamer said, “Unless you have a vast majority of people think something is criminal, you should not make it a crime.”
It appears Justice Lamer had fallen victim to the same arrogance the Globe and Mail succumbed to in its editorials, in justifying changes to the old abortion law as “the will of the people.”
Again in 1995, Joseph Borowski, asked the high court to rule that abortions violated the fetus’s right to life and equality under the Criminal Code. The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal had also ruled that the fetus is not a person.
There was a time when women and slaves were denied personhood. Like pre-born babies, slaves were killed at will. In Western society, women fared better, but were denied the right to vote and own property.
Who among us can honestly say that a pre-born baby is not a human being and that abortion is not murder? Technology has allowed us to see behind the veil of flesh that obstructs our view of life in the womb.
When is a human being not a person? Never. That debate ended decades ago when slavery was abolished. There is no question of the child’s humanity or personhood. It is pure legalism and cowardice on the part of the courts and its defenders to rule against the rights of the pre-born to protection under the law. Because of them, more than 1.7 million Canadian children have been murdered by abortion since 1970.
During the abortion debates in the 1960s, it was often stated that there were as many as 300,000 illegal abortions every year in Canada. Even though no statistical proof was ever given for this number, it was accepted as reason enough to liberalize the abortion laws. However, it was merely an estimate, pulled out of thin air. Does it not follow that 1.7 million documented abortions since 1970 is sufficient reason to at least revisit the debate on abortions?
For the first time, researchers at University College, London have shown that newborn children actually feel pain longer and more acutely than adults. As a result of this new evidence, the British government is considering guidelines that would see pre-born children receive painkilling drugs for surgery in the womb or for late-term abortions.
So, now we know that children in the womb feel pain. Can anyone with an ounce of compassion justify killing these children? How long will we as a nation deny the preborn the human dignity that is their birthright? How long will we allow the slaughter (some call it a holocaust) to continue? Is giving pain-relieving drugs to the baby in the womb before killing it enough to satisfy the dignity of human life?
Thousands of Canadians are working right now to turn the tide of abortion into a flood of life. The effort is not unlike the famous tidal-bore in New Brunswick – two forces clashing for dominance.
Unlike the drama that’s played out each day in the ocean, the outcome of the abortion battle remains to be seen.
