In February 1989, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge issued a criminal injunction prohibiting both picketing and blocking access to a Vancouver abortuary. He stated that the killing centre was “legal.” He sent 104 protesters to jail for two weeks, gave 44 of them a suspended sentence of three months, gave another 13 sentences to be served on weekends and, so far, has sentenced five people to three months in jail. According to him, all these protesters are “law breakers.” Pro-lifers, on the other hand, reject this designation. They claim they are upholding the law. So let’s review the situation.
Canadian law prohibited killing of pre-born babies until as recently as 1969. This was in line with a 4000 year-old moral tradition. But 20 years ago, on May 14, 1969, Canada’s Parliament, under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Justice Minister John Turner, followed the example of Britain and passed new legislation. Under this law, abortion continued to be recognized as criminal, but procedures were set out under which this criminal act could be done legally. In other words, the law was hopelessly contradictory.
The Globe and Mail hailed the legislation as “historically important” and entitled its editorial of the next morning, “It was a great day.” Pro-lifers, however, considered it a day of mourning. They recognized that in the name of secularism and liberal individualism Parliament had usurped the prerogatives of God, and the body politic had been struck a wound, which would fester from then onwards corrupting law, people and society as long as it remained. And so it was for nineteen years.
Then, in January 1988, the Supreme Court struck down the procedures of the law. It thereby invalidated the entire section of the code pertaining to abortion, leaving the country without a law. Hence Canada entered a state of lawlessness.
But the media and pro-abortion law professors immediately declared abortions unconditionally legal. Despite the fact that abortion had been a criminal act until then and despite a vast majority of Canadians clamouring for new legislation, the new theory launched the idea that lawlessness really means lawfulness. It was this idea, which led the B.C. Judge to call pro-life rescuers “lawbreakers.”
For Morgentaler the 1969 abortion amendment did not go far enough. Immediately after its enactment, he set out to abolish it by committing illegal abortions in Quebec. On Mother’s Day 1973, one of these abortions was shown on television. It marked the beginning of the public campaign to overthrow the law by subverting it. In November 1976, the newly elected Quebec Premier Rene Levesque helped him out by halting his prosecution. In the spring of 1983, Morgentaler launched his law-breaking operations in Ontario and Manitoba with tremendous publicity. He spoke of the law “being an ass.” And today, six years later, he subverts an Ontario law against extra-billing and gets away with it because a pro-abortion health minister allows him to do so.
Pro-life Canadians, who are law-abiding citizens, must face two questions. First, are they “lawbreakers” because they blocked access to an abortuary? Second, are rescuers permitted to break the Trespassing Act and stop abortions when no one has commanded or is forcing them to participate in these abortions (which would give one the right to resist), and when civil status of these abortions is unclear in the absence of legislation? In other words, do pro-lifers have the right to intervene?
Previous editorials have quoted Scripture. They stated that “resisting evil through disobedience is now part of the struggle to protect our society from disintegration” and that “obedience to God is the great support of human freedom and dignity.” But could this be just a private interpretation, perhaps by people easily confounded? Where does one go for an interpretation more authoritative than oneself?
In 1963 Pope John XXIII (Pope from 1958-1963) issued the encyclical Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth). It was hailed throughout the world and studied in international congresses, in the United Nations and elsewhere. Section 51 reads as follows:
“Since the right to command is required by moral order and has its source in God, it follows that, if civil authorities legislate for or allow anything that is contrary to that order (our emphasis) and therefore contrary to the will of God, neither the laws made nor the authorizations granted can be binding on the consciences of the citizens, since ‘we must God rather than men’ (Acts 5.29). Otherwise, authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse. As St. Thomas Aquinas teaches: Human law has the true nature of law only insofar as it corresponds to right reason, and therefore is derived from the eternal law. Insofar as it falls short of right reason, a law is said to be a wicked law; and so, lacking the true nature of law, it is rather a kind of violence.”
Applied to Canada its meaning is clear. The 1969 Amendment legalizing abortion was not a law but an act of violence. A Trespass Act, which protects acts of violence, is null and void. Judges who uphold such wrong applications are acting falsely and against the common good.
Therefore rescuers are right when they say they are upholding the law, not breaking it.
