Approximately 2800 people participated in the Vancouver National Pastors-led rally for the Defense of Life on Saturday, September 30.
Over 100 pastors and clergy of different denominations led their congregations down to the Art Gallery steps on Georgia Street. Most of the pastors were members of the newly-formed “B.C. Clergy Council for the Defense of Life.”
Pat Hansard, executive director of Abortion Recovery Canada, was featured, along with other speakers: Dr. Will Johnston of Canadian Physicians for Life, Rev. Edward Gale, Dr. Bruce Milne, Carlin Weinhauer, Father Bill Mendenhall, Heather Stilwell and Pastor Wes Campbell, the latter of Kelowna.
Each gave unique and interesting messages of love, pain, truth, forgiveness, God’s word, His will, and our will, which was that we would only live with a law that all babies can live with, regardless of their gestational age.
Heather Stilwell, past president of Alliance for Life, explained that “we must view a compromise law not as a law that allows some babies to live, but as a law that permits some babies to be killed, which is a totally unacceptable law.” She stated that “We just will not buy it.” Stilwell said we “should tell our MPs and our Prime Minister that they will one day be standing before God and he will ask them ‘What did you do when they were killing My babies?”
Also taking part at the booths were many pro-life organizations including Vancouver Right to Life, Campaign Life Coalition, Youth for Life, REAL Women of Canada, Surrey/Delta Pro-Life, Burnaby Pro-Life, Rescue Canada, and the B.C. Report magazine.
A real highlight of the rally was when two young mothers came forward with their babies. One mother said abortion was an option for her but she chose life for her baby and encouraged anyone else to do the same.
The grand finale happened when the pastors led the people one block away to the law courts. The people surrounded the building carrying Canadian flags. Two minutes of silence was observed, one minute for each million babies killed by abortion. The pastors then led the people in intercessory prayer for our land and our precious unborn.
Bonnie Donovan of Burnaby, B.C., is the rally coordinator for the Clergy Council for the Defense of Life.
Toronto
In Toronto 100 pro-lifers took part in an afternoon picket outside Toronto General Hospital September 30. Organizer Denise Wiche, executive director of Christians for Life, Toronto, presented a letter to the hospital’s administration asking for a meeting. Public relations director David Allen said Toronto General was not prepared to meet because the hospital’s policy on abortion is not open to change. Half-a-dozen ministers and priests were among those present at the Rally.
Justice Bertha Wilson
On October 10, York South Right to Life wrote to the Canadian Judicial Council, arguing that Madame Justice Bertha Wilson has been placed “in a position incompatible with the due execution” of her office as a Supreme Court justice. The Right to Life group cited two grounds – in 1982 she accepted an award from a radical feminist, pro-abortion organization, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. This group lobbied actively to have a woman with a feminist perspective appointed to the Court. Mrs. Wilson’s opinion in the Morgentaler case upheld the radical feminist position even to the extent of using a radical feminist writer as her main reference in support of her arguments. – In 1975 she served as chairman of the United Church Commission on Abortion, which advocated a gestational approach. This view was affirmed by the General Council of the Church in 1980; though Mrs. Wilson has resigned from the Commission some time before this, the report of the General Council referred to her “extraordinary and sensitive leadership” in assisting the Commission to set the course for its deliberations. It would seem, then, that she applied both the policy and the actual language of the United Church in her Morgentaler judgment.
If the people of Canada are to retain confidence in the judicial system, the York South group contends, they must have confidence in the impartiality of judges and their willingness to evaluate cases on judicial merit rather than personal bias. “We lack all confidence in Madame Justice Bertha Wilson,” says the complaint. “Her continued presence on the Court undermines the integrity, impartiality and respect of the Court.”
Fasting on the Hill
Fasting for Life has been underway on Parliament Hill since September 25. Vitality – the Ottawa pro-life publication – reported in mid-October that Kurt Gayle and Father Tony Van Hee are seeing 20 or more MPs per day as they fast in front of the House of Commons.
