Canadian abortion activists worried about growing March for Life

by Rebecca Millette

Canada's March for Life in 2010.

TORONTO, Ontario, March 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – During a “March for Choice” held in Toronto last Saturday, abortion advocates stressed the need for pro-choice action in the face of a growing and increasingly strong pro-life movement.

Guest speaker, NDP MP Olivia Chow, recounted to the group of about 65 participants her thoughts on stumbling on last year’s March for Life on Parliament Hill.  “I walked out of my office and the entire Parliament Hill was filled with people, anti-choice people,” she emphasized. 

“Because of that kind of supposable strength,” she continued, “we have to continue organizing… we need to speak up more.”

“We know that the majority of Canadians support our cause,” said Chow, “support choice, support the right for a woman to make a decision, support the fact that every child born should be loved and wanted. The majority of Canadians believe that.”

“We do not want to elect a parliament… with MPs that will stand up and vote against choice,” she said.

The Toronto march was part of an international endeavor responding to the Republican efforts in the United States to defund Planned Parenthood.  The Facebook page advertizing the event claims that Harper’s Conservatives are also “trying to restrict women’s choices” through the Maternal Health initiative. 

NDP MP Olivia Chow went on to decry the defeat of Liberal MP Bob Rae’s “Reproductive Motion” in Parliament last year.  Rae’s motion stated that the maternal health plan, an initiative at the UN spearhead by the Harper government, “must include the full range of family planning, sexual and reproductive health options,” which would have included abortion.

Chow claimed, “We are looking at close to 500,000 women that needs the abortion, that their lives could be saved if they have good comprehensive family planning.”

“That vote [against the motion] has sank into my being because as I saw people stand up against choice, my heart sank,” said Chow.  “If I count the members of parliament, it would surprise you…that a lot of them who stood up against choice in fact are representing people in the greater Toronto area.”

Organizers at the pro-abortion march said that pro-life groups are really “heating up their end of things.”  Talking of the Canadian Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s (CCBR) ‘Genocide Awareness Project’ (GAP), one organizer called the project “really disgraceful.”  Pro-life students at Carlton University who were arrested and forced to remove GAP from their campus, she said, are “globalizing” their efforts “to challenge pro-choice forces” by suing the university and student association. 

“For many of us, we thought we had sort of won this battle many years ago and clearly it’s not ever something we can let our guard down about,” the organizer concluded.

“This is a great affirmation that the pro-life movement is stronger than ever,” Alissa Golob of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews.com.  “The anti-life movement is scared and acknowledges our strength … and they should be.”

“The March for Life is the largest pro-life event in Canada, and the pro-aborts know it. That is why it is so important that we make this event even bigger to show our government that the majority of Canadians are pro-life and we will not back down until ALL human life is protected.”