March for Life on Parliament Hill

Nearly 20,000 people gathered at Parliament Hill in Ottawa today for the fifteenth annual March for Life, reports LifeSiteNews,—a number well above last year’s record draw of 15,000. The annual event protests abortion and calls on lawmakers provide legal protection for children still in their mothers’ wombs.

At the beginning of the march, Vice-President Don Hutchinson of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada prayed “that the day will come when this gathering will not be necessary—when justice will be restored for the innocent voiceless, and our nation will be renewed in its foundation of dignity and respect for all human beings.”

The March for Life takes place every year in May, near the date in 1969 when abortion was first legally permitted if approved by an official three-doctor panel. All restrictions on abortion in Canada were removed after a 1988 decision by the Supreme Court of Canada found existing abortion laws unconstitutional. While the Court invited Parliament to draft a new law, no such law has ever been passed, making Canada the only democracy in the world to have no legal restrictions on abortion.

Debate over abortion has taken on new momentum in recent months with the introduction of a private member’s bill in Parliament by MP Stephen Woodworth. In the bill, Mr. Woodworth calls for the creation of a committee to discuss the legal definition of human life. Under current Canadian law, a baby is denied all rights until it has completely proceeded from the mother’s body. The bill was first debated in Parliament during April, and will come up for second debate and vote in either June or September.

It’s garnered support from Lutherans for Life-Canada and member congregations of Lutheran Church–Canada. Historic St. Paul’s Lutheran Church (Kitchener, Ontario) has provided online resources for those wishing to support Mr. Woodworth’s bill.

Readers may also be interested in “The Christian and Abortion,” an article by Rev. Richard Juritsch of Lutherans for Life-Canada which appeared in the January-February issue of The Canadian Lutheran.

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