Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

Speak out for the voiceless unborn

The Canadian Abortion Rights Action League is a small organization that can still draw big publicity. It has an Ottawa office with two full-time employees and a part-time director. It gets no government funding, except for the occasional job grant, its money comes from private donations.

CARAL was set up in 1974 to help Henry Morgentaler in his efforts to destroy Canada's already leaky abortion law. It called for an end to laws restricting abortion and, in 1988, its efforts were rewarded with a Supreme Court decision that overthrew the few restrictions on abortion in Canada. Within a few years, the number of abortions in Canada went from a fairly constant 65,000 per year to a new level of 105,000 a year.

But now CARAL thinks that even 105,000 unborn children a year being killed is not enough. It has done a "study" purporting to show that there is not enough access to abortion in Canada. While it is true that abortion is more accessible in larger cities than in remote areas, we find it hard to fathom that anyone would want to see more carnage than already exists.

CARAL's study does find a few bright lights on the otherwise gloomy Canadian abortion scene. The study rails against hospital staff who deliberately refuse to provide abortion referrals to women seeking them and who even refer women to pro-life groups for advice. The study implies that this practice is widespread.

Our hats go off to those hospital and other medical staff who, sometimes at personal risk, are courageous enough to tell women that there are alternatives to abortion. These are the hidden heroes of the dark days of abortion's ascendancy.

That the pro-life movement still exists with a certain level of vibrancy (and without employing the desperate violence groups like CARAL often attribute to it) 35 years after Canada liberalized its abortion laws is a testimony to the fact this issue won't go away. That there are medical staff who refuse to take part in abortions and who refer women seeking abortions to pro-life agencies is another sign. And that the Canadian public, while supporting the alleged right to abortion in general, is also decidedly uncomfortable with abortion being used as a form of birth control and with mid- and late-term abortions goes to show that Canada's pro-abortion house of cards will someday come crashing down. Our main need now is for high-level political leadership that is courageous enough to challenge the pro-abortion juggernaut that rules politics and the media.

But before that day comes, groups like CARAL are determined to do a lot of damage to the rights of the unborn. Among the recommendations of its recent study:

• "It must be mandatory for all general hospitals with surgical facilities and trained doctors to provide abortion services."
• "General hospitals operated by the Catholic Church must be required to provide a full range of reproductive health services, including abortion, in order to receive provincial and federal tax dollars."
• "We urge the federal government to legislate anti-abortion acts of violence and harassment as a hate crime under the Criminal Code."

In an era when governments do not have the revenues available to save lives, CARAL would like to use some of those scarce resources to kill even more unborn lives.

As for the latter two recommendations, it is part of our Catholic faith to work for social justice and human dignity, including protection of the rights of the unborn. For that to be declared "a hate crime" would destroy religious liberty in Canada, the most basic of all human rights.

The CARAL study, available on its website (www.caral.ca), is a sign that we must be active in our pro-life commitment and be thoroughly committed to prayer and non-violence in carrying out that conviction. Victory will eventually belong to the unborn, but in the meantime, we must hold up those heroes who today steer women seeking abortions to hear the pro-life message. Those heroes save the lives of unborn children at a time when powerful forces in society want to see even more unborn die.

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