By Anne Farrow / The Catholic Register
OTTAWA, Ontario (OSV News) — It took almost 25 minutes for the crowds gathered in Ottawa for the National March for Life to inch their way from the gates of Parliament Hill to the streets of the capital May 14.
As in years past, people of every ethnic background, the very young and the very old, religious sisters and priests, families and church groups, carried their pro-life signs and walked through downtown to sound the alarm for an end to abortion and euthanasia in Canada.
The day began with liturgies celebrated at Notre Dame Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Basilica and St. Clement Church. Archbishop Marcel Damphousse of Ottawa-Cornwall was the main celebrant at the cathedral joined by Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, apostolic nuncio to Canada, and Ukrainian Catholic Bishop Bryan Bayda of the Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada, as well as some 30 priests and deacons.
The rally which preceded the march began at midday.
‘We want them to hear us’
March for Life organizer Debbie Duval told the crowd, “We march on a Thursday, in Ottawa, because that’s when our legislators are sitting in the House of Commons. We want them to hear us. We want them to know we’re here.”
Matthew Wojciechoski, project manager at Campaign Life Coalition, or CLC, which organizes the annual event, told the crowd, “We are here to call upon the members of Parliament to enact legal protections for all human beings from conception up to natural death. To remind parliament of four simple words, ‘Thou shalt not kill.'”
The March for Life always takes place in May to mark the month 1969 when the Omnibus Bill that decriminalized abortion in Canada was passed.
This year, the March for Life fell on the very anniversary of the vote. The theme this year was Jesus’ command, “Follow me.”
Prayers for Campaign Life Coalition’s founder
In his speech, Jeff Gunnarson, CLC’s national president, asked the crowd to pray for CLC founder and former president Jim Hughes, who, Gunnarson said, was in hospital with pneumonia and “not doing well.”
“Jim devoted decades of his life to the unborn and building this movement in Canada. Many of us are standing here today because of sacrifices he made long before we arrived,” Gunnarson said.
Featured speaker Aleš Primc, co-founder of the Slovenian political party Voice for Children and Families that recently forced a referendum to overturn the country’s assisted suicide law, led pro-lifers in a series of loud “hellos” to everyone from unborn children to “people with gray hair like me.”
“Saying ‘hello’ is the start of recognizing our shared humanity,” he said.
Conceived in rape and escaped ‘death penalty’ of abortion
Speaker Rebecca Kiessling, a U.S. lawyer and founder of the organization Save the 1, a reference to the 1% of babies conceived in rape, said she narrowly escaped “the death penalty” in the womb at two abortion clinics.
Kiessling was conceived by rape and has dedicated her legal career to advocating for the rights of mothers whose children were similarly conceived. She lobbies for abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest.
Born four years prior to the United States’ landmark 1973 ruling Roe v. Wade, she survived only because “the (existing) law in Michigan protected me.”
“I did not deserve the death penalty for the crime of the man who raped my mother. My mother chose abortion. I wasn’t lucky: I was protected. The law matters.”
When Arnold Viersen, Conservative member of Parliament, brought his two toddler children to the stage with him, his young son amused the crowd by peeking through the railing and jumping around loudly enough to be heard through the public address system.
Speeches, march at center of four days of events
The speeches on Parliament Hill and the march were the center point in a four-day series of events planned around the March for Life, including a candlelight vigil held the night before to pray and remember the babies lost to abortion; the Rose Dinner banquet on the evening of May 14, which included Primc of Slovenia alongside Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition as co-headliners of the event; and a youth summit May 15.
A day before the rally and march, Primc addressed a news conference, giving a preview of his remarks to come.
“We won the referendum preventing the poisoning of sick and elderly people from death,” said Primc, who worked in close collaboration with the Slovenian Catholic community. “It is very important because we won against this anti-culture of death. This victory is significant also for Canada because (it shows) it is possible. We can win, and we will win.
Fighting the fight ‘for concrete human beings’
“We don’t fight this fight for (symbolism) or ideology,” he further proclaimed. “We fight this fight for concrete human beings — for concrete elderly and sick people who don’t need poison. They need compassion, help and relationships — they need us.”
On the day of march, CLC’s Gunnarson summed up the question of why the March for Life continues year after year: “Sometimes this work can feel difficult, sometimes we feel that no progress is being made, but then we gather here and we remember that truth does not expire, love does not quit and courage inspires courage.”
Anne Farrow is a columnist and correspondent for The Catholic Register, Canada’s national Catholic newspaper based in Toronto. Contributing to this story was staff writer Quinton Amundson. This story was originally published by The Catholic Register and distributed through a partnership with OSV News.
