For immediate release – Ottawa, ON
October 22, 2019
A massive display on the Supreme Court lawn this weekend demonstrates to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and all the rest of our newly elected Members of Parliament that the abortion debate remains open in Canada.
The Supreme Court location was chosen because it was there in 1988 that the Supreme Court struck down Canada’s previous abortion law, expecting Parliament to pass a new law. We’ve had 30 years of inactivity of Parliament, and we’re now looking to this Parliament, newly elected, to take seriously the need to protect the lives of pre-born children.
“Canada is the only democracy in the world with zero protections for pre-born human beings. Every other country has restrictions on abortion, but here the debate is continually shut down,” said Tabitha Ewert, Legal Counsel for We Need a Law. “But it is shut down by our leaders – whether it was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s extreme pro-abortion rhetoric and policy in the last Parliament or even opposition leader Andrew Scheer’s confusing line about not opening a debate that many Canadians are actively having. Our lack of laws is not reflective of Canadian’s opinion on this issue but is due to Parliament’s inaction. The Supreme Court looked to Parliament, as it should, to write legislation. We join them in looking to this Parliament for action to protect the right to life of the pre-born.”
“So many people are unaware that Canada has no law restricting abortion, and the conversations we had last weekend affirm the polls that say the majority of Canadians would support some restrictions on abortion,” continued Ewert. “We don’t always agree on where the line should be, but we can almost all agree that there should be a line at which a pre-born child is protected by law. We hope the newly elected MPs listen to Canadians on this topic and engage meaningfully with what an abortion law would look like here in Canada.”
More than 60 volunteers gathered to plant 100,000 pink and blue flags in front of the Supreme Court, representing the 100,000 children lost to abortion each year in Canada. We Need a Law, a grassroots organization advocating for laws protecting pre-born children, coordinated the event on Saturday, October 19. Staff and volunteers stayed on site to talk to people throughout the day for this peaceful event.
The impact of abortion is far reaching, and the sea of pink and blue flags, while beautiful to look at, is sobering when tied to the tens of thousands of pre-born lives lost every single year in Canada.
We Need a Law is a non-partisan organization that advocates for legal protection of pre-born human rights.