Thousands Gather in Ottawa for Annual ‘March for Life’ Rally
Several thousand people gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday for the 25th annual “March for Life” pro-life rally, calling for an end to abortion and euthanasia in Canada.
“We need to protect all human beings from conception to natural death. We are all made in the likeness and image of God and we all deserve protection,” said Debbie Duval, national capital organizer for the Campaign Life Coalition (CLC).
“We need to abolish euthanasia and abortion in Canada now. And this is how we’re going to do that: … by showing up to events, by speaking the truth out in love to your neighbors, to your friends, to your communities, and to gatherings like this.”
The crowd, motivated by the year’s theme of “Stand Firm,” gathered on the hill for prayer, music, and speeches, before partaking in their annual March for Life through Ottawa’s downtown.
Pro-life supporters of all ages carried signs saying “Love Life, Choose Life,” “Your Mother Chose Life,” and “Abortion Kills Babies, Adoption Is An Option,” while a dozen pro-abortion counter-protestors flashed signs saying, “Misogyny Kills More Than Abortion,” “Women Are Not Baby Incubators,” and “My Body My Choice.”
Julia Bissonnette, a member of the youth organizing committee for CLC, told The Epoch Times that ever since Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau decriminalized abortion in 1969, Canada has had no abortion laws. This means abortions can be performed at any gestational age, including near the end of pregnancy.
Bissonnette said even in cases of impregnation by sexual assault, abortion is “not the more merciful choice” and is “making another victim out of the situation.”
“It’s another traumatic experience on top of the rape, and I think that rather than pushing women towards abortion, pushing them to kill their own children, we should give them resources to help them really … figure out their lives, whether that’s giving the child up for adoption or raising the child themselves,” she said.
Janet Breen, a pro-life supporter, said she believes the “my body, my choice” argument should not apply after a woman gets pregnant. “After you’ve got another body, a baby growing in you, you don’t just have one life, you have two,” she told The Epoch Times.
“So I think it’s a crime to kill a baby before it’s born. I also think that living in that culture where it’s acceptable trivializes the power of life, it trivializes the value of life, it trivializes the power of our sexuality. I think that these are important things that underpin the stability of a culture,” she said.
Medical Assistance in Dying
The event also focused on Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) laws, which have recently been criticized as being to relaxed. Parliament passed Bill C-7 in March 2021, which repealed the stipulation from the 2016 MAiD legislation that states an individual’s death has to be “reasonably foreseeable” to qualify for the procedure.
MAiD is expected to be expanded to the mentally ill on March 17, 2024, and a Parliament Special Committee on Medical Assistance in Death released a report that included recommendations for expanding euthanasia to minors.
Cpl. Christine Gauthier, a veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces and Paralympian, spoke at the rally about her experience being offered MAiD by a Veterans Affairs Canada caseworker. During her five-year attempt to get a wheelchair ramp installed at her home, Gauthir was told by a caseworker that they could give her MAiD, and offered to supply the euthanasia equipment for her.
“How is it at this point, that after all this time, it is even an idea? Already, battling and fighting suicide is hard enough … It is unbearable to me,” she said. “You are giving me a great gift that I will take with me today and try to build on the strength of. All of you people are here to keep fighting for the right to live, and not just survive,” she told the crowd.
Conservative MP Arnold Viersen, who spoke at the rally, reminded the crowd that Canadian MAiD laws are essentially an exemption to homicide, meaning “these particular people are allowed to commit homicide, and the government will not or the law will not pursue them.”
“We need to establish that human rights are for all of the human family, no matter how big or how small you are. Human rights begin when the human begins, and modern medical science tells us that humans begin at conception,” he said.
