Once more, the Diocesan Week for Life is almost upon us. It will run from Monday May 12th through to Sunday May 18th (Pro-Life Sunday). This year Archbishop Prendergast has decided to celebrate the Diocesan Week for Life at the same time as the Council of Canadian Catholic Bishop’s National Week for Life and Family. Together with our brothers and sisters in Christ, we will promote the sacredness of all human life across Canada. Although the National March for Life (May 8th) will not be included in this week, we are all encouraged to participate in the march and support their efforts to convince politicians that we need a law to protect the unborn.
The urgency of such a task is borne out by two bits of news this week. The first was a LifeSiteNews story, revealing that the remains of aborted babies from British Columbia are ending up in a facility providing electricity to the residents of Oregon. The article stated ,“The province’s Health Ministry said in an email to the B.C. Catholic that “biomedical waste” shipped to the U.S. to be incinerated includes “human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue” The ministry understands that some is transferred to Oregon. There it is incinerated in a waste-to-energy plant” the email stated…” An employee of the plant stated that “county officials had to know the facility generated power by burning fetal tissue…It would make you sick, especially if you had to clean it up or have to pull a box off the trailer…There was so much blood.”
The story highlights the blatant devaluing of the unborn in a disturbing way. Secondly, on April 10th, CBC ran a story announcing the closing of an abortion clinic in Frederickton, N.B. due to lack of funding. The article reported “The province’s Department of Health has always refused to cover abortions performed at the clinic, making it the only province in Canada with a private abortion clinic that isn’t funded by medicare.” What the article neglected to point out is that even though most abortion clinics across Canada receive some kind of tax funding, most crisis pregnancy centres do not. By not funding abortion clinics, New Brunswick is playing fair where most other provinces are not. Nonetheless, the government of the province is under terrific pressure to change its policy, not just to fund the clinic, but to overhaul the hospital system to expedite taxpayer funded abortion on demand there.
So the battle to change the “culture of death” in Canada into a “culture of life” is still very much on, and needs our prayer and our action to win it. Thankfully, we now have Pope John Paul II, (who coined the phrase of culture of death/life) as a canonized saint to intercede on our behalf. So come out on May 8th to add to the 25,000+ people who attended the March for Life last year. Remember, Canada is the only western nation with no protection for the unborn. This year, the Campaign Life Coalition is “RU-4LIFE?”, a reference to prevent the dangerous chemical abortion pill RU-486 from entering Canada.