Join us in Halifax on April 14 for a day-long conference hosted by Campaign Life Coalition (registration required).

A perfect storm is brewing in Canada right now to reopen the long-silenced debate on abortion and so now is the time to step up our efforts to fight for the unborn in the culture and the public square.

This conference is dedicated to inspiring, equipping, and mobilizing Nova Scotia’s pro-life supporters to foster a deeply engaged andeffective movement for life in this province.

com·pla·cen·cy: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. (Thanks, Merriam-Webster)

It means that you naively feel good about something but that maybe with a little more awareness you might not feel so good about it. I can think of quite a few abortion related uses for that word. How about not knowing what abortion really does (the unborn are just a “bunch of cells”)? Or how about not knowing Canada’s unrestricted law (or lack thereof)? I would say that there is a dangerous sense of complacency surrounding abortion and that abortion rights activists might like to keep it that way. What I wouldn’t say is this,

Pro-choice activist Rolanda Ryan said the head count might be misleading, as there is what she called “complacency” among many Canadians about existing laws that make abortion legal.

“I think we just need to counter the anti-choice protest, and let everybody know there is a lot of people who support women’s rights,” she told CBC News.

Amy Ryan, who described herself as a Catholic, said she felt compelled to stand with the pro-choice side.

“I fast for Good Friday,” she said. “He died so that we could have a choice …I respect their right to protest, but it’s Good Friday, and [they are] ruining my day.”

But of course there can’t be complacency about existing laws if so many Canadians still aren’t aware of them. It’s the reason we protest in broad daylight on busy streets, to spread the word. Yet once again, a peaceful abortion protest with over 100 participants is forced into the background for an article focusing on the minuscule but more boisterous group of pro-choice demonstrators.

Demonstrators, I might add, who are as wrong about complacency as they are about The Passion. I’d rant heartily about why He didn’t die “so that we could have a choice”, but I don’t want to let one silly protester ruin this incredibly important day in the Christian calendar.

Well over 100 people quietly marched outside the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's on Friday morning. (CBC )

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Andrea adds: Reading “He died so we can have a choice” actually made me grimace. However, I won’t let it ruin my day, since He died for my flaws, mistakes, sins–and hers too. And that’s good news.

Read about it, here:

My party’s suppression of debate is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Today I am saying sayonara to my Liberal membership.

It’s strange to see the Liberals try and capitalize off of abortion support. When did they get this extreme?

Lila Rose on being a woman in today’s culture:

We don’t wish to take the country back in time; rather, we aspire to move it forward, beyond a time when women are treated as objects and pitted against their children and their religious institutions — and toward a time when truly emancipated women embrace their intrinsic dignity and, with it, their authentic womanhood.

(h/t)

Just a quick little click of a button and you can make your voice heard: that the President of Planned Parenthood America should not be on TIME’s list of top 100 people for this year. But if she gets it, look at the bright side: At least they’re not inducting her into the Order of Canada.

I missed this two days ago but I’ll link to it now. It’s an article about how feminism has liberated men. Apparently, we’re not supposed to be concerned that some men lack ambition and sit around not doing much.

The Huffington Post is featuring a debate about whether or not a parliamentary committee should study when a fetus becomes human and has rights.

What’s interesting is the format. They ask you your beliefs up front, then you read and then you vote again at the end. They tally who has changed more people’s minds, as well as showing you the percentages of agreement and disagreement.

I thought it was a neat way to do things. You can check it out, here.

I do like to see Ezra vociferously defending Mary Wagner in this clip. (Mary Wagner is another pro-life activist who protests at clinics.) I think her punishment is way excessive and it’s based on a systemic anti-pro-life, anti-Christian bias. (“Your God’s wrong”? Who says that? Reminds me of that scene in Bruce Almighty when God (Morgan Freeman) reads back some of what Bruce (Jim Carrey) has said about God recently. A good scene. Hey! Here it is. YouTube has everything.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjAM2J_D4UY&feature=relmfu]

When you blog about life and work at a marriage institute and you’re childless and unmarried, uncharitable, callous and plain ole’ mean folks come out of the woodwork. I’ll reference here this blog post, pertaining to moi.

And then I’ll link to this story in Alberta, whereby a Redford staffer tweeted this about Danielle Smith:

If @ElectDanielle likes young and growing families so much, why doesn’t she have children of her own?  #wrp family pack = insincere

Look, I am practicing what I preach. I preach young women following their dreams/the calling on their lives, such that they might contribute to the world even as they are fulfilled. I simultaneously preach that not everyone needs to have a “cookie cutter” life, ie. married at the national average, two kids, a dog. Finally, I preach that some things are not a choice, aka, the great women’s “choice” to abort is one of the strangest, most extreme ideas ever foisted on women and society, compelling them to live cookie cutter lives that may actually run contrary to their callings.

Back to Danielle Smith: I think she need not have gone as far as she did in her response to this uncharitable tweet. She is doing a great and arduous task, contributing much. I happen to have met her when I lived in Alberta and she’s lovely. We don’t need to know why she does or does not have children. Full stop.

Natalie recently informed us she’d like to be like Charmaine Yoest when she grows up.

I would like to be like Mary Eberstadt, who I really don’t know, other than finding her writing to be smart. A great article in the Wall Street Journal about the Pill, religion, the sexual revolution and why this matters, here.