Some photos from the rally on Parliament Hill yesterday.
If only the whole “pro-choice” movement were this lacking in communications training. “I hate life”? The flip side of that sign said “I love condoms.”
“Pro-life is anti-woman.” Let’s talk about that.
Media camera man who filmed the pro-abortion crew and then patted them on the back, literally, and thanked them for being there. NB: Individual members of the media have a lot of power just based on the footage they choose to film. Or not film. (I don’t begrudge him his bias, I’m just saying we ought to be aware of it and oftentimes pro-choice media are the ones claiming they make up a neutral middle ground.)
Some pro-life high school students from Keswick. I asked them if they had been forced to come or if they were only there for the day off. Apparently not.
A pro-lifer from Toronto. Yes, there are pro-lifers in Toronto.
Ruth Lobo on the right, and other reps of Carleton University.
Faye Sonier, lawyer with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, gives an amazing speech. Video footage still to come.
by 
I was on the hill and it was definitely bigger than last year, when the crowd was around twelve thousand. But the CBC keeps saying there were “just under five thousand” people marching. They claim this is the number they got from the police. Does anybody know the real numbers?
hey i stumbled on this site looking for some pictures of the rally. i’m pro-choice and i respectfully disagree with your position. i think – as with many current issues – the moral and intellectual discussion over abortion has deteriorated into some very entrenched positions and a lot of vitriolic name calling.
i just wanted to comment on some of your language above.
i agree – ‘i hate life’ is a terrible sign. particularly because so much of the pro-choice movement is made up of highly compassionate people, deeply committed to rights and justice – as i know many pro-lifers are, though i disagree with their approach. i assume the sign is supposed to be ironic – just as is the fact that anti-abortion activists have co-opted the word ‘life’ as if somehow they hold a monopoly on respecting and protecting it. i am student of human rights and a consider myself passionate defender of the good, as best i can. this translates into a ‘pro-life’ position which includes opposition to war and child soldiers, commitment to understanding famine, to trying to deal with global malnutrition and disease (diarrhoea kills 1.5 million children a year) and to access to appropriate reproductive services. i do resent the fact thst anti-abortion activists have co-opted the word ‘life’ – implying that pro-choice is pro-death. this is not a reasonable or appropriate inference.
to say that pro-choice folks are ‘pro-abortion’ as you do, is blatantly a lie. literally no one is ‘pro-abortion’ and to use the term you are knowingly committing slander. we all understand that abortion is NOT a desirable or welcome thing. it is not an easy or trivial choice. but when abortions are a medical necessity, they absolutely save mothers’ lives. (how can a ‘pro-life’ person oppose that?) and we know that they will not cease to happen if you make them illegal. they will only become unsafe. access to abortion services is absolutely necessary to a free society. it may be easy to disagree from the position of first-world white women (as i also am) – but women in communist Romania would likely disagree. as would war-rape victims, or the sick and destitute all over the world.
its essential not to take a position blinded by radicalism or ideology. i’m pro-choice. i believe that late-term abortions should not occur except out of medical necessity. i believe that we should be more open in the teaching and understanding of the consequences of abortions (not via manipulative and violent images of dismembered babies, but a mature discussion of the potential side effects, emotional and physical) and much much more commitment to sexual education. i don’t know what your affiliation might be, but the hyper-religious contingent of the pro-life movement cannot have it both ways. you cannot deny access to responsible means of preventing abortion (birth control) and then rail against it.
sorry to have taken so much space. i know that this is a highly emotional issue for both sides – but i truly think that we need to have more dialogue and less diatribe on both sides. perhaps you disagree with what i’ve said and that is fine. but as people who have taken sides in this debate, i do think we have a responsibility to engage in dialogue to better understand each others, and our own, positions.
Britt,
Thanks for your comments. Perhaps it would be helpful if you could articulate why you think “… abortion is NOT a desirable or welcome thing.” What, exactly, is wrong with abortion?
You seem to be arguing for “medically necessary” abortions, and in cases of rape. But those cases do not justify abortion on demand for any reason, which is what we have now in Canada. However, further down you speak of birth control as a means of “preventing abortion” and this suggests that you are well aware that most abortions in this country are done because a child is not wanted.
Britt
Thank you for a reasoned post, instead of the vitriol that is often written.
I wanted to make a comment on something you wrote – an issue that was stated repeatedly by others last year when G8 initiatives were in the news. You state, “they will not cease to happen if you make them illegal. they will only become unsafe.” The pro-abortion side says this often, but illegal is not the same as unsafe. Otherwise – the entire time Morgentaler was performing illegal abortions in Canada, they were unsafe!! Did he suddenly became a more competent or safer doctor when abortions became legal????
In many countries where abortions are illegal, they are being performed by trained medical doctors. Like Morgentaler for oh-so-many years here in Canada. It is misleading to automatically equate illegal with unsafe, since it is often trained medical personnel who are flouting the law and performing the illegal abortions. We awarded the Order of Canada to one of them.
Just saying……
Please visit this blog to see if the numbers were 5000 or 15000.
http://nationalmarch4life.blogspot.com/
Thank you for your time
Hi there,
I just stumbled on this site while surfing the Net.
You guys might be interested in this article: http://alexanderboot.com/content/abortion-law-ass-apologies-donkeys
It explains in detail an interesting concept about whether abortion is homicide or not. I strongly recommend it for both pro-choicers and pro-lifers.
Take care!