16 MLAs take part
Organizers are delighted with yesterday’s March for Life held yesterday in New Brunswick’s capital city, Fredericton. Some 450 people – the biggest crowd in the past 12 years of the event – took part.
“The crowd was bigger, more youthful and more upbeat than ever,” said NB Right to Life’s executive director Peter Ryan. Ryan says he is especially pleased that 16 of the 55 Members of the Legislative Assembly took part, including nine of the governing Conservatives and 7 Liberals. “It’s good for us to have the political respect. We are now looking for them to roll up their sleeves and work hard to protect the unborn and mothers.”
A new feature this year was the Mass for life held prior to the event. Two of the provinces four bishops concelebrated: Most Rev. Robert Harris of Saint John and Most Rev. Valery Vienneau of Bathurst. In his homily Bishop Harris said “God is love” and from that love comes the free gift of life beginning at conception. From that moment, he said, everyone has the right to life. Altogether at least 16 clergy of several denominations took part in the March.
The 2012 NB theme was “Pro-Woman, Pro-Child, Pro-Life.” Several women spoke and gave testimony.
Elisha Lakin and Lynn Bertin shared how their birth mothers chose life and adoption. Elisha, now 23, said her now deceased mother had great courage at the age of 17. “She had a pregnant belly in front of her teenage peers, she dealt with all the scrutiny of disapproving looks from others, the disapppointment of her parents, being pregnant without the man who fathered me to rely all. And she did all of that for me. She put a pause on her life so that I may live. She could have aborted me, she could have saved herself the trouble, but she didn’t. She was very brave, and she knew she was doing the right thing, not the easy thing.
“When one chooses abortion, they choose to say ‘no’ to someone just like me,” she said.
Pro-life musician-activist Kathleen Dunn, who has performed at the national March in Ottawa, sang and spoke. She sang a song recently composed by her band “Survived ’88″ (referring to Morgentaler court decision in favor of abortion).
Kathleen quoted one of heroes, Blessed Pierre Giorgio Frassati, who wrote: “To live without faith, without a patrimony to defend, without a steady struggle for truth – that is not living, but existing.” This quote, she said, “gives me the inspiration to continue fighting for the truth amidst temptations to ‘go with the crowd’ and to ‘not ruffle any feathers.’ Often people try to convince me that standing up for the truth is only offending people and I should keep my mouth shut. But what a load of lousiness is that? Have any of the greatest world-changers of history been people who have kept their mouths shut? NO. They are people who have proclaimed the cold hard truth, often straight to their deaths.”
Kathleen went on to state: “Abortion, which tears the woman from her motherhood in a most concrete way, goes completely against her nature to love, to receive, to nurture – all that it means to be “mother.” Through abortion, woman is forced to be at odds with herself, in every sense of her existence: her body, her soul, and her nature. Abortion opposes woman’s natural tendencies towards hospitality, compassion, tenderness and acceptance of the other. To be direct, abortion is one of the greatest enemies of women as it attacks the deepest treasures of her femininity.”
Following the rally at the Legislature, pro-lifers marched along city streets to the Mother and Child House next to Morgentaler abortuary, where a short prayer vigil was held. Later in the day roses were placed at the three main abortion sites in New Brunswick, in memory of some 1,000 New Brunswick babies aborted over the past year.
The March was co-sponsored by the NB Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Women’s League of NB.
