Losing Our Way

In the last couple of weeks there have been two news stories, not widely reported, that have struck me because of what they say about us as a culture. Since the days of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Canada has not had an abortion law, meaning that it is legal to kill a child in the womb up until the moment the baby emerges live from its mother's womb. Of course this scenario doesn't happen often, but the fact that it can happen at all is a sad commentary that respect for human life doesn't rank very high on our list of priorities.

I'm speaking to this today because I think that we, as a culture, have become so apathetic that we no longer care to speak up in the face of outrageous legislative and judicial decisions. If the unborn could speak, I wonder if they would echo the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.: “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

I believe that much of the reason that many remain silent, in spite of the fact that study after study shows that a majority of Canadians want at least some protection of the unborn, (see example)is a combination of a strident pro-abortion minority and a cowardly parliament. Every election we hear the worn out refrain that "the abortion issue is settled" and "Canadians aren't interested in re-opening the debate." The truth is stifled and our unborn children continue to die at the rate of 100,000+ each year (roughly the population of the city of Guelph every year). The articles I'm linking to below are indicative of the cultural malaise into which we have stumbled.

The first article I want to draw your attention to is by Patrick Craine which reveals that Canada is providing maternity benefits to women who choose to have an abortion. For a woman who waits until her child is at 19 weeks gestation she will receive the full 17 weeks coverage that a mother who allows her child to live will receive. This in spite of the fact that the benefit was designed to enable a mother to stay at home and care for her child. Canadians then, are not only required to pay for a woman to abort her child, we are also then required to pay so that she can sit at home for 3 and a half months. Read the full article here.

The second article is by far more disturbing because it actually moves the line of tolerance from abortion to infanticide. In this story, again by Patrick Craine, we read of an Edmonton woman who was found guilty of strangling her newborn baby. When it came to sentencing, Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench decided that no jail time was necessary and that justice would be served by giving a 3 year suspended sentence. In other words, for murdering her own child, this woman would spend no time in jail.

The judge's decision was based on the fact that Canada does not have an abortion law and, therefore, has more concern for the mother than the child. The horrible reality is that, in this judge's mind, the life of this child did not matter. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." If this is true, I fear for our country. Read the full article here.

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