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OTTAWA, Ontario, May 22, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Catholic Organization for Life and Family (COLF) is calling on Canadians to get active in building a culture of life with the release of a new brochure on abortion.

The organization, which was co-founded by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus, begins by making the case that life begins at conception, then details the harm that abortion does to unborn children, women, and society.

They address the legal situation in Canada, tackle the myth that abortion is a “woman’s right and private choice,” and explain the Church’s teaching that abortion is “always a grave moral evil” even in “difficult cases” like rape or incest.

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“When considering these ‘difficult cases’, many fail to remember that the child conceived is a victim along with his or her mother,” they write.

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In discussing what abortion is, COLF highlights the little known fact that the morning-after pill, also known as “emergency contraception,” can act as an abortifacient. “What is less well known is the fact that birth control pills and IUDs can work the same way,” they add.

They also go through the different methods of surgical abortion, including suction aspiration, dilation and evacuation (D&E), and partial-birth abortion.

Throughout the document, COLF is clear that abortion is the fruit of our culture’s general decline in sexual morality.

Abortion is the result of a culture where “sexual intercourse is regarded as little more than a recreational activity that has little or nothing to do with babies,” they explain. “In such a climate, an unplanned pregnancy tends to be treated by a woman and by couples like a ‘mistake’ or an illness.”

They quote Bl. John Paul II’s teaching in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae on the intrinsic connection between abortion and contraception. “Despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree,” the late Pope wrote.

“When contraception fails, abortion is the logical antidote – an antidote promoted across the world by the very influential International Planned Parenthood Federation and its affiliate national members,” writes COLF.

In another section, they emphasize that legal abortion puts the responsibility of parenthood “disproportionately onto women” while at the same time doing grave damage to women’s emotional and physical health.

“When and where abortion is legally available, women alone can deliberately accept responsibility for the continuance of their pregnancies and, by logical extension, for the care and upbringing of their children,” they explain.

In concluding, COLF calls on Catholics to get active in building a culture of life in Canada. “The status quo is intolerable. As a civilized country, Canada is in need of legislative reform and of great cultural renewal,” they write.

“Many people of good will feel powerless before this huge challenge. But we can all contribute to the solution, first of all by praying and fasting,” they continue. “We can also ask ourselves if our own attitudes and way of life help to create a culture of life, remembering that permissive attitudes toward abortion are inevitable where and when human sexuality is trivialized.”

“Only when we grasp the truth that our bodies are more than mere instruments of pleasure – that they are instruments of God’s love – will the scourge of abortion end.”

Find the COLF document here:

The Unborn Child: A Gift, A Treasure, A Promise: A Reflection on Abortion