TORONTO, January 25, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a press release Friday Campaign Life Coalition, Canada (CLC) reminded Canadians that in the 1988 Morgentaler decision, the Supreme Court of Canada did not declare abortion a right. Rather, says CLC, “they threw out the existing law that required women to get permission from therapeutic abortion committees that all too often rubber stamped the approval for a doctor’s request to kill an unborn child.”
The Supreme Court urged Parliament to pass new abortion legislation. CLC comments, “Sadly, twenty years later, Canada still operates in a legal vacuum when it comes to abortion as Parliament has ignored its responsibility to pass another abortion law. Only one justice, Bertha Wilson, in a concurring opinion, declared abortion a right, but even she recognized that abortion could be regulated by Parliament.”
“There is a lot of misunderstanding about the Morgentaler decision,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, national organizer of Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). “Too many Canadians, including too many Canadian politicians are in the mistaken belief that abortion was declared a right. The Supreme Court struck down the existing abortion law on narrow grounds and never ruled that abortion was a woman’s right.”
CLC emphasizes that the January 28, 1988 decision is not the most important date in Canada’s abortion history. The National pro-life organization recognizes the passage of Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Omnibus Bill in 1969 as the birthdate, so to speak, of Canada’s permissiveness on abortion. “Since that date, May 14, 1969, 3.5 million babies have been killed,” said Douglas.
Campaign Life Coalition is calling on Parliament to enact legislation to once again recognize the humanity of ll children in their mothers’ wombs.