OTTAWA, May 17, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — With Canada’s federal election just five months away, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is stoking the abortion issue, demanding that Conservative leader Andrew Scheer voice support for it after a dozen members of his caucus attended the National March for Life in Ottawa last week.
Minister for Women and Gender Equality Maryam Monsef tweeted Thursday that she sent a letter to the 12 Tory M.P.s berating them for attending an “anti-choice” rally and calleding on Scheer “to reaffirm women’s reproductive rights.”
Yesterday I sent the following letter to Conservative MPs who attended the March for Life anti-choice rally last week. I'm calling on Andrew Scheer to reaffirm women's reproductive rights. Our government will always #StandForChoice. #Cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/NxHOTsMet1
— Maryam Monsef (@MaryamMonsef) May 16, 2019
Trudeau likewise decried “conservatives” in a press conference in France while denouncing a recent Alabama law banning abortion as “backsliding on women’s rights,” the CBC reported.
“It’s a shame that we increasingly see conservative governments and conservative politicians taking away rights that have been hard-fought over many, many years by generations of women and male allies,” he said.
The Liberal Party also sent out a fundraising letter Thursday describing the presence of Conservative M.P.s at the March for Life as “alarming,” reported the CBC.
“While some Conservative MPs are trying to reopen that debate by speaking at anti-choice events, screening anti-choice films, or empowering conservative politicians who ‘pledge to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime,’ Liberals know that women in Canada have the right to make their own health decisions,” stated the fundraiser.
Scheer’s response so far has been to slam Trudeau on Twitter for “hypocrisy” and reiterate that he won’t open the abortion debate.
Complete hypocrisy from Trudeau. On a day when he vows to stop misinformation, his party tells lies. I have been clear. A Conservative government will not re-open this debate. https://t.co/ldGzMnw1Qa
— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) May 16, 2019
Monsef, 33, tweeted in response: “Facts matter, and the fact is your caucus members don’t agree with you. So answer this — if a member in your party brings forward a bill to restrict women’s right to choose, how will you direct your party to vote?”
She rebuked the 12 M.P.s in a letter that echoed the Liberal fundraiser for their “unacceptable” behaviour of “attending anti-choice rallies, sponsoring screenings for anti-choice films, or by empowering conservative politicians who pledge ‘to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime’.”
The last appears to be a reference to 21-year-old Ontario MPP Sam Oosterhoff, who told the May 9 Toronto March for Life rally he and his contemporaries “pledge to fight to make abortion unthinkable in our lifetime.”
Such behaviour demonstrates the Conservative Party of Canada’s “willingness to re-open this debate and roll back women’s rights and autonomy,” Monsef contended.
Her letter underscored the Liberal government’s abortion advocacy under Trudeau, Canada’s most pro-abortion prime minister to date.
“[W]e have taken action to ensure that safe and legal abortion services are available to all Canadian women, including by repealing the outdated section criminalizing abortion in the Criminal Code, investing in groups like Planned Parenthood, and increasing access to Plan B and Mifegymiso across the country,” she wrote.
Monsef also attacked Campaign Life Coalition, which organizes the National March for Life and which just launched its voteprolife.ca website, dedicated to assessing candidates running in the October 21 election.
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Anti-choice group @CampaignLife Coalition is actively working to take away women’s rights here in ����, and they are doing so with help from @AndrewScheer’s Conservative MPs who attended their rally on Parliament Hill last week. Let’s see how the CLC rates them:— Maryam Monsef (@MaryamMonsef) May 16, 2019
Monsef followed this with a barrage of tweets slamming each of the Tory M.P.s — David Anderson, Harold Albrecht, Ted Falk, Rachel Harder, Dane Lloyd, Glen Motz, Phil McColeman, Bev Shipley, Kevin Sorenson, Brad Trost, Arnold Viersen, and Dave Van Kesteren — as endorsed by Campaign Life Coalition and therefore “anti-choice” and “anti-women.”
But Monsef and the Liberals “overlook the fact that the law dictates what women, and people in general, can and cannot do with their own bodies all the time, especially when such decisions do harm to another human being, as is unarguably the case with abortion,” says Campaign Life Coalition president Jeff Gunnarson.
He sees Monsef’s letter as a call to action.
“I would like to thank MP Maryam Monsef for reminding voters what the Liberal Party has done to push abortion overseas and within Canada, and exactly how much they detest pro-lifers,” Gunnarson said.
“Let her comments be a motivation for all Canadian pro-lifers to volunteer for nearby pro-life candidates this upcoming general election, and a reminder that it is never permissible to vote for a candidate who supports a human rights injustice like abortion,” he told LifeSiteNews.
As for Scheer, Campaign Life’s voteprolife.ca gives him a “C” rating.
But Gunnarson hopes the Conservative leader may yet use the Liberals’ “persecution” of pro-life M.P.s as an opportunity “to reaffirm that every human being deserves human rights,” he said.
“The reality is the abortion debate is already open, and Scheer should welcome that, and not permit himself or any of his caucus members to be bullied by the Liberals,” he said.
Gunnarson urged pro-lifers to get involved and help pro-life candidates get elected to Canada’s Parliament October 21, and to check voteprolife.ca for updates.