News

TORONTO, Ontario, May 27, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Ontario’s Knights of Columbus are joining Knights from across Canada in an effort to bring forward a bill in Parliament that would enshrine full protections for children in the womb.

At their 108th Ontario State Convention in Toronto on May 22nd, the Ontario Knights unanimously passed a resolution “to work with a Member of Parliament to introduce a Parliamentary Bill seeking the restoration of full legal protection for the lives of the unborn.”

“We were very pleased in Ontario to support this,” said Ontario state deputy Arthur Peters.  “As Knights of Columbus we stand for the values of pro-life and protecting the rights of the unborn and this obviously speaks to that.”

Peters told LifeSiteNews that the resolution came from the Knights of Columbus’ state council in British Columbia, who passed it last year and then asked the other state councils to join them.  He said the Knights from across Canada will be discussing the resolution and how they’ll proceed in implementing it at their national meeting in a few weeks.

A bill seeking full legal protection would mark a clear shift in approach for Canada’s pro-life MPs who in recent years have tended to favour only incremental approaches, such as last year’s attempt to ban abortion coercion.

Jim Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, the political arm of Canada’s pro-life movement, praised the Knights on their initiative.  “The ultimate goal is the abolition of abortion totally,” he said.  “Anything that can be done to raise the issue and keep it alive and keep people thinking about it, all those things are important.”

“The incremental steps that could be taken are fine strategies too, and as long as [these steps] don’t compromise basic life principles, then we’d be all for it,” he added.

The Knights of Columbus have been fierce supporters of the right to life throughout their history, most visibly in Canada at the National March for Life where dozens lead the way in full regalia.

In a 2009 resolution, the Ontario Knights threw their full support behind the National March, pledging to encourage subsidization of local and high school bus trips throughout Ontario.  They resolved further to make it a priority in February each year “to press councils throughout Ontario to partner with their area parishes on this issue.”

“We must spill over into the streets of Ottawa with not 8,000 but 80,000,” the resolution stated.