The Real Fascists
By Joanne Byfield

Last week, Saskatchewan Conservative MP Maurice Vellacott was a guest on a talk radio show in Waterloo, Ontario hosted Wayne McLean. Mr. Vellacott is co-chairman of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus and was talking about the MasterCard issue and LifeCanada.

Mr. McLean described pro-life people as “fascists” and religious zealots who don’t let pro-choice people have their say. Apparently we drown them out.

I guess he missed the news about last week’s awarding of an honorary degree to Henry Morgentaler, Canada’s premier abortionist. Despite protests by thousands of Canadians—including staff, students, alumni and others with no direct connection to the University of Western Ontario (just down the road from Waterloo)—the award ceremony went ahead.

He probably isn’t aware either of the draconian laws in almost every jurisdiction where there is a private abortion clinic. The laws prevent any kind of peaceful protest or silent prayer vigil near an abortion clinic. I don’t mean that people get ticketed or asked to leave. No, in most of these areas including Edmonton and Calgary, violators are immediately arrested, taken to court and often jailed. (Several people in the past few months have been jailed for protests outside the Morgentaler Clinic in Edmonton.) The media don’t even cover these arrests.

He’s probably ignorant too of the fact that Health Canada funds pro-abortion lobbyists like Planned Parenthood (PP) and the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League (CARAL) to provide women with biased information about women’s reproductive health on the Canadian Health Network and the Health Portal. If you are looking for help for a crisis pregnancy, these groups, funded by the federal government, will direct you to abortion-friendly clinics. They do not list any crisis pregnancy centres or Birthright clinics that will help women to complete the pregnancy without pressuring them to end the life developing in the womb.

Perhaps he’s unaware that there is no political party represented in the House of Commons that opposes Canada’s current position on abortion—abortion is legal up to the moment of birth for any reason at all. Almost all of the over 105,000 annual abortions are paid for by taxpayers and almost 40% of them are repeats.

He likely has not paid any attention to the current media obsession with Christians being nominated as candidates in the upcoming (or is it ongoing?) federal election. The concern seems to be that Christians who support traditional marriage and oppose tax-funded abortion on demand have no place in the political system. You must be a pro-gay marriage and pro-abortion Christian if you want to hold elected office or even participate in the debate.

Mr. McLean also must have missed the whole discussion about churches and charitable tax numbers. If a traditional Christian church—in favour of natural marriage and pro-life—expresses Church teachings to its members, it can, and some have already been, threatened with losing the tax-exempt status.

My Oxford dictionary defines fascism as “the totalitarian principles and organization of an extreme right-wing nationalist movement.” Totalitarian principles involve “complete subservience to the state.”

Now, let’s re-examine which side of this discussion is “fascist” and totalitarian. Mr. McLean, no doubt likes to call anyone he considers “right-wing” as fascist. Being right of centre is not what characterizes fascist regimes. It is the totalitarian and authoritarian nature of these dictatorships. They suppress opinions that don’t conform to the state-sanctioned ones and oppress and persecute those who hold them.

Now, Mr. McLean’s side is supported and funded by the federal government (and usually provincial and often municipal ones too), advanced and promoted by most of the media in Canada, particularly the CBC and the Globe and Mail, and touted by the political, cultural and educational elites in this country.

The pro-life side, on the other hand, is reviled, ignored, censored and in some cases jailed for upholding the inherent right to life included in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We do not subscribe to the state view that innocent human life is expendable and disposable. We do not buckle to threats from the state and its collaborators in the media and other cultural institutions. We will not succumb. We are the resistance movement.

I think that defiant Rock for Life T-shirt says it best: “You will not silence my message. You will not mock my God. You will stop killing my generation.”

No, Mr. McLean, we do not support state-sanctioned killing, whether it be of unborn babies, disabled children or helpless and dependent older people. Do you?

Joanne Byfield is the President of LifeCanada. This article first appeared in the June 20, 2005 edition of 'Around the Coffee Table with Joanne Byfield' on the Alberta Pro-Life website: www.albertaprolife.com