Pro-Life Demonstration Set to Take Place Across Canada This Weekend

Participants hold signs at the 2024 Life Chain demonstration in Pickering on Oct. 6, 2024. Campaign Life Coalition

Gatherings are planned in more than 300 locations across the country on Oct. 5 in support of an annual pro-life event that advocates for legal and cultural change to protect human life at all stages.

This year marks the 35th annual Life Chain demonstration in Canada, which is organized by Campaign Life Coalition (CLC), a pro-life non-profit organization that advocates for the protection of human life from the time of conception to natural death.

The event involves “an annual hour of prayer and peaceful public witness for the preborn,” CLC communications director Pete Baklinski told The Epoch Times on Oct. 2. In more than 300 locations across Canada, participants will line busy streets and intersections from 2 to 3 p.m. in most locations, and hold signs with messages such as “Abortion Kills Children,” “Abortion Hurts Women,” and “Adoption: A Loving Option,” Baklinski said.

The Life Chain demonstration began in the United States in 1987, and CLC brought the event to Canada in 1991. Baklinski says hundreds of thousands of Christians participate in the event each year.

Baklinski says he attends the event each year with his family as it allows him to teach his children about the value of human life and human rights.

“This is one way to teach my children about the value of human life and that human rights are for everyone and need to be stood up for and defended—especially for the weak and vulnerable,” Baklinski said in a statement. “I teach my children that there is no one more weak and vulnerable than the child in the womb.”

CLC Director of Education and Advocacy Josie Luetke says spreading awareness locally at least once per year is “the least we can do until we finally see an end to abortion.”“Why do we return year after year? Why should we stand quietly on the sidewalk, reminding our neighbours that a great injustice is taking place against the smallest and most vulnerable members of the human family?” Luetke, who is also a member of the Life Chain Canada committee, said in an Oct. 2 statement. “Because we cannot sit back and remain idle in the face of it.”

“Our culture is crying out for modern-day prophets who will courageously share the truth and call for a conversion of heart.”

Baklinski also noted that the Life Chain event is important because it raises awareness that debate about abortion is still an ongoing issue. He says the debate “will not end until every child in the womb is granted the same legal protection as everyone else—including the fundamental right to life.”

Additionally, Baklinski says Life Chain raises awareness about the number of preborn children that have been lost to abortion in Canada. He said nearly 5 million have been lost since abortion became legal in 1969, which equates to around 300 per day.

“This is a national crisis and a profound injustice,” Baklinski said. “By standing peacefully in public with signs and in prayer, we help awaken the conscience of the community to the reality of abortion and call people to action. That is why Life Chain is so important—it challenges indifference and reminds society of the value of every human life.”