The task before us.

The National Post's May 5, 2007 front-page story, continued inside on pages 10 and 11, carried the title, in large letters, "How did abortion, that most contentious of issues, become one that is simply not discussed publicly?" Vertically woven through the title from left to right was "THE a WORD." The story appeared just a few days ahead of Campaign Life Coalition's annual rally, the National March for Life on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, in memory of May 14, 1969, when Trudeau's Liberals made the killing of the preborn legal.

The reference to public silence about abortion was in the context of Canada, not the United States, where, the reporter Anne-Marie Owens noted, in the previous few months three major news magazines--Time, Newsweek and the New York Times Magazine--had devoted cover stories to aspects of abortion. In Canada, only the Canadian Medical Association's Journal recently touched off a controversy in its pages, but its readership is largely comprised of insiders.

Despite colourful maps, graphs, and polls, the Post article shed no light on the question it asked in the title, other than to confirm that a majority of Canadians enjoy their hedonistic society in which the killing of over 110,000 pre-birth babies a year does not impinge upon the communal conscience. Even the Canadian Medical Association professionals, despite the many advances in science confirming the fetus to be truly human, have not budged from their pro-death position. Like the run-of-the-mill pro-choice feminists, they simply will not face the intellectual question of the nature of human life.

Still, there may be some hitches in the further advance of abortion. The National Post article mentioned a couple. The number of doctors, and therefore hospitals, willing to commit abortions continues to shrink. Today, only 16% of Canadian hospitals have gynecologists willing to kill. That is why Henry Morgentaler is anxious to get the law changed so that any medical person will be allowed to do them, as was proposed 18 years ago by then Justice Minister Kim Campbell in the 1990 so-called compromise bill, fortunately defeated by a stalemate in the Senate in January 1991.

The declining number of doctors involved in abortion has also elicited a warning from the CMA "ethics" officer, Dr. Blackmer, that a further decrease "could prompt some sort of change" in the CMA stand.

Presumably it would be in favour of more pressure on doctors to commit more abortions; but that may easily backfire.

Another problem for the pro-death faction is that underneath the outward calm there is a deeply divided nation, no matter with how much indifference the media attempt to smother 'pro-lifers.' Indeed, there is growing opposition to unrestrained abortion. One-third of Canadians reject abortion outright; another third opposes its current unrestricted nature. This Mr. Stephen Harper better keep in mind when he does his political calculations: two-thirds of Canadians do not approve of the current situation.

Far more important than the above is the coming collapse of the entire feminist-secularist philosophy after, or perhaps, just before its immense brutality will have brought the country to its knees--economically, socially, culturally and, perhaps too, politically. A rapidly aging Canada, in fact, a dying Canada as we pointed out in our May edition (pp. 11-14), will face shortages of workers in all areas, and workers moreover who will fiercely resent having to carry huge financial burdens for the ever expanding group of retirees.

As for why abortion is not discussed publicly, Catholics--who still comprise 40 percent of Canadians--may well ask themselves whether they have contributed to this silence. In Quebec, the clergy simply suspended any mention of family moral questions with the start of the Quiet Revolution in 1960, except to contradict the Holy See every so often. Only the arrival of Cardinal Marc Ouellet in 2002 is beginning to make a difference there.

In English-speaking Canada, hierarchy and clergy opted out after the 'birth-control' encyclical of 1968, diverting all attention and efforts to economic justice and assistance for causes overseas, despite frequent cries of distress about abortion from the Popes. Only the same-sex 'marriage' issue began to break the log jam of silence.

The future, then, looks better than the past. The breakthrough of the ADQ party in Quebec could well indicate a more robust confrontation with the hedonists there. That is what is needed throughout Canada. People must speak up, tell their MPs and their provincial counterparts what is needed, write letters to editors, get organized for justice, freedom of speech, traditional families, and the defence of truth.

FATHER

ALPHONSE DE VALK, C.S.B.

EDITOR