Ottawa, Canada, May 9, 2019 / 15:00 pm
Pro-life campaigners from across Canada gathered on Ottawa's Parliament Hill Thursday for the country's annual National March for Life. Carrying a variety of handmade and pre-printed signs in a variety of languages, pro-life advocates, school groups, families, and clergy turned out to mark the fiftieth year of legal abortion in the country.
Police declined to give a formal estimate of the crowd, but participants told CNA that thousands of marchers were in attendence.
Addressing the crowd at a pre-march rally, Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto referenced the changing nature of the pro-life movement in Canada as new laws have been passed over five decades.
Pointing to the spreading practice of euthanasia across the country, the cardinal said that it was paramount that "people recognize the reality, the profound preciousness of the gift of life from the first moment of conception until natural death."