By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

VANCOUVER, March 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a talk given to North Shore Pro-Life, the outspokenly orthodox and strongly pro-life and pro-family archbishop of Vancouver, The Most Reverend J. Michael Miller, said that the Canadian pro-life movement must continue to lobby the government for legislation to protect the right to life of the unborn.

“The pro-life movement, therefore, if it is to be effective, cannot abandon its efforts to foster legislation which will curtail and eventually eliminate attacks on innocent human life,” the Archbishop said in the context of a talk given on the renewal of society in the face of the “dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the `culture of death’ and the `culture of life’.”

Noting the “legal void” created by the Supreme Court’s infamous 1988 Morgentaler decision, which left Canada with no legal restrictions on taking the life of an unborn child, Archbishop Miller said, “I am convinced that Canadian criminal law should acknowledge, defend, and promote the authentic moral values which can be known from reason; that is, it should mirror the natural moral law hardwired into our very humanity. Indeed, Parliament should enact legislation that would ensure respect the right to life of every innocent human being.

“We cannot forget that government is the guardian of our inalienable human rights. It has no power to modify or abolish them, and when it arrogates to itself the right to countenance the disposal of the life of the weakest and most defenceless members, it fails in its fundamental obligations.”

The Archbishop concluded that though this will be “a long and arduous path,” the pro-life movement cannot give up the fight.

“Our goal is, simply stated: we seek a Canada in which every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. Legal reform – which we must work to foster through the political processes we are fortunate to enjoy in a democracy – and a spiritual/cultural renewal must both take place if Canada is to experience a new birth of freedom ordered to goodness.”

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Link to full text of Archbishop Miller’s talk in the B.C. Catholic: http://bcc.rcav.org/09-03-23/editorial.htm