For the past 20 years groups like these throughout Canada and abroad have participated in Life Chain, a pro-life campaign started in the United States.

“Our movement is strong and thriving,” said volunteer Sean Irwin, a third-year

English student from the University of Calgary, visiting Toronto the same weekend for the National Campus Life Network pro-life symposium. It “allows people to know not everyone agrees with the norm.”

{sidebar id=1} Life Chain participants try to raise awareness among Canadians that abortion needs to be restricted. Currently abortion is permitted within the entire nine months of pregnancy. There are no laws safeguarding the practice, nor any time restrictions on when it can be done.

The protest is public and the message is clear. Participants held up signs that read: “Adoption: the loving option,” “Abortion kills children” and “Abortion hurts women.” They are thought -provoking and at times inspire dialogue between passersby and pro-life activists.

Participants are encouraged to reflect on the situation and pray quietly. Life Chain is a time of quiet contemplation and witness by example rather than conversation.

“The silence is conducive for praying for the unborn,” said Cristobal Kauffman, a classics student at the University of Toronto. She added it is often enough that the participants are seen on the streets and it is not what they say, but how they behave that can plant seeds of doubt in peoples’ minds about the abortion.

“We will stand here if the number was 400 (abortions) or 4,000 as it is daily in the U.S.,” said Sr. Monica Faustina Pollard, S.V., one of three newly stationed Sisters of Life in the archdiocese of Toronto. “As Mother Teresa said, ‛even one abortion is one too many.’ ”

(Lau, 19, studies history at the University of Toronto.)