“These are two tangible, visible steps that we are moving toward a culture of life in Canada,” said Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson on Parliament Hill.

He cited studies that show 64 per cent of women were pressured into having abortions and 83 per cent regretted having one.

“There are no winners in abortion, there are only dead children and wounded men and women,” he said.

But the legal vacuum that provides no protection for the unborn child up until birth led to a call for justice and courage from Quebec Cardinal Marc Ouellet.

“We support this stance of the government not to finance abortion in countries of the Third World,” said Ouellet. “But we would like some more courage to do something more in Canada on behalf of the unborn. The battle for life, the right for life, this battle is a spiritual battle so we pray. It is also a cultural battle and it is a juridical battle, so that’s why we come together and we ask for justice.”

The raging debate over abortion in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promised Canadian-led G8 initiative made the mainstream news media take notice of the usually ignored March for Life, with coverage landing it on the front pages of some newspapers. Last year, one report described numbers in the hundreds, even though it attracted some 12,000 marchers.

The three-day event began with a pro-life Mass May 12 celebrated by Archbishop Pedro Lopez Quintana, Canada’s new apostolic nuncio, followed by a candlelight vigil that drew 500 people. There were midday speeches on Parliament Hill and the march through the downtown streets. In the evening, pro-life activist Lila Rose, who went undercover to expose Planned Parenthood’s complicity in covering up statutory rape of underage girls seeking abortions, addressed the annual Rose Dinner.

For the first time, the Rose Dinner included a separate youth banquet that drew about 800 young people to hear abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, who spoke of the trauma of finding out from her adoptive parents that her mother had tried to kill her in the womb.