These BC Liberal Politicians Attended an Anti-Abortion Rally

In the same week that Alberta’s United Conservative Party voted in favour of a motion that would make it more difficult for young people to access abortions, two BC Liberal politicians showed their support for anti-abortion causes on the steps of the Victoria legislature.

Former deputy premier and MLA for Langley East Rich Coleman attended a rainy “March for Life” rally on Thursday with Hope-Chilliwack MLA Laurie Throness.

“I’m pro-life because it’s a matter of faith and natural law, that life is sacred from conception until natural death,” Throness told a crowd of about 100 people. “I’m pro-life because there’s no more positive position, no more loving perspective than the pro-life perspective.”

Throness was followed by event organizer Alissa Golob, who somehow tried to position limits on abortion access as a feminist cause.

“Women in this country have been fed a lie for over a generation now,” she said. “We’ve been told that in order to be equal to men, we must somehow become more like men. And the only way to become more like men is through abortion. We’ve been told the only way to achieve true equality is to abort our children.”

One can be forgiven for thinking the abortion debate was settled in Canada back in the 1980s, when a landmark court case found a woman’s right to access safe and legal abortion is protected under the constitution. It seems Alberta politicians, who also walked out of a vote to increase the size of “safe zones” around abortion clinics on Wednesday, weren’t the only ones to miss this memo.

With Alberta’s Conservative leader and former pro-life campaigner Jason Kenney even declaring he won’t touch anti-abortion causes, it’s not clear what these two powerful men elected in one of Canada’s most progressive provinces were hoping to achieve. Earlier this year British Columbia became the latest province to cover the abortion pill at no cost.

Throness has a history of getting behind socially conservative causes. When the BC Liberal leadership race was announced last year, he released a list of 65 policy priorities that included a call for the full participation of “people of good conscience who may disagree with changing sexual mores and concepts of gender.”

Throness has attended rallies opposing more trans-inclusive teacher resources, and has thrown his support behind a school trustee who is the subject of two human rights tribunal complaints because of his anti-LGBTQ stance.

Follow Sarah on Twitter.

Sign up for the VICE Canada Newsletter to get the best of VICE Canada delivered to your inbox daily.