Riding in the Dark
by Rod Taylor [Republished with permission from CHP Skeena-Bulkley Valley]
Every year we lose a riding in Canada. That is, we lose every person in the riding. That is, we lose the population equivalent of one federal riding. I refer, of course, to the more than 100,000 innocents killed each year by abortion. The Skeena-Bulkley Valley Riding, showed a population of 99,474 souls in 2004. That is, the combined populations of Smithers, Telkwa, Terrace, the Hazeltons, Kitimat, Prince Rupert, the Queen Charlotte Islands, Moricetown, Dease Lake, Telegraph Creek, Atlin, Gitseguecla, Lower Post, Fort St. James, Houston, Burns Lake, New Aiyansh, Port Edward, Bella Bella, Bella Coola, Lachkaltsap, Iskut, Gitanyow, Quick and all the smaller communities add up to less than the number of babies we allow to be killed in Canada each year.
The population of this great region of Northwestern BC is lower than the death toll extracted and destroyed by Canadian doctors otherwise considered to be professional healers and preservers of life.
What kind of impact would it have on you and how alarmed would the media reporters be if the Skeena-Bulkley Valley Riding suddenly were hit by a massive plague, a fire, a flood, an earthquake or other calamity of such magnitude that every resident was destroyed? It would dwarf the 12,000 who perished in France’s heat wave, it would make the thousands, who perished this year in Iraq seem like isolated losses. The fact is, we still have not grasped the dimensions of the self-mutilation taking place in Canada today. Because we do not see the faces every night on TV, we ignore the carnage and talk antiseptically of “Choice”.
Let’s pause for a moment in our frantic flight from truth. Let’s turn and face the reality of our “Choice”. We have the equivalent of a federal electoral riding whose constituents have NO CHOICE and NO VOICE. We have allowed the courts to enfranchise convicted criminals with the right to vote, but these poor innocents—murdered in the dark, before they have seen the light of day—are denied the recognition of their personhood. They receive no birth certificate and no death certificate. They have no vote today, nor will they have one tomorrow. When Parliament sits, there is no MP whose party has taken up their cause, no MP whose party will speak for them.
Therefore I refer to these 100,000 souls as constituents of a “Riding in the Dark”. For them the sun never rises when Parliament sits. And next year another 100,000 will be sent to the Guillotine. We Christians marvel at the passivity of the French crowds who, in the days after the storming of the Bastille, watched and tolerated the cruel Guillotine. We shake our heads at the blindness of the crowds who watched as our Lord was crucified. We click our tongues at the German citizens who allowed Hitler to dominate and destroy his own people. But we have been too quick to judge those people, for whom resistance meant death. Here in Canada, we still have the right to vote. We still have the right to speak to our neighbour and the right to lobby for change. Are we doing all we can?
In Skeena-Bulkley Valley, we have the right to elect a Member of Parliament who will take up the banner for these little ones. Since they have no vote themselves, let us vote for them. Since they have no voice themselves, let us be their voice for change. Let us adopt our little brothers and sisters and become their protectors. Let us give them hope. Let us become a light for them. Skeena-Bulkley Valley could become the first federal riding whose constituents would humble themselves before God and stand up for those who have no representative. Let’s empower our MP in Ottawa to also represent this Riding in the Dark.
