'Protection at Conception' is theme for 2025 National March for Life in Canada

TORONTO (OSV News) -- The Campaign Life Coalition has chosen "Protection at Conception" as the theme for the 2025 National March for Life in Canada.

According to the coalition, the nation's leading pro-life and pro-family organization, pro-lifers will rally in front of Parliament and march through downtown Ottawa, Ontario, on May 8 "demanding that elected representatives fight for the right to life of every human being from conception to natural death."

The promotional press release for the march cites a 2021 survey published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine that found 96% of 5,000 biologists surveyed believe life begins at fertilization.

The march's theme is inspired by Matthew 13:31-32, which states: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed that a person took and sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, yet when full grown, it is the largest of plants."

Maeve Gainey, a Campaign Life youth coordinator, said a priest she knows made a meaningful connection between the preborn and the mustard seed during a homily.

"All that our smallest brothers and sisters need is the proper environment and nutrients to grow to reach their full potential in accordance with God’s plan," Gainey told The Catholic Register, Canada's national Catholic newspaper based in Toronto. "Similar to a mustard seed, zygotes and embryos are seemingly insignificant, but their humanity is unwavering. Despite their size, they are invaluable because they were created in the image and likeness of God."

In addition to the march itself, there will be the Save the Babies Leaders Summit and the annual Rose Dinner Gala. The keynote speaker will be American pro-life author and presenter Emily Stimpson Chapman, who is Catholic. She is expected to illuminate for the hundreds of pro-lifers attending the dinner what it looks like to provide protection at conception. This means rejecting both abortion and in vitro fertilization, or IVF. She has remained steadfast in her beliefs even amid experiencing her own struggles with infertility.

"The National March for Life, long the largest annual protest on Parliament Hill, takes place in May to mark the Day of Infamy, when the 1969 omnibus bill opened up the floodgates to abortion," the coalition's website states.

The march, established by the coalition in 1998, "has become the most prominent forum for Canadians to demand justice for the 100,000 children who are killed in their mothers’ wombs each year," the site says. "Currently, Canada is the only Western nation with zero legal protection for the preborn, meaning abortion is permitted for any reason or no reason whatsoever, up till the moment of birth."

The coalition site also notes that since Canada legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2016, the march "has also sounded the alarm over the steadily increasing number of vulnerable citizens killed by medical professionals under the euphemism 'MAiD' or 'medical assistance in dying.'"