(LifeSiteNews) — The Prolife Alberta organization recently slammed the province’s United Conservative Party (UCP) premier, Danielle Smith, for announcing that, if re-elected this spring, her government will continue using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions.
Just weeks ahead of Alberta’s May 29 general election, Smith told reporters Tuesday that if her UCP government is re-elected, she will “not delist any medical services or prescriptions now covered by Alberta health insurance.”
After Smith emphasized that this promise comes with “no exceptions,” the province’s top pro-life group, Prolife Alberta, immediately blasted the premier for what is effectively a vow to maintain the pro-abortion status quo.
“What does this have to do with abortion, you ask?” said Prolife Alberta’s executive director Richard Dur, as reported by the Western Standard.
“It means that this year (just like the year before and the year before that) approximately 12,000 babies will lose their life by abortion in Alberta, 12,000 babies, every year in Alberta, at taxpayers expense.”
Continuing, Dur explained that Smith’s position “means that Alberta’s most vulnerable — preborn babies and their moms — will continue to be left to fend for themselves” and that the “status quo of publicly funded, abortion-on-demand will continue unabated in our province for years to come.”
Dur said that in Alberta, as in all Canadian provinces, abortion is available “on-demand” through “all nine months of pregnancy” and is “fully paid for with your tax dollars.”
The Pro-life Alberta leader conceded that he understands why Smith has taken the position she has but stated that he still disagrees with it both morally and politically.
“She’s worried that the NDP (New Democratic Party) will attack her on healthcare and that she’ll lose the provincial election,” Due explained.
“Well, the NDP will attack her on healthcare anyway (remember the fabled ‘hidden agenda’ former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was repeatedly accused of during federal election campaigns?). Similarly, those who don’t trust Premier Smith on healthcare won’t ever trust her — no matter what she says.” he added.
READ: Judges are allowing Canadians to get away with murder in the name of ‘mercy killing’
UPDATE (03/07/23): Walgreens won’t dispense abortion pills in 20 states
The pressure is paying off. Walgreens’ plan to dispense abortion pills nationwide is now in tatters, with the pharmaceutical giant announcing that it won’t mail the pills to, or sell them within, 20 states.
The news comes after 20 Republican attorneys general warned CVS and Walgreens that doing so would be in violation of federal law and that they were opening themselves to penalties.
But we can’t rest on our laurels with this boycott: Walgreens and CVS will only listen to us when their profits are threatened — we need a HUGE boycott so that blood money they get from selling abortion pills is dwarfed by the profits they lose when pro-life America shops elsewhere.
Even Politico admitted in its reporting that “pressure” from pro-life voters like you helped change Walgreens’ plans, so now we’re asking you to take the next step: simply share this petition with your friends and ask them to join the boycott.
Thank you!
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Walgreens and CVS will begin selling mifepristone — a powerful chemical that kills unborn children in the womb — if pro-life America does not ACT NOW.
Pro-life Americans MUST STOP the widespread sale and distribution of mifepristone by sending a message that only big-box stores will understand: A NATIONAL BOYCOTT OF WALGREENS AND CVS.
Walgreens and CVS are the newest back-door channels for the pro-abortion movement, now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.
Will you act now to STOP abortion drugs from reaching your pharmacy?
Our work in the pro-life movement is FAR from over, especially now that Walgreens and CVS have chosen to push deadly drugs in their stores and in our communities!
SIGN and SEND a message to Walgreens and CVS! This is completely unacceptable!
We must stop abortion from reaching our pharmacies and stop the abortion industry from poisoning our communities — before it’s too late.
These big-box stores respond only to profit. The pro-life movement must enact a national boycott if the abortion industry dares flood our neighborhoods!
SIGN and SEND a strong message to Walgreens and CVS: unless they immediately reverse course, the entire pro-life movement will BOYCOTT their stores!
SIGN NOW and send a clear message!
MORE INFORMATION:
CVS & Walgreens announce plans to dispense abortion pills after Biden FDA loosens restrictions
Dur said that, in his estimation, this strategy of Smith’s will not only fail to win over left-wing NDP voters, but will actually ostracize some of her current supporters.
“Unfortunately, Smith’s statements make an enemy of her friends in the pro-life movement,” he stated. “Let me explain: unless Danielle Smith comes out with some kind of policy that will advocate for Alberta’s preborn, Danielle Smith is forcing the hand of pro-life Albertans to oppose her leadership.”
In his concluding remarks about the issue, Dur said that “Albertans shouldn’t be footing the bill for an elective — and highly unregulated — ‘procedure’ that ends the life of a child in the womb” and that “[t]he more who learn the ugly truth about abortion, the more who will stand up and say enough-is-enough!”
As previously reported by LifeSiteNews, while Smith currently sits as the leader of Alberta’s top conservative party, many of her views remain at odds with traditional conservative values.
In 2012, while serving as the leader of the Wildrose Party — a now-defunct conservative provincial party in Alberta — Smith laid to rest any confusion about where she stood on both abortion and gay “marriage.”
“When our members elected me they knew they were electing a candidate that was pro-choice and pro-gay marriage,” Smith said, as reported by The Globe and Mail at the time.
“The only way we’re going to be able to become a mainstream, big-tent conservative party capable of forming government is to focus on the issues that matter to Albertans. If I am elected premier, a Wildrose government will not be legislating in areas of morality.”
In a 2018 blog piece for Global News, Smith once again addressed the issue of abortion in a public manner.
Her piece was written as a criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government’s decision to discriminate against pro-lifers by withholding funding from the Canada Summer Jobs Programs to any group that does not support abortion.
While Smith took issue with the Trudeau government’s actions, she still threw her support behind abortion more broadly.
“Personally, I’m pro-choice, but I could support the U.K. approach which limits abortion once the baby becomes independently viable, somewhere around 24 weeks. But according to Trudeau, I am somehow violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for saying as much,” Smith wrote.